ramblings

Feather Quest

2011-01-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

Eirrin sat on the log with his chin in a palm watching the dance circle about the glade. He had his eye on one of the dancers in particular, a fine wisp of a girl, Tiana. He thought she knew he was watching but every time she glanced his way their eyes would briefly meet each other’s as they looked elsewhere. He like what he saw. She was dressed entirely in a long green gown and had bluish ribbons striped with paler hues plaited in her long hair. Pity the poor human that ever saw her. Their crossing looks became longer each time she passed near him.

As he sat debating whether to join the circle or pull Tiana out Alis appeared at his side. “Ah, a mighty fine looking girl, Eirrin. But she won’t have anything to do with the likes of you. You are too bland.” Alis dropped onto the log.

Eirrin looked at his friend. “I suppose you have a remedy for what ails us?”

“I do, my friend, I do.” Alis stood and paced before Eirrin, stopping in front of him only when Tiana was passing. “Kookooskoos is hunting near tonight and I think he would not mind giving up a tail feather of two for the likes of us.”

Eirrin knew his friend and if he didn’t go with him his night would be ruined. No, not really ruined but interrupted with Alis’ fidgeting. Anyway, an owl feather would look good adorning his cap. He’d seen some of his fellows wearing cock feathers proudly, but to be the proud owner of a tail feather from the mighty Kookooskoos. Oh, but did he dare to dream? Who knew, Alis had done both better and worse with his ideas. Whatever the outcome it would be an experience.

“Okay,” he replied, rising. “Lead on, my good man.” Eirrin bowed waving his right arm and hand out before himself. Alis danced a jig he’d learned from a passing Leprechaun and the two swaggered from the glade.

As they made their way through the forest the tiny sliver of a moon could be seen just topping the peaks to the east. Alis made grand plans of how they would do this and that; and spoke of the new admiration they would receive. Eirrin enjoyed Alis and his plans and his stories. He knew Alis would be a wonder when he became old and relived his life around the hearths in winter. Eirrin slowed and cut a couple of lengths of wild grapevine to help them in the conquest to where Kookooskoos perched surveying his terrain.
As they eased into place below him he opened his mighty wings and swooped silently to another tree. He looked back at the two as if to say, I’m not going to make this easy. Eirrin and Alis knew he didn’t see them as he hunted his supper among the small fellows who ran in the leaves. They made too much noise, as if to say, Here I am. Come get me. Which Kookooskoos usually did.

When they were once more in place the great owl moved again. Alis silently cursed and said to his friend, “Will he ever sit still long enough?”

Eirrin gave the two lengths of vine to Alis saying, “Go. Get us the two feathers that will mark us as brothers. I will draw his attention. Hopefully he will sit long enough for you to complete this before it becomes too late.” Eirrin made his way to the other side of the small clearing rustling a few leaves here and there. Kookooskoos turned his large eyes on the noise. As Alis made his way up the tree Eirrin kept the owl occupied with just enough noise to keep it interested but not enough for it to attack.

Alis tied the vine around his waist and around the bole of the tree before shimming out the branch just below Kookooskoos. Just as he stood and grabbed two feathers Eirrin ran across the clearing. Kookooskoos launched himself off the branch pulling Alis from his perilous perch. The vine reached its limit pulling Alis back along with only one tail feather and knocking the owl from his killing approach to Eirrin. The owl turned in mid-flight and headed to a tall tree where he checked himself over and preened the area of the missing feather. Eirrin ran over to where Alis swung just off the ground, and got him to his feet.

“I see you only got one feather,” Eirrin said. “Well you keep it. You earned it.”

Alis smiled proudly. “It will look better in my cap, will it not?” he said as he made a small cut and placed the feather just so.

As they made their way back to the clearing they could hear the dance continuing. Their luck continued finding their log unoccupied. As they sat Tiana danced out of the circle wondering where they had gone. Eirrin sat quietly as Alis described the exploits of the early evening. When he was finished Tisii joined them. As she fussed and fawned over the feather Tiana turned to Eirrin and said, “I shall make you a scarf as worthy of those who went on the feather quest.

The two Elves who stood under the Rhododendron shrub were dress almost alike; brown breeches, green jerkin and soft brown boots. Where Alis had the tail feather of an owl stuck jauntily in his soft brown cap Eirrin had a scarf of green and orange draped around his neck and hanging equal distance front and back. His cap was green with the brim turned down all around. As he wiped the last of the dew from his silver bucket with lichen from the north side of the tree he said, “I’m getting tired of that dwarf Bucus picking on me.”

“Yeah, like you’re going to do something. Remember that old saying, ‘Actions speak louder than words.’ Anyway,” said Alis turning his bucket upside down so the last drop would slide down the smooth side and splash at his feet. “We are off for the next few days. No dew to do.” he laughed at his own joke, jabbing Eirrin in the ribs with his elbow.

Eirrin smiled that crooked smile prevalent when you are doing it to please the other. “He has made me spill my bucket for the last time. I don’t care if he is a distant relative of Sindri’s. I’m going to get even with him.”

The false dawn was hinting at the real thing from the east. And in the mountains it could be dark of night one moment and the sun would be topping a peak the next. The faint crowing of a cock could be heard off in the distance. “We must hurry,” Alis whispered.
They turned and disappeared among the brown and green of the shrubs.

A little after sunset Alis arrived at Eirrin’s dwelling. “There’s a big dance on for tonight. You want to go?” But Eirrin told him he wasn’t really interested in dancing. But deep down he was troubled Bucus would show and ruin the evening. “Well, if you don’t want to dance, how about we go tickle some trout.”

But he really didn’t want to spend the night on his stomach with is arms shoulder deep in the cold water waiting for an unsuspecting trout to come along so he could run his fingers along it’s underside. What he wanted to do was get a weapon to defend against Bucus.
As they stood watching the full moon shrink higher and higher into the night sky Eirrin knew what he wanted to do. “Let’s go see if we can get a weapon from the human blacksmith.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Alis. “Remember what he has there.”
But Eirrin was on his way, striding with purpose and intention.

They were in luck, the human was still working the anvil. As they eased through the door cracked open to let out some of the heat the large orange cat turned his yellow eyes their way. It sat up and watched them ease around the room. The human saw the movement of the cat and turned to where it was looking. They froze as his attention was brought to bear on them.

“What do we have here?” it asked in a booming voice “I remember you.” it continued, pointing the heavy hammer at Eirrin.

“The human knows you?” asked Alis in wonderment. Eirrin shrugged and looked down, scrunching his face as he nodded yes. “How?”

“You’re the one who saved me from the beauty of Edda and her invitation to dance, aren’t you?” Once again Eirrin nodded. The cat watched as he licked a paw and wiped it behind his ear. And Eirrin watched the cat as it repeated its actions. “What can I do for you?” the human asked placing the hammer on the anvil, work forgotten.

Eirrin told the human the entire story leaving out nothing. Even adding some things as he became aware of them for the first time. As he finished the cat jumped off the bench and walked to the open door, stopping and looking back at Eirrin, once, before disappearing.

“Well, I have just the thing,” said the human, rummaging around behind the forge. And finally, after a few chosen words about the gods and mothers else where, he turned to Eirrin with a leather pouch. After carefully unwrapping it he laid it on the ground between them. It was perfect. “It’s a dagger I made for a man who failed to take into account an angry husband. It is yours for the taking.” The human stepped back.

On the swath of leather was the perfect sword. The blade gleamed in the firelight like a thousand fireflies all sitting on the same grass stem. He hefted it and tested the balance. The gods smiled upon him this night, it was better than perfect. It felt as if it was made just for him and him alone. As he tested its balance with a few quick moves he knew in his heart that the human had used dwarf ore in forging this blade. It fit his hand like it was an extension of his arm. It acted as one with him. “This goes with it,” the human added laying a hard leather scabbard tooled with intricate markings. Eirrin buckled it on.
And with the action came a lifting of the fear of Bucus.

Eirrin sat near the forge watching the large orange cat watch him. The human turned from filling their cups with fresh ale but the cat was use to the human and paid him no attention. He slowly closed his eyes for a breath, once more and watched Eirrin. “Why does he do that?” Eirrin asked reaching for the cup.

“I don’t know, for sure, but I think it is his way of checking reality,” answered the human. “Tales tell of cats having special senses. Of being able to see ghosts, the wind, and such, their mind works so differently they have to stop and check reality every now and then. That’s why they blink like that.”

Eirrin laughed. “I like you, human. You are funny, especially when you’ve had a couple of cups. You tell the most outrageous stories. Are you sure you’re not kin to the giants?”

What I Know and some other poems

2008-10-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

What I Know

I tilt at whirligigs
We could shuffle to unheard music
You and I

I have a gecko
Living the good life in my garage
I will give you a pink hibiscus for your hair

I coax prickly pears to bear fruit
Behind yellow flowers
I would feel privileged to await you

I had a ghost sit next to me once
I just know I will never be believed
Was that you in a pre déjà vu appearance

I have a lemon tree
That just grows thorns and no lemons
I have white crape myrtle blossoms for you

I could swing and sway with you
Across a small space of our own making
I could dance to the music of your voice

------------------

I Never Knew

I watched the moon set
Out across the Gulf
To the other side of Mexico
At four thirteen in the ayem
Whippoorwills and owls my only companions
As the tide comes in sounding lonely hisses
Small wave after small wave
I know it is too early where you are
But maybe you watched it rise
Over the Atlantic earlier
As I watched it rise through our oaks
Are you even near the ocean or
Do the mountains crown the view
I feel as though I am a faded horse
On a broken carousel going up
And down without going anywhere
A lonely pelican swoops and glides across the bay
Is it looking for food or companionship
I never knew I could miss you as I do
Everywhere I turn I am reminded of pairs
Mama and Papa Blue Jay brought Junior
To the feeder in the backyard and left him
I believe I know how he feels
He looks lost

------------------

The Wonder of Being

Palm fronds rattling
At the moonlight
Shadow dancing
With elusive Elves

Tinkerbelle hiding
From whippoorwills
Among the fireflies

Golden-eyed owls
Watching, pondering
Clouds tumbling
To the horizon

The wonder of being
With lovely you
This enchanted evening

-----------------------

Lucky And Knows It

I sat on the front porch
Sipping a sweating glass of iced tea
She patted the swing seat
In beat with the creaking of the chain
Asking me to come swing with her,
I shook my head no
And raise my feet to the wicker coffee table
I heard the chair creak
Itself into a comfortable position
I could smell the salt on the evening
Sea breezes wafting through the oaks
Thunderheads were hurrying sundown
Ruining a possible beautiful sunset
A green tree frog had staked claim
To the philodendrons near the birdbath
And was croaking out love laments
To the approaching storm
She got my attention
Swinging her legs up onto the swing
When I looked her way
She looked back with a come hither look
I knew the frog wasn’t alone
In his way of thinking

------------------------
CAROLINA

While buzzing
about the Carolina coast
I came upona Venus fly-trap
lying there,
open,
beautiful,
and inviting.
She waited
receptively
letting me
make all the moves

until I touched
the trigger hair
trapping me in
her embrace.

