superman in the nursing home

Thinking about Wanted for the last post reminded me of the following poem which gives a whole other spin to the superman myth:

Superman in the Nursing Home
by Rusty Russell


It started with the flying.
I just had to get away.
I thought I was going crazy, hearing things –
voices, sirens, water running behind walls,
and the crying, someone always crying behind closed doors.
It was that super hearing. I had it then.
So some nights I'd fly out of the city
until I couldn't hear them anymore,
way out over the ocean where I could see the earth turning
and the sun rising over the edge of the next day.
Miraculous, made me feel like the only man on earth,
but I wasn't a man. I was a freak.
Then came all those years
of changing clothes in dirty phone booths;
chewing gum on the floor getting stuck in my pants,
cigarette butts, and the smell of winos and urine.
Sometimes the phone would ring while I was in there
and it always gave me the creeps.
Think about it – an anonymous telephone
in the middle of the night on a deserted street
and it's ringing for someone. Anyone.
I never picked it up. I didn't want to hear it –
lives pulled thin over a phone wire,
stories of pockets with holes,
bad breath whistling through bad teeth.
What could I do?
Someone sobbing and sloppy drunk in a bar somewhere
picks up a phone, dials a number at random
and gets Superman
with his pants down in a phone booth.
Believe it or not, this Superman thing started out modestly:
no cape, no tights.
Just lifting automobiles off trapped motorists,
or catching falling babies before they hit the sidewalk.
But it felt so good, the applause,
the way the Earth girls looked at me,
and it all got out of hand.
I should have stopped after the first bank robbery.
There would never be any cash reward in this
for an indestructible guy like me.
Just "Thanks, Superman,"
and the bankers smiling as I flew away.
All the time they were thinking,
"What a fucking tool," and they were right.
Hell, it was all insured.
If I'd quit then and done something with myself –
forgotten this superhero thing and gotten a realtor's license
or just a full time job with benefits,
maybe I wouldn't be waiting for the TV hour
here in the dayroom of the County Home.
I never saved anyone from this. No one could.
But in a way, it's true, what they say,
that every moment lasts forever,
because I still dream about those first nights
when I was young, before it all started,
flying out of Metropolis in my pajamas
with the moon overhead and the silver ocean below,
and the billboards left behind
like a cry for help I can finally ignore.