"The Ballad of You and Me and Us”
by Horace P. Sternwall
edited by Dan Leo*
illustrations by konrad kraus and eddie el greco
*Assistant Professor of Fantastic Literature, Associate Rugby Coach, Olney Community College; editor of Return to Harrowgate and 37 Other Tales of the Working Class by Horace P. Sternwall, with an Afterword by Johnny Carson; Olney Community College Press.
Hector ignored this last remark, and raised the envelope to an appropriate distance from his eyes.
“I call this poem 'The Ballad of You and Me and Us'. It goes like this..."
Hector tossed the envelope on the table.
“There it is,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”
“I call this poem 'The Ballad of You and Me and Us'. It goes like this..."
When we walked through those
empty fields in New Jersey
There was no question
of his or hers; we
simply shared in the
joys and the ecstasy
engendered by peyote.
And when that fateful night
We boarded that Greyhound bus
There was no question of
me or you, but only us,
heading down to New Orleans
hoping to make some non-boring friends.
All those nights we caroused
in French Quarter dives,
it wasn’t your life wasted,
nor mine, but our lives,
the only way we knew how,
living in that eternal now.
And when on that hot afternoon
I awoke to find you hadn’t,
a part of me died as well;
life’s rich varied pageant
and you with it, had passed,
leaving me to die last.
Hector tossed the envelope on the table.
“There it is,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”
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