--------------------------

THE SONG

I was thinking of some love song
I could write about her
I could hear the rhythm guitar
Strumming, strumming

I saw the beautiful smile
I know as her
The lead guitar sounded a note
Sliding and bending

She winked on top of the smile
Sending my thoughts chasing
The scales and notes of the piano
Maybe a ragtime or countytime ballad

She reached over the pizza rinds
Littering the tabletop to pat my hand
In time with the beat of the bass
Playing my knuckles and fingers fretlike

I could see in her face
What I felt in my heart
As it kept time to rimshots
And highhat cymbals
And brushes sliding on drum skins

-------------------

Unnamed Outcast

I am doomed to wander along the fringes
Of this river of life flowing through the sea of humanity
All because of the lack of a coin to pay
The current incarnation of the ferryman, Charon.
I can tell when you look through me you see a non-entity.
I can tell when you look away I am seen as a lost soul.
There was a time when I knew
All I had to do was crawl up on the beast
Grab a handful of mane and ride 'til the bell
But with the bucking and jumping,
The spurring and the calliope music
The chances of being loosened are enhanced.
Until I landed face downIn the barnyard-like churned dirt of society,
Only to be saved by some clown.
As I stagger these black forests of rejection
I can tell you notice me by the way
You turn your nose up and your face away
Your grand gestures in treating me as the shunned one.
But you don’t know the reasoning
Behind the reasons why I wear crossed staves,
Tattered pea coat, fatigue jackets,
As I share pigeon encrusted park benches,
Sleep under bridge abutments
And converse with those other lost souls
Those damned to the unlocked corners
Of my mind that share my daily existence.
I saw you not notice me this autumn day
As I fought a losing battle to keep the demons at bay.
I could place the blame with you, shifting responsibility.
I could accuse you of being tightfisted.
I’m fighting a major battle and losing by attrition
And you, in your fancy shoes
That have only traversed carpeted halls,
Cannot come off a lousy quarter.
Ignore me, and the others of my ilk,
But remember to your dying days
I give you justification in your pretentiousness

--------------------

The Shirt

He could feel the soft wind of death
Creeping down the collar of his shirt.
It had been the shirt to buy in its time,
But now it was just a shirt.
An old white dress shirt yellowing with age
And fraying at the collar and cuffs,
A shirt that accepted cufflinks with a dignity.
A shirt that had been to the Cotton Club
And rode the IRT subway;
Been to the Opera House
And the off-Broadway shows of the Village.
But now it was just a shirt,
A shirt his wife, of all those long years,
Kept saying she’d use for rags if it weren’t so thread bare.
The best things that could happen to the shirt,
She told him was to be thrown out,
preferably with him in it.
But he would hear none of her arguments.
He knew they were just words
To fill the empty spaces in their life.
He knew he would accept death in this shirt,
Whether it would make the trip to the everafter
With him in the coffin was another story
But he would wear it with the dignity it deserved.
And the knowledge it upset the little woman to no ends.
It would be a nice shirt to wear out on the ice
Come the Spring thaw.

------------------

She took her birthday off
An overcast and dreary middle day
Of the week spent in bed
She told me she had a headache
So my nice card and gift went unnoticed
In the hall on the small table under the mirror
Where she silently asks “Mirror, mirror…”
I know who, but stay my voice
She decides this beautiful day as hers
A replacement for the lost one
But you cannot decide to take it off and enjoy later
That was your day and you get what is offered
Some are beautiful, cherished, and remembered
Some cold, dreary, and overcast, yet remembered
Because it has been decided and you opened your gift
That is the mystique of birthdays
She has her teasing waysSoft pats and come hither smiles
She has her iron fist and cutting glances
She has a pig’s ear for a purse
And me for a one-eared husband
Sunshine matches her smile
And I am but a cheap candle
I stop in to buy another card and small gift
I pencil in a dinner and a movie
I know of the way of the winds of love

-----------------------
Out Running Wishes

He sat on the sea wall
And watched
The tide recede
Boats pulling at their anchors
Like they wanted to run
Chasing after the dolphins
Following the south wind
Outrunning the darkness
He sat on the sea wall
Knowing how they all felt
Wishing he could slip his anchor

---------------------

Mister Nobody

Most of the mail, most of the neighbors,
Even the super, know him by Occupant.
He can dance freely in his socks and underwear
On Sunday morning, any morning
Because there is nobody there to care.
His garbage is full of strawberry ice cream cartons.
He’s perfecting his next years’ Halloween costume ready
He’s going as an unloved Homer Simpson with a rug.
He carries a large wallet on a chain
So he can pull it out of his tight jeans.
He wears suspenders to match his socks
And a belt to fill the loops.
When he can get someone to listen
He shows them the picture that came with the wallet
And tells them it is his wife.
Thank God for computers.
For now he has a family
Two boys and a girl to go with his wife
His world is so make-believe
He doesn’t even know reality anymore.
If he were a writer he’d be Nobel Laureate in any field.
He doesn’t take drugs, nor smokes, or drinks
Because he likes to have a hand on controlling his destiny.
And when Mister Occupant shaves in the mornings
He is happy with his lot in life.
As he was leaving Walt Disney World the other night
He was mumbling about how he forgot to tell Mickey something.
A lady who thought he was cute said, “Here tell this picture.”
But he couldn’t because it wasn’t the real one
Then he showed her a picture of his family.

-------------

THE IMPLANT

The bug up my nose might have been implanted by aliens.
I have had nosebleeds since I was a young thing
And I’m inexplicably drawn to the Dog Star and the night sky.
Just thinking of shooting stars that might land
Amid sounds and colored lights gives me chills.
One midsummer’s eve before the Age of Aquarius,
Just south of Miami, I saw into the Milky Way:
The night sky was white with stars.
I am always looking and expecting the aliens
Who put the tracking device up my nose.
But with the fever and chills I have
An Earthling put this bug up my nose.

------------------------

I Remember St Augustine

I remember Key West
The Seven-Mile Bridge where we almost wrecked
All because you wanted a kiss
And the guy selling green palm frond hats
You tried to cheat on Duvall Street
The hugging in the Florida Straits watching
The sun go down with feet in the Atlantic and Gulf

I remember New Orleans
Bourbon Street and Creole Food in the off season
The open-air market and standing on the levee
Watching the paddle wheeler we didn’t go on
I remember St. Francisville
And the toll ferry coming from Natchez

I remember St. Augustine
The Bridge of Lions, Anastasia Beach and coquina stone
The walking along the small streets hand in hand
And looking in courtyards thinking about
Key West and New Orleans and Bird of Paradise plants at each
The Fountain of Youth where I drank and you didn’t
We have had our good times you and I
And I think of you when I remember good times

-----------------------

I Have Been Told

I’ve been told
I act like a downhill racer
And that I was a pisser
I’d like to ride the Space Shuttle
Just once, maybe, for a start
I’ve gone off with beautiful women
Who left their ugly sister in their stead
Sometime during the night
I’ve been told I was funny
And not know how they really meant it
I’ve been taken on some dates
Out of kindness I suppose
I’ve run headlong into stonewalls
Some of my own making
I’ve spent hours on making the perfect lawn
To watch better grass grow
In the cracks of the sidewalk
I’ve lain on my back for hours
To watch one meteorite
Streak across midnight skies
I’ve been told if she finds out I’m crazy
She’s going to think about the alternatives

-----------------

I Dream of Stairs

I dream of stairs
Yet neither ascending nor descending
Only standing
Comfortable and ready

One side is blue sky colored by clouds
The other mountainside and rocks
Gray granite veined with dark impurities
It’s like I’m in some Zen Buddhist’s
Rock Garden
And I’m afraid of tracking
In the freshly raked sand
So I just stand and dream

I dream of beaches
At the edge of the shore
Yet neither entering or exiting
Only standing

Before me is the great wide sea
At my feet tiny foam lines
Marking the edges of waves
That rush up over my ankles
To hide in my jeans
Dorsal fins dissect
The blue sky and purple green gulf
But I stand and stare
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to be
No tracks on the sand

I dream of life
A trackless expanse
I’ve traversed without leaving a mark

----------------

Hunting the Elephant

We were together and she was talking away
Like she does each and everyday.
So I went off to hunt the elephant
With pith helmet, bush jacket and jungle pants.
I was scouring the brush with an eagle eye
Overlooking nothing as I went by.
I had just come upon the track
When her shoulder punch jerked me back.
You weren’t listening to me.
Yes I was, I tried to make her see.
But it was no good, I had to recant
And tell her I was hunting the elephant.
Over the years many times I’ve been hunting
And the thousand-yard stare I am fronting
Has given me away to her, riling her fur.
Making her call me an ol’ mongrel cur.
But when things get boring I just can’t
Seem to stop hunting for that elephant.

---------------------

“Do I Dare?”

This is a FantasyLand like no other.
One to make Mickey, Goofy and Buzz Lightyear and
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup Spin all seem normal.
I have bought my season ticket to unlimited access.
I have seen the present
And it is wrapped in beautiful graphics.
No more do I spit out assumptions
As if they were watermelon seeds
To get three or five with every mouthful
Nor do I mark wishful and hopeful deeds
As did J. Alfred with coffee cups and spoons.
Once you have bought your month to month ticket
And joined this stationary road show
Of actors and actresses who have chosen
Their character as they play a role of a lifetime
In this off centered off-off Broadway production.
You can be anything or anyone you wish to be.
You can take someone’s name and domain it as yours.
I saw on “Jerry” a man who met the woman of his dreams
As they chatted each other up in some chat room
Only to find out that neither was what the other truly expected.
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they choose a name they think fits
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they don’t even recognize themselves.
Today I think I’ll be a clone of Buzz Lightyear
As I pay another visit to this Magical kingdom
And I’m sure I’ll run into another Mickey Mouse.

--------------------------

Dawn Is Hinting

Dawn is hinting at the edge of the world
I am awake listening to the clock
As it ticks away my life
It is one of those cheap windups
That ticks back a half a second
Before moving my life around the circle

I hear dragons calling me to battle
I am going to beat my plow shares
Into broad swords and sharpened pike heads
As I follow a Joan to the battlefront
Without chain mail or French Knights
But the same voices calling cadence
Over the ungodly silence of the dead

My dreams are hallow and haunting
A black&white film of mental darkness
Where I am lost and unknown
Searching a yard sale of memories for a bargain
The clock ticks in beat with my heart
Ticking my life away

She was singing one line from a popular song
And I was wondering how to live up
With my heart turned all mushy and such
But it only took a second to turn
As hard as old concrete
An unconscious word, one small act
And I am alone screaming the same ungodly silence
To the cold darkness in between the stars
And the ticking of the cheap clock

-----------------------

Tuesday Afternoon

I was sitting at a small table
Under the overhang at The Java Cup,
A hip-looking, and missing, little place where you
Could get a cup of java and surf the internet.
I found you didn’t get decaf but only what’s available
And you paid high price for the condiments,
The sugar, the foam, and the flavored creamer, and such
They sweeten the instant coffee with.
It seemed their internet server was just as bland.
I sat and watched the thunderstorm rumble up main street
Blowing the debris ahead and washing away what was left.
She eased in beside me and wrestled
With an inside out umbrella
And wrestled with what come-on line to use.
Finally she asked if I knew
How birds feel being watched by cats.
I shrugged a negative.
Let’s go home and I’ll show you, she replied.

---------------------

Friday Late

I’m standing on the jetties
Rod and reel in hand
Line out into the outgoing tide
Four middle aged guys from Georgia
On a weekend fishing trip
Keep crowding me
Like I know where all the fish are
I have nothing better to do than feed red fish
And tell whopper lies to these four guys
And watch a cargo ship loaded to the line
Ease its way through the pleasure boats
Into the sunset and out to sea
Another ship has left without me

------------------

Another Day Squandered

She walked down
The Grand Concourse
Into the friendly skies
And out of my life
Without looking back

I turned and walked away
Smile to smile
Not waiting to hear the droning
Of the departing plane
I had places to go do things

In the mourning sun
I found myself
On the jetties casting my bait
Into the incoming tide
And feeding the big ones
Headless shrimp at $5.99 a pound

I squandered the rest of day
Sitting in the sand without sun block
Staring off to where the sea lanes
Of old intersect the sky
Looking for ghosts of Pirate ships
As they sail past flying the Jolly Roger

Maybe I could capture the wench
And make her walk the plank

--------------------

Purple Zinnias

It stands tall and proud
Among the other bedding plants

When I see her
I think thoughts uniquely male
In origin and direction

Perfect petals petal out
Around a center that silently calls to bees

She strokes and fires me
As if I were an old steam engine
In origin and direction

And as that flower calls to bees
Her essence calls to me

---------------

A Mature Woman

She is a mature woman
With mature ideals
And a mature way
Of seeing things
Through enhanced mature eyes.
She drinks herbal teas
For her maturity
Brewed in teapots that whistle
To help her mature hearing
And to remind her mature memory.
Yet she has young teeth
She only got them Tuesday.

------------------

The World Situation

This is the way it began
This is the way the world began
This is the way we all began

Between the evolution
And the BIG Bang

Between husband and wife
Between sun and night
Between brother and right
Between a sigh and a whimper

Between it all
We wonder why it is all awonder

The first family
Was the epitome of dysfunction
They ran around their garden
Naked
They were evicted
Because She went with a Snake
And talked her mate into doing
A thing He knew was inherently
Wrong

Between a sigh and a whimper

What about brotherly Love
Children committing unspeakable acts
One child killed half the children
Of the world
And one-quarter of the people

And we wonder
Why are we like this

This is the way the world began
Between a sigh and a whimper

----------------------

IF

If I were God
I would not trod
On unsure sod.

------------------

Birds

I am an artist
The dealer of illusions
The poacher of images and thoughts
I am Vonnegut’s canary.

I am a honey bee
Trapped in a house
Full of plastic flowers
I am Poe’s raven.

I am a runaway train
In a switching yard
Of random track changes
I am Casey’s owl.

I am at Pandora’s party
On a scavenger hunt
For the belonging of her trunk
I am Adam’s vulture.

I am lost.

----------------------

and Despair
dogged his heels
like the dirty child
of no man
begging alms

----------------------

BLACK HOLE HEART

Do not think absence makes fonder hearts
It’s hollowness, a void, a black hole
Where heart and soul used to be,
And mankind, as a part of nature,
Abhors a vacuum.
Slowly
As eternities pass into moments,
Into days, ad infinitum, memories
Are sucked into black heart holes

Until:
It is as if she died long ago
And the times we had never were.

---------------------

Chasing calico cats
Under Cassandra or Cassiopeia
It is late summer and I’m not sure
Which constellation is peaking
Sometimes one is over Cherry Street
A couple of streets over beyond the oaks
Sometimes the other is over my street
According to the season I sometimes
Sit on the stoop and watch the night sky
Some nights I dream dreams of childhood
Space pirates and far-flung adventures
Some nights I look in wonder at what I have become
The adventures I have had chasing calico cats
For the girl who kept me from Space Pirates

------------------------

Stranglehold

I’m sitting in the airport parking lot
Listening for the sound of just one plane out of many

The clock is working its way to the touching of hands
The moon is high over head and the wandering stars
Have all wandered off the horizon

I’m listening to a song that takes me back to my youth
The hardcore driving riffs playing with me
Just as if I were the strings to be plucked and bent

I don’t know how long this song is
But I’m secretly hoping that the plane is late enough
I’ve missed her, her touching presence, but…

I hear the plane, I just know, and the song plays on
The mental calculations begin under the bass line
Time verses actions, wheels gripping the pavement
People shuffling down the aisle, down the corridor to Customs

I’m a betting man; I’m also a cautious man,
I have been a lonely man these past double handful days
But I wait on, listening to the bass and the drums filling time
The song releases its stranglehold on me

I look up to the heavens as I lock the truck door
A silent prayer, a will-o’-the-wisp on my lips
And I see a cloud pass over the moon
I take as a wink and a smile
As I hurry to the baggage claim

----------------------

Crystal Centers

The world looks
a little different
today
Not that it has changed
only the ways
I view it
It is with softer edges
blurred centers
Crystaled sights seen through
tear stained eyes
Yet, though I have
cried outand I am
cried out
The more so nothing
changes nothing
I have reached out
For your departing shadow
And pulled the empty absence
to my heart
I am using the coldness
as a punishing comfort
To justify inane actions
into softer centers
blurred and crystaled

----------------------

Even Between

Mountain streams
Sunny shores
Wild flower bouquets
Long walks
Silent talks
What is love all about
Why eternity is long lasting
Moonlight shadows linked
I do not know the whys
I do not seek any answers
All I know is little things
Like loving her
Even between the seconds

--------------------
I Think Things

I think of the things
I could have been
And the things I haven’t been.
I think of all the things I promised you,
Promised myself I’d give to you.
I think of all those things
And other things I shouldn’t think
When I think of you.
I have lines across my forehead
And around my eyes
From staring off to the distant horizon.
I have surrendered
To the gray surrounding my ears.
The sound of your voice has been my lighthouse.
I look around at the life you and I have.
I sometimes ponder that life
And what I have had with you.
I think things I would have been without you;
All I see is a layered clothing look with shopping carts.
I think these things and know

--------------------------

A Couple of Songs

We were together
This woman and I
Once upon a time
We sang a few songs
And danced a couple of dances
It could said
We made music together
Yet in the end she said
You are like a singer
I heard on the radio
Some of your songs
Are pretty good
But I don’t want
To buy the C D

-------------

Nineteen Sixty-nine

I know there was a blizzard
in Trenton, New Jersey.

I know the New York Jets
won Super Bowl III

I know Viet Nam
Is 36 hours from Trenton, New Jersey

I know Japan is an hour and a half
from Plieku by air

I know I heard the Beatles
‘The White Album’ for the first time

I know April on the fifteenth parallel it is hot
and in Japan it is cold

I know I found the Allman Brothers
on a mountainside without any trees

I know I turned twenty

I know those unforgettable days
Are on a vivid, nocturnal loop

I know there is a calendar with that date
my mother has one with those days marked off

I know that it was all a dream, Kafka-like,
and I know I am really a year younger

--------------------

BOB HOPE

I never did get to see Bob Hope
We were supposed to rotate back to Plieku
To see the show of the Goodwill Ambassador
Spreading jokes and Playboy Girls
On a world tour to weary GI’s in far flung places
We were going to get hot food out of a mess hall
Take warm showers lasting longer than five gallons
Get clean new fatigues with unit patches, rank and name
But most of all clean new fatigues
And we were going to get to see Bob Hope
But some Major said, don’t you boys know
That there is a war going on?
So I spent the show in a three-foot hole
Covered with a poncho to keep out the sun and or monsoon
I didn’t get to see Bob Hope but I did see Combat
It came on AFVN on Tuesdays or Thursdays
And starred Rick Jason and Vic Morrow.

---------------

It Was

It burned
It pushed
It pulled
It shocked
It screamed
Something screamed
It overcame gravity
It slammed
Dirt and ants
Leaves, brown and rotting
Into his mouth
It was honor
It was fear
It was failure
It was horror
It was a little boy
Who wished his mommy
Could come halfway
Around the world
To kiss the booboo
Blossoming in his chest
And makeIt go away

--------------------

JOY

When our eyes first touched
The northern lights became
Dull and commonplace.
It was as if I’d passed
Through the gates of Eden
And here was my Eve, my Venus.
Her voice twinkles like
The silver buckets Elves use
When ladling out the dew.
Her eyes sparkle and gleam
Like fresh melt
Rushing over granite.
Her smile, never quite gone,
Beckons like a ray of sunshine
After a violent thunderstorm.
When she took my hand
And said my name
I knew I was home.

----------------------

Just A Cat

Aloysius Thomas Alleycat died
Sometime during the night.
I do not mourn for him
For he had a nice life
But I will miss him
For he made my life nice.
He and my wife
Had a lot in common;
When I worked in the yard
They both would find
A comfortable, shady spot
From which to supervise.
He would curl up and watch me,
And the doves above
A feeder overflowing with seed,
With those large yellow eyes of his.
Whereas my wife would point out
Those things I had yet to do.
We both would look at her and blink, slowly.
Alley lived a long life; thirteen years at best guest.
As I said, I will miss him
That is a long time for a friendship
Even if he was just a cat.

------------------------l

ife is great

life is great
in the world of Tom Sawyer
and the Bowery Boys and Hop Along Cassidy
and bubble gum and no girls
life is great;
but, alas, Tom Sawyer
turned into Hess and Vonnegut,
and the Bowery Boysand Hop Along Cassidy
became late night—early morning old John Wayne movies
and wine replaced Bubble Gum
and when the Bubble Gum was gone
there was nothing else left to do
but get involved (sigh);
life is great

------------------

Magical
She is magical
and mystical
She can heal
with a touch
She can calm
and excitewith a look
She is wonderful
in all things
Yet sometimes
she upsets me
So
I forget that I am
the luckiest man
alive.

-----------------------

M’LADY GEORGIA BLUE

I call
She looks
I step to her
She runs
I look
She hides
I chase
She runs ‘round roses
I shortcut
She detours
I ignore
She comes
I catch her.

--------------------

Notes To An Insane Man

Buy a notebook
Learn a cryptic shorthand
To keep your truths in order

Remember what face
You put on this morning
And keep it with you
Throughout the day

Just think
Who Love’s Ya
And why
And what do they want

When she’s smiling
And waving at you
With force and energy
Count the fingers

Remember your wedding day
And be thankful your hips and knees
Will not let you do that to yourself

Sometimes when you are treated
Like you should be wearing
Short pants and shoes
With a Kid and Dog in them
It is for your own good

---------------------

Perchance To Dream

She wants to sleep like spoons
I sleep like a butter knife
I like to lie on my back
Sometimes on my side
She likes to lie on my chest
Her thigh across mine
So when I awake my leg sleeps on
Making me hobble around the bedroom
Like some sort of crane in a mating dance
Sound effects included
She likes to have it arctic-like when she sleeps
In her flannel gown and socks
With only the tip of her nose barely seen
Whereas I like to sleep
In the outfit God gave me to wear
Even though old and wrinkled
As I dream of South Sea Islands
Blue skies and puffy off-white clouds
And other warm places of the heart

----------------------

Significant Events

No significant events
Are scheduled
For the near future
Won’t you take my hand
And we’ll go see nightrise
Sitting on a seawall park bench
Evening breezes blowing
Sun sinking through clouds
To slowly reach the water
Then disappear in a blink
Moonlight on a calming bay
Nothing to say at all

----------------------

In Between

He is somewhere between
An Infidel and a Heathen
At times closer to one than the other
But never one over the other
Even though it seems someone is always
Trying to convert him to their ways

He found through personal experience
During the stylized rituals of war
That either God and Jesus wait in the bottom
Of a trench, a bunker, or a foxhole with open arms
Or there is something akin to the hollowness
So apparent in those who have lost faith
Who profess their agnosticism vehemently

He picks and chooses his tenements
From different books and beliefs
And tries to live up to the best of his ability
Without accepting all the trappings and applied guilt
Just to smile and nod at those with converting ways

He may end up like Pepin the Short
Who was the father of Charlemagne
And accept his faith on his deathbed
After living the life and style he is afforded
Yet on goes life as he knew it and enjoyed it
And will continue however he decides

------------------------

Language

A means of communication.
The use of words,
The little tote bags with designer logos,
To convey ideas
Is all fine and wonderful.
But, and there’s always a but.
The language of chemistry.
The language of mathematics
Where one plus one equals two
But the square root of one is not one.
The language of flowers
And of Bees and Ants;
Where the bee tells her sisters
Where to go and how to get there
With a little dance,
And the ants with their touchy-feely
Way to communicate.
But we humans with our
Language of diplomacy,
Our broken English,
Idioms, local dialects,
Pidgin English, gibberish.
Our polyglot vernacular jargon.
Our language of colors
Where I say blue but you see
Aquamarine, green, maybe that purplish blue
Only available on Easter Eggs.
And the prominent characteristic of language
Is the relationship between a linguistic sign
(In it’s little designer tote bag)
And its meaning is arbitrary.
On most we speak the same language,
Seem to understand one another.
We agree with the semantics
But other times we’re like mountain Rams
Knocking heads over the same thing
By using apples to explain oranges.

------------------

Labels

Soup can labels
Labels on blue jean pockets
Labels as to origin
whether a “made in …”
or a language label
Labeled as Victor or defeated
“To the victors go the spoils…”
Silently labeling old ladies
who don’t know foreign countries
Labeled as ‘wordsmith’
Labeled as a genius
or possibly an idiot
It all renders down subtly
That no individual labels itself
Its parents labeled it
with a name
maybe a new name
maybe a used one with a Jr. attached
A doctor to label itas to sex
Schools and friends
as to herd position
So, my friend, accept the inevitable
For you have been labeled,
Both silently and loudly…

----------------------------

STAINLESS STEEL

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

Lovers come and lovers go
Friends arrive and friends leave
Questions come and answers are no
And there’s no one thing to believe.

It’s a Stainless Steel world
Full of food for squirrels.

Bills come and bills don’t go
Relatives come and forever stay
Governments come and what do you know
We’ve all lost our bloody way.

It’s a Stainless Steel world we live in
And not a damn free thing is given.

Scientists come and help us live longer
Help us exist better in some forgotten corner
But what can you do not getting any stronger
In a Stainless Steel world without a mourner.

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

--------------------------

THE HORSE

A cow and a horse were
Standing out in the middle of a pasture.
It was a government pasture, public domain,
Because it was enclosed in barbed wire with signs saying,
“Government property. No trespassing.
Use of deadly force authorized.”
The horse was munching
And the cow was chewing when the horse said,
How can you chew that crud?
The cow just looked up with large, sad brown eyes
As if to say you wouldn’t understand.
As they were enjoying the day they saw a human
Walking the pasture with a rope in its hand.
The horse said, Well, cow, the human has come for you.
It is going to take you to the slaughterhouse.
It is going to eat your meat and strip your hide
For shoes and belts and the such.
And the cow replied,
Yeah, but it is going to break you.
It is going to put a metal bar in your mouth
And tie it to your face with pieces of my hide
So you cannot spit it out,
So you will go where the human wants to go
When it tugs your head around.
It will kick the air out of your lungs
So a saddle can be buckled to you
Then the human will climb its fat ass up on you
To ride you in style anywhere, anytime, it wants.
By kicking you in the side with metal spurs
It will ride down by the road where it can be seen on your back.
Yes, they are going to kill me, quickly.
But you will be rode for the rest of your days
Until you are sway backed and broken down
All because you look like a large dog,
The human’s bestest friend.
When you are of no more use
They will make glue out of you.
And unless you went to the human
And specifically asked for this
You are broken.
To be rode.

---------------------------------

The Permit

Orca came to Neptune
And said, There are too many
They interfere with my life
And spy on my pod

Dolphin came to Neptune
And complained
They are too many
And constantly they net us

Sand Flea and Coquina
Came to Neptune and cried
They are too many
They walk over us without a care

All the fishes of the sea
Came to Neptune
To complain of the overcrowding

Neptune thought on the matter
And knew there had been
Easy winters and the shores
Had become over populated
And polluted with their kind

So he told Shark
I will offer permits for hunting
Just to ease the herd
To thin overcrowding
It will be open season
But no Shark may take more than one

Neptune opened the game preserve
Along the Gulf Stream
And the sharks did hunt

------------------------

Would You Believe

If I were the paranoid sort
I would believe I was being followed.
I first saw him outside my home
On a mimosa branch calmly
watching, watching.

I noticed him only because
He was somewhat out of place.
Yet I had things to do
And a train to catch
So I promptly forgot him.
I saw him again at the station,
Then on a R/R Xing outside New Orleans
watching, watching,

And a couple more time on the trip north.
I felt I had lost him in Chicago
But there he was in Galesburg
Watching me as I looked for Carl.
Then he was on the roof
Of the men’s room
watching, watching,
In the Painted Desert of New Mexico.

I noticed him once more in a juniper
On the south rim of the Grand Canyon
When he cawed out to me
watching, watching.
It appeared he’d gained some weight
With all the exercise between Florida and Arizona.
The tour guide said he was Raven.
I don’t care what his name is
This black bird is following me.

-----------------------

Sunrise Service
As I lay here
I hear

Flight Nineteen
Droning down the coast
And out into the Gulf
Again lost

Tinkerbelle
Trapped at the window
Beating against the screen
Does she want
Out or in again

Legions of Army
Marching down the hills
To the sea
From the sound they must be
Infantry

Turtle Doves
Cooing territorial rights
With Morning Doves
Over the feeder

I hear the poor bird
A near sighted woodpecker
Mistaking aluminum siding
For somethingIt is not

Two kittens
Playing race tag
And using me
For home free
As I lay here

Wishing I had nowhere
To goI truly enjoy this
Spring Sunrise Service

-----------------

Things I have seen

I have seen antelope, mule deer, flat-tailed deer,
White-tailed deer, doves, ravens, crows, magpies,
Condors, hawks and an eagle or two,
Ducks, mallards, wood ducks, geese and a swan or two,
Pigeons and sea gulls, prairie dogs, red squirrels,
Chipmunks, starlings, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
Buzzards and turkey buzzards.
I have seen sunrises and sunsets that amaze with wonder.
I have watched night skies from mountaintops and train cars.
I’ve seen cows and bulls and sheep but no buffalo as of yet.
Yes I did, down in Arizona on the Grand Canyon Trip
Some Navajo had a few penned for show.
I have seen mile after mile of wild sunflower
Large ones, small ones, daisy looking ones,
Wishing I could get out and pick a bouquet for Sheila.
I have seen Navajo, Hopi, Apache,
Flathead, Blackfoot, Sioux and Cheyenne.
I have seen the Gulf of Mexico,
The Mississippi River,
The Red River Valley, The Rio Grande, The Pacific,
The Colorado, dry washes, drying water holes and quail.
I have seen lava flows in three or four states,
Something I never expected.I have seen petroglyphs on lava and granite.
I saw petrified forests, a painted desert.
I saw the Valley of Fires on my way to Roswell
To see aliens and ufo’s, and buy souvenirs.
I have seen mountains that took my breath,
Both figuratively and literally.
I have seen sea fog and mountain fog in valleys
And forest fires on ridge tops and smoke clouds.
I have seen big cities with building to the clouds
I have been on mountains above the clouds
I have seen the big sky and felt small
I have driven Interstates and two lane back roads.
I have seen ghost towns both forgotten and ignored
I have seen ghost towns as tourist attractions.
I have seen thirty states and the District of Columbia
I really enjoyed myself to the utmost of my ability
I have fallen in love all over again with my country
My countryside, my fellow countrymen, all of them,

------------------------

Committed Fears

I am afraid of running out of coherent words, syllables even,
And I will end up grunting extensive sounds
Associated with Cro-Magnon Neanderthal types.
I am afraid I will end up in some cave of a nursing home;
Dark and dank, smelling of alcohol and urine;
Where I’ll have drool and pabulum in a slow race down my chin
To pool in the outlandish hand-me-down clothes
My heirs will designate I be dressed me in.
I am afraid my wife will not precede me in passing
And will not only allow them to persist in this pursuit,
But will even get to the point of choosing my clothing for the day.
I am afraid I will end up an old coot
In too large pants with a broken zipper
And an extra large shirt surrounding a much too small neck.
That I will be tied to a poesy chair
Unable to whack them with my cane.
I am afraid my loving, gentle wife
Will spend the rest of her eternity paying me back
For all those small forgotten slights
I didn’t know I was committing.
All to be topped off by some tell all book.

---------------------
Thunderbolts

When the signature of the elusive deity Zeus
Is graffitified across midnight skies
It captures the soul like octupi on oysters
Plays with fears as if it were plankton on white caps
Sends some children scuttling to mothers
And others to pull under covers like hermit crabs
Makes brutes shiver like reef coral in sea breezes
It excites and delights like shells and sharks
And I am pulled to dirty bay windows
Like the sea pulls at the shore
To see Zeus’ name etched in sky, water, and glass.

-----------------------

Understanding

I am made
To think
That I need not
Know
What the poet thought
In the choice of words
Used
That I need not
Understand
What the poet meant
Only that I read
And enjoy
The story

Amtrak Vacation

2008-03-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

AMTRAK VACATION
Departure
We have Sheila’s sister take us to Chipley to catch the train. It is about thirty minutes late. I sit reading an old Reader’s Digest by streetlight. Sheila, her sister and the lady who rode up to be company on the way back sit talking religion. A girl comes and sits down about time the train is due, she is the one who tells us it’s going to be late. People stating the obvious always amaze me. I have a clock on my wrist and an empty track in front of me; I think I can tell what is happening. A few more people arrive, all milling about, and I’m standing by the tracks looking eastward. I turn to Sheila and say, “Hey, a train came by here. It lefts it’s tracks.” It’s corny, I know it, and yet I still enjoy them. A few groans I hear, and a dirty look from Sheila I see. I smile. Heck, I’m going on vacation. I will probably never see any of these people again, so what do I care about how they think of me.

If birth is just another form of dying, a change in existence, is the same true for death?I think I died once during surgery. I say think because I don’t know for sure. I saw no bright lights, tunnels, ancestors, I was not even aware of being aware of the self. I saw, and felt, for one fleeting instant, Nothingness. No self, no light, no pain and no internal warmth, nor was I aware of the absence of these things. After that instant I “Was” once more. I was back, I was aware, and I was freezing to the core, even my blood felt cold. The first things I remember saying was: “cold,” And the nurse placing blankets over my fetal position. And you know what? I’ll never be believed. But that is okay, also, because I’ll never believe people telling me the wind is not green. We speak of silence, and communication. Of language and friendship. I believe, hope, they are all intertwined. This medium is has taken place of the pen&quill and riders on the Post Road. When I can read your words, break them down into meanings we have established so our communication doesn’t break down, form replies and new lines of communication. Yet all the while we do this silently. As an instance, we were in the Amtrak Passenger Lounge, New Orleans, when in came a woman toting laptop bags, book bags, and an oversized purse. Within five minutes she informed us she was a writer. Wow, I thought, I’m a writer; maybe we can discuss things. I asked what did she write? I was informed she was a “Novelist.” Two finished works, and one she was working one, but not published yet. That’s cool, I thought, and went back to “The Lord of the Rings.” When she left, after filling all the empty spaces of that lounge with her voice, Sheila turned to me and said, “She’s no writer. She talked too much. Writers are silent, they talk on paper.” Sheila is my best friend and every time I hear the Grateful Dead’s ‘Sugar Magnolia’ I think of her. I do not have many friends, but I am a friend to many people. What I dislike the most about meeting people is the shaking of hands. You stick that hand out there and expect me to grasp it. I don’t know where it says I must touch you to be introduced. Sort like dos, I guess.

I’m sitting in Chicago Union Station reading my notes. I have come upon an idea to make my trip interesting. I am trying to figure out why I meet certain people, or why they meet us. So far I have two, both were met at breakfast, the first is a lady from Biloxi and other than fleeting friendship in need of some of my motion sickness pills. The whole trip up from New Orleans was bumpy and thought provoking. The comment was made during one extremely rough section that the train would bounce back onto the track soon. She is sick this morning and Sheila has gone looking for some medicine to no avail. Luckily this lady is going to get a couple hours nap before her next leg of the journey. I also have the pills to spare. I learned my lesson when in the Smokey Mountains and took the steam train from Dillsboro for a day trip. The other came this morning when we were seated with two ladies who live exactly halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. They could have caught the train in New Orleans, but with the situation there, as it was they felt it better to board in Hammond, LA. They are riding coach. Our food is included in the sleeper fare and they paid cash. The food is good and on the higher side of reasonable. They are thinking of getting an upgrade for the return trip, but not sure if sleeper or air. It has run the circle to labels, once more. I have found out more about more people I could care less about. They have labeled themselves as to origin, destination, likes and dislikes, family, job titles- both real and imagined, and to the common and uncommon ills that besiege travelers of public transportation. I have been pretty much silent, letting my wife label us. I met an elderly gentleman who told me he was in the Korean War three times. Why me? Do I look sympathetic? Do I portray interest? Do I just keep quite and let them continue, sort of like having the porch light on but no one is home. Do I look like another of the brotherhood? If so what has given me away? Only once does that thought come to mind. During the first breakfast the fourth at our table was a man who happened to be a Crisis Negotiator, mostly suicide. I asked if he ever did the Mel Gibson stunt with a jumper. He replied he hadn’t. I told him the army had a pamphlet on one hundred ways to kill ones self. Then he asked the question.

I was wondering if it was correct to edit and expand this dialog as the trip progresses. Not everything happened as I have listed it, but when things overlapped I felt it was okay. I’ll probably move this to the top, placing it out of sequence. Oh, well.

A couple of ladies are talking behind my back. I’m pretending to read, since their voices are at a decibel and pitch that does not allow for anything other than listening to them. One turned and said, “There is a car back there full of Mexicans. I wonder how they got the money to travel by train? Do migrant workers make that much?” I wanted to turn to her and tell her the Southwest was Mexico until a short while ago. But instead I labeled her. The direction of their conversation changed with the mention of Mexico, when the other asked, “Have you ever been to a foreign country?” The first replied, “No, never left the country. Only been to Canada.” I had to revise my label.

well, we’re in New Mexico with a Florida driver’s license driving a car from Kentucky to be dropped of in Arizona. Oh yeah, it is a Korean car.We had all these great plans for the next few days; the shopping of Santa Fe, the Pueblos, the rock paintings, eat at the Little Ale Inn and have my picture taken on the Extraterrestrial Highway. But for two sea-level people use to breathing 80 percent humidity this height and humidity of 19 has left us both with extreme headaches. Maybe we’ll become accustomed today. I so wanted to see the People of the Earth, the people who sell the earth, and the ones who visit the Earth, a bathroom stop I suppose. I can just see the pilot saying “You better go now, we won’t be stopping again until the Crab Nebula.” I also think part of our problem is we haven’t gotten our land-legs back yet. Close to three days of rocking back-and-forth and up-and-down with two breaks of about six hours each and then smooth- even- land would upset the inner ear. But I guess that is part of the trip mystique. So we’ve taken a day off.We were in the Observation Car Sheila’s talking to someone about something and I’m reading. I’m sorry, but after you’ve seen ten farms in Illinois and the like amount in Missouri the rest tend to blend together. I did like looking at Galesburg, Illinois. It still looks like Carl Sandburg could be walking the streets, maybe looking for Norman. But after Fort Madison, Iowa, I called it quits. On the way back to the room a fellow passenger commented on my book. We spoke for a few minutes and parted company. He reminded me of someone.I woke up late night, maybe because I wanted to see Dodge City and the ghosts of past history. I only saw the big dipper and Cygnus, and a couple of shooting stars, which blew by too fast to make a wish. After breakfast I heard a mother talking about a car that flipped racing the train down the two-lane road paralleling the tracks and a farmhouse that was ablaze. I think I had the better view. She was looking at man. I was looking at the Heaven’s and perfection. Copernicus ruined the idea of perfection when he placed the sun in the center of the universe. But the universe has to have a balance so perfection was placed in the care of poets.

At lunch we share a table with the guy who commented on my book. He has a copy of the first book lying on the table, where mine is the entire trilogy back in my bag in the compartment. He says “I’m Greg” and sticks out his hand. My wife pulls that eye-knife she carries threatening me to be nice. I take his hand. He introduces his traveling companion but I miss the name, I can’t figure out if his girlfriend is young enough to be his daughter or what. They’re returning to California and told us of all the good places in San Francisco. We talked about a fellow passenger in the Chicago lounge that caught the train to SF. She had a couple of large manila envelopes, three books (Wine Country, Calif., Frommer’s California, and City Guide, San Francisco) and a legal pad that she was constantly scribbling in. I would not like to be in her party. There wouldn’t be anytime to enjoy the party. Like the ladies from Louisiana who told us of their European vacation. They wanted to see everything and ended up becoming so tired they no longer enjoyed the trip. Sheila’s and my idea’s for an enjoyable trip is: we go, we do, we return happy. You know the saying about “…the best laid plans…” Like today, being sick would really upset her plans, I imagine.We’re here in Albuquerque and I went to do laundry while Sheila rests. Doing the washing and drying was fine but I noticed a few looks as I folded the unmentionables because they dried quicker. Oh well, I’ve been married too long to worry about what my wife sends me off to do or get. One time, a few years ago, I was on a hospital construction job near Orlando, Florida. During lunch a bunch of the guys were talking about getting earrings when one asked me about getting one. I told him I wasn’t sure enough of my sexuality to wear earrings. Hope you had a profitable day in all ways, floyd.

Went to the Petroglyphy National Monument near Albuquerque. As I walked I thought of Von Danikien and his theory. Maybe, maybe not. Some of the electronic symbols, supposedly, could be seen as mountains and mesas. Some of the figures hint at possibilities, but until the guy who drew them explains them we’re shooting in the dark at our feet. Anyway, I went around the paths and trails taking pictures. As I stepped over old lava flows and concrete stairs I was thinking about getting snake bit. I was on the last curve of the last trail when out come a green tailed lizard scurrying over the rocks. He went around me and stopped, dead. I cancelled the step I was about to take when I heard the rattle. A western diamondback, coiled, staring me in the eye. The lizard quickly saw other avenues of escape. I stood very still. The snake's tongue flickered as he continued to stare me down. I stood as still as I could trying to swallow my heart. It was a stalemate. I looked around and found a couple of pieces of lava and bounced them his way. He ignored them; he knew what rocks sounded like. The tongue tasted the air a few times as I stood taking pictures, not moving my legs or vibrating the ground, only my thumb and index finger. He shifted his head and flicked his tongue but began to stretch out. He was moving and I wasn’t. I was still just outside his strike zone. When he went across the walk he had to be about four feet. His head was about the size of a plum and he was about as thick as my wrist looking through my arm from my thumb to little finger. There were six rattles but what surprised me the most were the black and white bands of the last three-four inches of his tail before the rattles. I never saw that before. Basically it was a beautiful thing to watch, him moving from his sunny spot, across the trail into the brush. When I moved after he cleared the trail I saw him turn to me, as if to say, we both did right. And as I walked away I was thinking of something I heard once, “I consider myself having a lucky day when I make it back home safe and sound.” That is spectacular. As I was walking the first trail of three through the petroglyphs I thought of a snake, snakebite, to be exact. Now, did I wish the snake there? Did I get a hint of him, seeing into the future, so to speak? Did my mind take the surrounding area, the likelihood of snakes, and warn myself to be aware?

Today I get up expecting a lazy day. We have seen 800+ miles of New Mexico. We back north of Santa Fe to Bandelier National Monument. It is a beautiful valley with ruins along the cliffs and around two Kivas. A nice breeze blew through but did little to help me catch my breath. We walked, talked among ourselves, and took pictures. We came back through Santa Fe, stopping to see the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. I don’t know what it is about with Sheila and museums, and disappointment. I thought as I walked the halls, after being warned, along with everyone else, to stay two feet from the walls, that I was in the wrong business. Some of the paintings were okay, but “With an Eye on Modernism” I thought of the concept of “isms” and how true it applied. I noted I was looking at some of the painting as I would a piece of poetry, my poetry to be correct. I noticed some reminded me of works that, for whatever reason, were not finished at the time but when taken back out to be worked on found they were, for whatever reason, found to be complete by the artist. To me they spoke of lost ideas, half-a**ed attempts at commercialism. One even went so far as to appear as if the artist became angry at what he (yes, it was a ‘He’) was working on and painted over it with black paint. You could see where it covered sections of work and not others, and had paint runs in the white area. Looking at this I kept returning to the idea of writing a poem and leaving out all the nouns, or the adjectives, or the words with “E’s” in them. Sheila, meanwhile, was intently studying Ms. O’Keefe’s painting. She kept looking for the paintings of the southwest and just finding paintings of very sexual appearing flowers. She made the comment that the artist depicted women as flowers and the men she drew extensively correct. I guess it is true: Art is where ever one finds a buyer.

Getting Through

I have had troubles getting connected, especially in San Francisco, California. The closer I got to silicon valley the slower my connection speeds became. In Albuquerque they were 48 –51,000 and in Flagstaff I used the hotel’s DSL for $9.95 a day. Yet here in SF I only got 28,800 once and the rest of the times were between 19 and 21, plus I was getting kicked off after about five minutes or so. My phone bill at the hotel was $16.50 @ 50 cents a call.

Going To Portland 8:15AM 9/1/01
The train was late into Emeryville last night, but you already know that. It supposed to arrive at 10:10 and depart at 10:20 PM but didn’t arrive until 11:30 and departed at 11:45. It made us an hour and a half late to begin this leg to the trip. Our connection in Portland, Oregon, is only two hours between trains. We are cutting it close. But I don’t know that, we are traveling through some forest and I can see mountains off in the distance. We haven’t heard the call for the next station so I look at the timetable and figure out where we are. I keep looking at that mountain in the distance and it keeps looking like Mt. Shasta, but that mountain is behind us. Oh well, I am not always right. I like to be able to identify people, places and things by sight

During the night I awoke when the train sat on a siding. I still haven’t gotten use going to sleep when the train is moving and waking up when it stops; and, going to sleep when stopped only to awake when it moves. So when I awoke with the train sitting I thought we’d made up some time. Earlier in the trip we left one station nearly an hour late and sat on a siding like this and got to the terminal over an hour early. But, alas, that was not so. After breakfast our car attendant told us we were over three hours behind. It seems who owns the tracks has the right-of-way, and freight companies own most of the tracks in this United States. I always thought passengers would come first over freight.

I used these night delays for sky watching. I was awake and didn’t want to be woken when the train began to move so I’d crawl down out of my bunk and crowd Sheila’s feet to look out the windows. Out in the middle of nowhere the stars shone. I would lean my head against the glass and let my mind scamper and play among them. I believe in that theory of star travel and the slowing of time because I would pass an hour staring out the window and it would feel as though it was only a minute. Alas, I didn’t see many shooting stars and the only UFO’s and aliens I saw were in Roswell.

Just a few minutes ago the conductor came by asking if we were making connection in Portland for The Empire Builder train. “We’re supposed to,” I answered. He said we would detrain at the next station, Klamath Falls, Oregon, and be motor coached to Portland. Looking at the Amtrak Routes Map I see where Amtrak Thruway Bus Service runs from Medford, or. to Portland. Klamath Falls is across the mountains from Medford, and you can see Mt Shasta from there.

We grab our carry-on bags and load up on the bus. I’m watching the baggage cart and see our big ‘alligator’ bag being transferred to the bus. I look around and see an odd assortment of passengers. But I figure they are looking at me thinking the same things. The driver boards and tells us we’ll make it to Portland in time, the delay is waiting for Subway to deliver sandwiches and sodas. The daily paper is up front if anyone wants one. When they arrive Sheila gets us one each and a newspaper. The lady two seats up from us is part of a group of three women and two little children. It appears it is momma, daughters and granddaughters and the three women are on the large size. I only bring this up because the momma, who takes up two seats and has to walk with canes, has leaned over the cooler with the sandwiches and opened each sandwich left. She has had four and five sodas. I am glad I went into the station for snacks and drinks for Sheila and myself.

Two older guys sitting behind us have spoken on just about every subject imaginable. One is from Canada and the other is just a redneck. They are talking about the Gulf War and it spreads to all sorts of conflicts. I’m minding my own business when the redneck says to me, “You know what I’m talking about. You were in Nam, right?” Excuse me? What makes you say that, I asked. “You just look like it.” I tell him I wasn’t paying attention to his conversation and go back to my book. Finally he winds down and in a few minutes he’s asleep. Maybe he’ll sleep the rest of the way. It begins to rain. I have put down his comment about Nam as to my age and nothing more. Lucky guess.

Another day squandered in oblivion. How was yours? Profitable? floyd.

I have been trying to come up with something more to go with the earlier post. I keep returning to “What Makes America Great.” I just came off a trip of America and I have seen this country, walked in places I never would have thought to walk. I have met people who have made me smile, grimace, nearly laugh myself out of my seat, I have seen people who I had to shake my head and continue on. I overheard two women speaking about the amount of Mexicans on the train. And how they didn’t realized migrant workers made enough to ride the train. This as I was going across New Mexico and Arizona. At the Grand Canyon I heard an Oriental woman tell her two sons, in a southern accent, “There are a lot of foreigners here.” I heard a woman ask a Navajo woman about chilies and can they be cook the American way. When her husband pointed out to her the Navajo was truly an American the woman replied, “You know what I meant, can it be cooked normally.” I walked the streets of San Francisco and marveled at the people. I sat in a gazebo outside a tourist attraction picking out the Germans by the way they dressed. I also over heard them talking. The tour guide said Germans were the number one tourist, followed by French, then Japanese. We Americans came in a dismal fourth or fifth to visit the Grand Canyon, but we see it as a big hole in the ground. It might be a big hole but the bottom is still two hundred feet plus above where I live at sea level.

I have seen mountains. Went up one to over ten thousand six hundred feet called the Sandia Peak, it took my breath away- both figuratively and literally. Not use to that height and lack of humidity. And as I look back on looking out over the world I have realized what makes us great. We are not culturally stagnated. We always have a new influx of people. And with this influence they bring their hopes and ideals, their work ethic, their style to add to our own.

A guy today told me he overheard a talk show where the caller said we should blow away all the foreigners. When the host pointed out that he came from a long line of foreigners he replied, “No, I don’t. My family is from Alabama.” What makes us great is our freedoms. Our freedoms to be whatever we want to be, even if it is an idiot. When was the last time you heard of a college grad picking oranges, or following the crops? So when I ran across this quote it all seemed to come together.

"America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a mosaic, for in it each nation, people or race which has come to its shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation." - King Baudouin I of Belgium (1930-1993).

Things I have seen

I have seen antelope, mule deer, flat-tailed deer,
White-tailed deer, doves, ravens, crows, magpies,
Condors, hawks and an eagle or two,
Ducks, mallards, wood ducks, geese and a swan or two,
Pigeons and sea gulls, prairie dogs, red squirrels,
Chipmunks, starlings, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
Buzzards and turkey buzzards.
I have seen sunrises and sunsets that amaze with wonder.
I have watched night skies from mountaintops and train cars.
I’ve seen cows and bulls and sheep but no buffalo as of yet.
Yes I did, down in Arizona on the Grand Canyon Trip
Some Navajo had a few penned for show.
I have seen mile after mile of wild sunflower
Large ones, small ones, daisy looking ones, Wishing I could get out and pick a bouquet for Sheila.
I have seen Navajo, Hopi, Apache,
Flathead, Blackfoot, Sioux and Cheyenne.
I have seen the Gulf of Mexico, The Mississippi River,
The Red River Valley, The Rio Grande, The Pacific,
The Colorado, dry washes, drying water holes and quail.
I have seen lava flows in three or four states,
Something I never expected.
I have seen petroglyphs on lava and granite.
I saw petrified forests, a painted desert.
I saw the Valley of Fires on my way to Roswell
To see aliens and ufo’s, and buy souvenirs.
I have seen mountains that took my breath,
Both figuratively and literally.
I have seen sea fog and mountain fog in valleys
And forest fires on ridge tops and smoke clouds.
I have seen big cities with building to the clouds
I have been on mountains above the clouds
I have seen the big sky and felt small
I have driven Interstates and two lane back roads.
I have seen ghost towns both forgotten and ignored
I have seen ghost towns as tourist attractions.
I have seen thirty states and the District of Columbia
I really enjoyed myself to the utmost of my ability
I have fallen in love all over again with my country
My countryside, my fellow countrymen, all of them,
But above all I have found a renewed love with my love of life

The Lack of Spaces and Sharper Stones

On our past trip as we were crossing Montana I saw a mail box at the intersection of the road pacing the tracks and a dirt road running over into the distance. I commented I couldn’t see a house. The horizon was at least ten-twelve miles away. The conductor was passing by and said the man down the ways a piece lived fifty miles from his mailbox. Then I came across an editorial about the people who lived out there. They thought nothing of driving one hundred miles to the store for groceries only to return when they found they forgot the milk. Distance was not an obstacle. Like New York or Los Angeles where people think nothing of driving miles to dinner or a date. Probably the same in Chicago. I, myself, traveling around the south would drive for miles and not see a house, farm, or human habitation. It is more, I think; I want my own personal space. Whether it is in line to ride the Matterhorn at Walt Disney World, or in the car stuck in traffic, or why and how I think. Why is it when in line the person behind you thinks if he crowds you, you will move up and so on and so forth until the line moves faster. It doesn’t and I like to keep my space so I don’t crowd the person in from of me. And if Sheila can she keeps me in the buffer zone. Yet at Disney World waiting on the Bearenstein Bears I guy kept getting in my little square foot of space so finially I sr\tuck out my have and said, HI, my name if floyd.. He looked at me like I was an idiot. So I clairified that if he wanted to run my ass I thought we should know each other.

In the Bible all the people get together to build a tower to visit God, at his home. Well God likes his personal space, also, so he scrambles up the voices so no one can understand each other and the tower does not get finished. Since no one can understand each other they get into each other personal space which leads to marking boundaries. So when you enter my personal space I use my force to force you out. But your force is greater than my force (We haven’t met Luke Skywalker, yet) so I get a club. But your reach is longer than mine, so the club is out, until we invent the car and Saturday nights. Then we want someone in our personal space. Then I throw a stone at you. I hit, I miss, but you move back and the stone chips on another stone. I can take the bruises but I, I pass out at the sight of my own blood. I find that the sharpen point will enlarge my space; it seems you don’t like blood either. I may not speak your language but we both understand personal space and pain.

Now, that I have a little personal space I begin to think of how my thoughts are better than yours. My life style. Beliefs. Everything I do is better than what you do. I just invented Ego. And Freud and Jung aren’t even aware yet. But somewhere along the way I have made a neighbor. I, and he, have enough space between us, but he has flint and I have seashells. We trade. Every now and then the club wants to make a comeback, in different forms; a mace, a sword, a lance. But it doesn’t beat a thrown stone. And in the end, even if it is 7.62mm or 5.22mm it is still a thrown sharpened stone. I just don’t have to see you when it hits you.

And that little ditty about sticks and stones, broken bones and words never hurting. They’re wrong. A word will cut you to the bone just as bad as a sharpened stone.

2007-08-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

A Couple of Fishin’ Buddies

I want to tell you a little story about a couple of fishin’ buddies, Rob and Dave. Dave is from Arkansas and Rob is from South Carolina. Dave just happens to be Rob’s stepfather, but that is just a coincidence. These two were destined to meet. Rob is a know-it-all and Dave…well Dave is from Arkansas. Dave drinks instant coffee and keeps an old percolator plugged in for the water to stay warm. I noticed one day that the dial on the bottom was turned to strong. When I inquired Dave told me it was because he liked his coffee strong. Go figure.
Dave and Rob heard about the fishing here on the north coast of Florida. They did what they could from the piers and bridges spread about the county but it wasn’t quite enough. Not when you could see the party boats returning to port with the limit of fish tied to the rails. A party boat is one where you pay your fee and go with whoever else is going. You get a spot on the rail and all the bait you can lose. You catch a few fish, just about what your fee would buy at one of the fish houses around.
Rob came up with the idea that they could buy a boat together. They both had pickups with trailer hitches. And that’s what these two did, bought a sixteen and a half foot boat and trailer. They drove around town pulling that boat behind each other’s truck for almost two weeks. Long enough for everyone to see they had a boat. I think the hitch rusted to Dave’s trailer ball once. They got stopped once because one of them was riding in the boat waving to anyone that would look. It’s against the law here in Florida to ride in a trailer, any kind of trailer. But the officer let them go with a warning.
Well, there was a big saltwater fishing tournament coming up, fifty dollars a boat with no more than four anglers per boats. They paid the entry fee. And that’s all they could talk of for the next two weeks. They were going to catch the biggest speckled trout; they were already spending the prize money.
Did I mention that Dave and Rob liked beer. One time they were off drinking together and they both got a DUI when they left the bar. They had to go for counseling and one of the questions they asked was, “Do you have any special time before you have a drink in a day?” Dave lied and told them he didn’t drink before one, but every now and then would have one with lunch. Rob told them, “Hell, if I want a beer I drink a beer, if it’s five in the morning or five in the afternoon.” Dave had to continue the counseling where Rob didn’t. I guess they figured Rob was a lost cause. But it stayed a bone in Dave’s craw for a long time.
Dave had a son who was hit broadside in a traffic accident. He had some head trauma and spent some time in a coma. All around he was okay except he walked with a walker and had speech problems. He liked to fish before the accident so they figured he would enjoy going with them.
On the day of tournament they had stayed up late the night before getting the boat and tackle ready and drinking beer. I think they passed out about two AM and didn’t get up in time to make the start time. But since they had all this bait they decided to go fishing anyway. They drove down to the bay where the ramp wasn’t too steep. They got Billy in the boat and into the special seat they built with a seat belt to keep him from being thrown about. They got the two coolers of beer in the boat, along with the rod and reels, the bucket of bait. Then they backed the boat down the ramp. And since they had some beer left that wouldn’t fit in the coolers they stood on both sides of the truck at the edge of the water discussing what they hoped to catch. Another angler showed up so they had a beer of two with him. The ramp wasn’t busy so they had time. After about the third or fourth beer they began to hear Billy calling, “Dad. Oh, Dad.” But Billy would do that tone of voice when he wanted something out of them they ignored him. Finally a guy drove up in a jeep and asked if they need some help getting the boy out of the water. They all turned. There was Billy, seat belted in, up to his chin in saltwater. The coolers were floating and he was trying to keep them near but it was a losing battle.
All this preparation they forgot to put the drain plug in the boat and brake lose the tie-downs at the back of the boat. It took the jeep to wench the truck and boat up as Dave gunned the engine. They had backed down just far enough to get the rear wheel in the slime and alge that grows on the boat ramp. But did they panic. Not Rob and Dave. The boat made it to the hill; they had bait, and were going to go fishing. The boat needed to drain. And they were at the marina. So our two heroes’s baited up, spread on some sunblock and proceeded to feed the fish. These two couldn’t catch a cold.
A couple of weeks later the boat was gone, alone with the rod and reels. Rob even went so far as to remove his trailer ball. Now I can go fishing in peace.
The Boy’s Go To The Doctor’s

Dave drove big rigs. Had driven them most of his adult life. He used it to get out of Arkansas, and except for a short two-year gig in the United States Army, it was how he stayed out of a little town outside Fort Smith and the rest of the state. It was how he met Rob’s mother; she was a waitress at a little truck stop off I-10 near Bonifay, Florida. They traveled the southeast for a few months and then she settled down in Panama City. She told him she had a son in South Carolina and the next time he was up that way to look him up. Dave not only looked him up but also got alone with him wonderfully and decided to bring him home to momma. Now what thirty five year old man would want to return home to momma? Rob.
On the trip back to Florida they found out they both liked beer, cars, trucks, and could tune an engine with a screwdriver, a beer and a cocked ear. During the twelve-hour ride, nine if they had taken the interstate, women weren’t brought into the conversation. They talked about miles per gallon, ’54 blue and white Ford’s vs. ’57 Chevy’s, and backroads around weight stations. They clicked. They could finish each other’s sentences; they became the father and son the other didn’t have. They became a team.
Dave came off the road and got a job working for a fuel carrier on day runs. Rob got a job in construction until he could get his CDL, commercial driver’s license. It would take him just over five years to finally get the book from the DMV to begin studying. In the end he never did take the test. But that didn’t stop him from helping Dave on the days his construction job got rained out. Or on days he just laid out.
It was on one of these trips that Dave told Rob he thought he had hemorrhoids. Maybe it was Rob who told Dave he thought Dave had a bad case of the ‘rhoids. They stopped at a conveince store on the beach and bought Dave a swim ring. It only lasted one trip what with the bouncing and all, but what the heck; they were only $2.99. Dave felt he could spare $2.99 a day for his butt to feel good on that hard seat. He told Rob he thought every driver in the state of Florida had set in that seat for a few minutes for it to be formed as well as it was. It reminded him of a dimple on a golf ball. Finally Dave couldn’t take it anymore and asked Rob to go to the doctor with him. Rob asked why didn’t he have Mom take him. Dave is a firm believer that menfolk stay with menfolk about certain things, and this was one of those things. Men didn’t tell women about their body problems. And if he would quit being a butthole and come with him to the doctor’s everything would be fine.
When they entered the doctor’s Dave was too embarrassed and made Rob tell the receptionist he was here. It wasn’t long before a nurse came to the door and called him back. Dave asked if Rob could come with him. The nurse looked at him kind funny but replied, “No. It’s best you come alone.” She had him disrobe and put on the paper gown. Which he put on backwards so he could hold the front closed. She made him put in on correctly and returned with an enema. Dave and her went ten rounds about having a woman do something like that to him but the nurse knocked him out with guile and reason. That and the fact that if she didn’t do it he could put his clothes on and they would call it a day.
Rob sat in the office pretending to read and reread the old magazines as he checked out the receptionist. She was enjoying the attention and would get up every few minutes for some senseless errand. They passed the time as Dave lay on a table squirming; wishing the doctor would hurry up. Rob sat in a chair that reminded him of the seat in the rig Dave drove. Both would have won if there had been a squirming contest. Rob watched the clock telling himself that if Dave wasn’t out in twelve more minutes he was going to see what was taking so long. He had been back there for almost an hour now. Twelve minutes and it would be an hour, time enough for the doctor to find any rhoids. They hung out didn’t they, he thought. He was squirming the last minute away when he heard loud voices and slamming doors. He looked at the receptionist, glancing back, to which she nodded yes. Rob rushed back in time to see the doctor step out of his office with a dirty looking lab coat held out at arm length. Turning in the first open exam room he saw Dave pulling up his pants. He had the same brown stuff running down his legs and in his socks.
“Dave, what the hell happened?” Rob asked.
Dave looked bewildered as he was pulling on his shirt, snapping the snaps closed crooked. “The nurse gave me an enema and told me to hold it. The doctor would be with me soon. I didn’t think I would make it but he showed up just in time.”
Rob said, “You did the best you could, Bubby. Let’s get out of here. There’s beer at the next corner.”

What I Know and other thoughts

2006-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

What I Know

I tilt at whirligigs
We could shuffle to unheard music
You and I

I have a gecko
Living the good life in my garage
I will give you a pink hibiscus for your hair

I coax prickly pears to bear fruit
Behind yellow flowers
I would feel privileged to await you

I had a ghost sit next to me once
I just know I will never be believed
Was that you in a pre déjà vu appearance

I have a lemon tree
That just grows thorns and no lemons
I have white crape myrtle blossoms for you

I could swing and sway with you
Across a small space of our own making
I could dance to the music of your voice

------------------

I Never Knew

I watched the moon set
Out across the Gulf
To the other side of Mexico
At four thirteen in the ayem
Whippoorwills and owls my only companions
As the tide comes in sounding lonely hisses
Small wave after small wave
I know it is too early where you are
But maybe you watched it rise
Over the Atlantic earlier
As I watched it rise through our oaks
Are you even near the ocean or
Do the mountains crown the view

I feel as though I am a faded horse
On a broken carousel going up
And down without going anywhere
A lonely pelican swoops and glides across the bay
Is it looking for food or companionship
I never knew I could miss you as I do
Everywhere I turn I am reminded of pairs
Mama and Papa Blue Jay brought Junior
To the feeder in the backyard and left him
I believe I know how he feels
He looks lost

------------------

On The Wind

It was on a day when the roses
Were in bloom that I thought of her once more.
She was just a wisp of a girl
When she came south off the ridges
And out of the hollers of Kentucky.
She’d never seen anything as big, as exciting
And as beautiful as the ocean.
She was a throwed away child,
Physically and mentally.
A Winston and a Pepsi, in a bottle not a can,
Would please her as no man could.
One day she met a Vietnam vet just as lost
And throwed away, only angrier,
Yet in the end all the toxins in him killed her.
Her grave is marked with the small steel nameplate
Still awaiting granite after all these years.
I have come to realize her short life, long ago,
Was like a blue plastic bag on the wind.

-----------------

The heat is oppressive
Hot, wet and heavy like a wet quilt.
The ceiling fans, on low, turn and wobble
But do little to move the thick air
White walls, blue folding tables, and white ceiling tiles
Except where water stained and bowing surround
A line of four white washers, four beige Speed Queens
And the ninth, last in line, a tan Kenmore with a warped door,
And the sound of an occasional, rhythmic door thump
A sliver of washed out green shows outs the back door,
Open only for psychological reasons,
Poison Ivy and trumpet vines fight for space of a privacy fence
A cabbage palm’s brown fronds hang above small elephant ears
Defeated without a hint of a breeze
The underlying sound is the spin of the large
Two dollar and fifty cents- a buck and a quarter twice- washers
With an occasional, rhythmic sound of a door thump
An elderly lady sits waving a church hand fan,
Adorned with a picture of Jesus,
Making herself hotter than the small breeze can handle
The change machine whirrs in a bill: one, five, ten, twenty,
And chinks out quarters like a miser’s accounting
Thighs stick to ugly plastic chairs that have been stuck to many times before
Not responsible. Not responsible. Your job is to look before using
Dryers turning; clothes free falling; add another quarter
For a refund call this disconnected eight hundred number
With an occasional, rhythmic sound of a door thump
Sweat beads the forehead
The still air is getting heavier and wetter as another load
Of wet clothes goes to the dryer with the broken vent hose
And another quarter raises the heat indices
And a black Ked sneaker thumps the door rhythmically
In a Florida coin laundry in late summer

--------------------------

THE SONG

I was thinking of some love song
I could write about her
I could hear the rhythm guitar
Strumming, strumming

I saw the beautiful smile
I know as her
The lead guitar sounded a note
Sliding and bending

She winked on top of the smile
Sending my thoughts chasing
The scales and notes of the piano
Maybe a ragtime or countytime ballad

She reached over the pizza rinds
Littering the tabletop to pat my hand
In time with the beat of the bass
Playing my knuckles and fingers fretlike

I could see in her face
What I felt in my heart
As it kept time to rimshots
And highhat cymbals
And brushes sliding on drum skins

-------------------

Unnamed Outcast

I am doomed to wander along the fringes
Of this river of life flowing through the sea of humanity
All because of the lack of a coin to pay
The current incarnation of the ferryman, Charon.
I can tell when you look through me you see a non-entity.
I can tell when you look away I am seen as a lost soul.
There was a time when I knew
All I had to do was crawl up on the beast
Grab a handful of mane and ride 'til the bell
But with the bucking and jumping,
The spurring and the calliope music
The chances of being loosened are enhanced.
Until I landed face down
In the barnyard-like churned dirt of society,
Only to be saved by some clown.
As I stagger these black forests of rejection
I can tell you notice me by the way
You turn your nose up and your face away
Your grand gestures in treating me as the shunned one.
But you don’t know the reasoning
Behind the reasons why I wear crossed staves,
Tattered pea coat, fatigue jackets,
As I share pigeon encrusted park benches,
Sleep under bridge abutments
And converse with those other lost souls
Those damned to the unlocked corners
Of my mind that share my daily existence.
I saw you not notice me this autumn day
As I fought a losing battle to keep the demons at bay.
I could place the blame with you, shifting responsibility.
I could accuse you of being tightfisted.
I’m fighting a major battle and losing by attrition
And you, in your fancy shoes
That have only traversed carpeted halls,
Cannot come off a lousy quarter.
Ignore me, and the others of my ilk,
But remember to your dying days
I give you justification in your pretentiousness

--------------------

The Shirt

He could feel the soft wind of death
Creeping down the collar of his shirt.
It had been the shirt to buy in its time,
But now it was just a shirt.
An old white dress shirt yellowing with age
And fraying at the collar and cuffs,
A shirt that accepted cufflinks with a dignity.
A shirt that had been to the Cotton Club
And rode the IRT subway;
Been to the Opera House
And the off-Broadway shows of the Village.
But now it was just a shirt,
A shirt his wife, of all those long years,
Kept saying she’d use for rags if it weren’t so thread bare.
The best things that could happen to the shirt,
She told him was to be thrown out, preferably with him in it.
But he would hear none of her arguments.
He knew they were just words
To fill the empty spaces in their life.
He knew he would accept death in this shirt,
Whether it would make the trip to the everafter
With him in the coffin was another story
But he would wear it with the dignity it deserved.
And the knowledge it upset the little woman to no ends.
It would be a nice shirt to wear out on the ice
Come the Spring thaw.

------------------

She took her birthday off
An overcast and dreary middle day
Of the week spent in bed
She told me she had a headache
So my nice card and gift went unnoticed
In the hall on the small table under the mirror
Where she silently asks “Mirror, mirror…”
I know who, but stay my voice

She decides this beautiful day as hers
A replacement for the lost one
But you cannot decide to take it off and enjoy later
That was your day and you get what is offered
Some are beautiful, cherished, and remembered
Some cold, dreary, and overcast, yet remembered
Because it has been decided and you opened your gift
That is the mystique of birthdays

She has her teasing ways
Soft pats and come hither smiles
She has her iron fist and cutting glances
She has a pig’s ear for a purse
And me for a one-eared husband
Sunshine matches her smile
And I am but a cheap candle

I stop in to buy another card and small gift
I pencil in a dinner and a movie
I know of the way of the winds of love

-----------------------

Out Running Wishes

He sat on the sea wall
And watched
The tide recede
Boats pulling at their anchors
Like they wanted to run
Chasing after the dolphins
Following the south wind
Outrunning the darkness
He sat on the sea wall
Knowing how they all felt
Wishing he could slip his anchor

---------------------

Mister Nobody

Most of the mail, most of the neighbors,
Even the super, know him by Occupant.
He can dance freely in his socks and underwear
On Sunday morning, any morning
Because there is nobody there to care.
His garbage is full of strawberry ice cream cartons.
He’s perfecting his next years’ Halloween costume ready
He’s going as an unloved Homer Simpson with a rug.
He carries a large wallet on a chain
So he can pull it out of his tight jeans.
He wears suspenders to match his socks
And a belt to fill the loops.
When he can get someone to listen
He shows them the picture that came with the wallet
And tells them it is his wife.
Thank God for computers.
For now he has a family
Two boys and a girl to go with his wife
His world is so make-believe
He doesn’t even know reality anymore.
If he were a writer he’d be Nobel Laureate in any field.
He doesn’t take drugs, nor smokes, or drinks
Because he likes to have a hand on controlling his destiny.
And when Mister Occupant shaves in the mornings
He is happy with his lot in life.
As he was leaving Walt Disney World the other night
He was mumbling about how he forgot to tell Mickey something.
A lady who thought he was cute said, “Here tell this picture.”
But he couldn’t because it wasn’t the real one
Then he showed her a picture of his family.

--------------------------------

Lucky And Knows It

I sat on the front porch
Sipping a sweating glass of iced tea
She patted the swing seat
In beat with the creaking of the chain
Asking me to come swing with her,
I shook my head no
And raise my feet to the wicker coffee table
I heard the chair creak
Itself into a comfortable position
I could smell the salt on the evening
Sea breezes wafting through the oaks
Thunderheads were hurrying sundown
Ruining a possible beautiful sunset
A green tree frog had staked claim
To the philodendrons near the birdbath
And was croaking out love laments
To the approaching storm
She got my attention
Swinging her legs up onto the swing
When I looked her way
She looked back with a come hither look
I knew the frog wasn’t alone
In his way of thinking

--------------------------

THE IMPLANT

The bug up my nose might have been implanted by aliens.
I have had nosebleeds since I was a young thing
And I’m inexplicably drawn to the Dog Star and the night sky.
Just thinking of shooting stars that might land
Amid sounds and colored lights gives me chills.
One midsummer’s eve before the Age of Aquarius,
Just south of Miami, I saw into the Milky Way:
The night sky was white with stars.
I am always looking and expecting the aliens
Who put the tracking device up my nose.
But with the fever and chills I have
An Earthling put this bug up my nose.

------------------------

I Remember St Augustine

I remember Key West
The Seven-Mile Bridge where we almost wrecked
All because you wanted a kiss
And the guy selling green palm frond hats
You tried to cheat on Duvall Street
The hugging in the Florida Straits watching
The sun go down with feet in the Atlantic and Gulf

I remember New Orleans
Bourbon Street and Creole Food in the off season
The open-air market and standing on the levee
Watching the paddle wheeler we didn’t go on
I remember St. Francisville
And the toll ferry coming from Natchez

I remember St. Augustine
The Bridge of Lions, Anastasia Beach and coquina stone
The walking along the small streets hand in hand
And looking in courtyards thinking about
Key West and New Orleans and Bird of Paradise plants at each
The Fountain of Youth where I drank and you didn’t
We have had our good times you and I
And I think of you when I remember good times

-----------------------

I Have Been Told

I’ve been told I act like a downhill racer
And that I was a pisser
I’d like to ride the Space Shuttle
Just once, maybe, for a start
I’ve gone off with beautiful women
Who left their ugly sister in their stead
Sometime during the night
I’ve been told I was funny
And not know how they really meant it
I’ve been taken on some dates
Out of kindness I suppose
I’ve run headlong into stonewalls
Some of my own making
I’ve spent hours on making the perfect lawn
To watch better grass grow
In the cracks of the sidewalk
I’ve lain on my back for hours
To watch one meteorite
Streak across midnight skies
I’ve been told if she finds out I’m crazy
She’s going to think about the alternatives
Yet of all the things I’ve been told
I one I like best is when she says
I love you

------------------

I Dream of Stairs

I dream of stairs
Yet neither ascending nor descending
Only standing
Comfortable and ready

One side is blue sky colored by clouds
The other mountainside and rocks
Gray granite veined with dark impurities
It’s like I’m in some Zen Buddhist’s
Rock Garden
And I’m afraid of tracking
In the freshly raked sand
So I just stand and dream

I dream of beaches
At the edge of the shore
Yet neither entering or exiting
Only standing

Before me is the great wide sea
At my feet tiny foam lines
Marking the edges of waves
That rush up over my ankles
To hide in my jeans
Dorsal fins dissect
The blue sky and purple green gulf
But I stand and stare
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to be
No tracks on the sand

I dream of life
A trackless expanse
I’ve traversed without leaving a mark

----------------

Hunting the Elephant

We were together and she was talking away
Like she does each and everyday.
So I went off to hunt the elephant
With pith helmet, bush jacket and jungle pants.
I was scouring the brush with an eagle eye
Overlooking nothing as I went by.
I had just come upon the track
When her shoulder punch jerked me back.
You weren’t listening to me.
Yes I was, I tried to make her see.
But it was no good, I had to recant
And tell her I was hunting the elephant.
Over the years many times I’ve been hunting
And the thousand-yard stare I am fronting
Has given me away to her, riling her fur.
Making her call me an ol’ mongrel cur.
But when things get boring I just can’t
Seem to stop hunting for that elephant.

---------------------

“Do I Dare?”

This is a FantasyLand like no other.
One to make Mickey, Goofy and Buzz Lightyear and
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup Spin all seem normal.
I have bought my season ticket to unlimited access.
I have seen the present
And it is wrapped in beautiful graphics.
No more do I spit out assumptions
As if they were watermelon seeds
To get three or five with every mouthful
Nor do I mark wishful and hopeful deeds
As did J. Alfred with coffee cups and spoons.
Once you have bought your month to month ticket
And joined this stationary road show
Of actors and actresses who have chosen
Their character as they play a role of a lifetime
In this off centered off-off Broadway production.
You can be anything or anyone you wish to be.
You can take someone’s name and domain it as yours.
I saw on “Jerry” a man who met the woman of his dreams
As they chatted each other up in some chat room
Only to find out that neither was what the other truly expected.
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they choose a name they think fits
So how can anyone be seen as they truly are
When they don’t even recognize themselves.
Today I think I’ll be a clone of Buzz Lightyear
As I pay another visit to this Magical kingdom
And I’m sure I’ll run into another Mickey Mouse.

--------------------------

Dawn Is Hinting

Dawn is hinting at the edge of the world
I am awake listening to the clock
As it ticks away my life
It is one of those cheap windups
That ticks back a half a second
Before moving my life around the circle

I hear dragons calling me to battle
I am going to beat my plow shares
Into broad swords and sharpened pike heads
As I follow a Joan to the battlefront
Without chain mail or French Knights
But the same voices calling cadence
Over the ungodly silence of the dead

My dreams are hallow and haunting
A black&white film of mental darkness
Where I am lost and unknown
Searching a yard sale of memories for a bargain
The clock ticks in beat with my heart
Ticking my life away

She was singing one line from a popular song
And I was wondering how to live up
With my heart turned all mushy and such
But it only took a second to turn
As hard as old concrete
An unconscious word, one small act
And I am alone screaming the same ungodly silence
To the cold darkness in between the stars
And the ticking of the cheap clock

-----------------------

A Brief Encounter

I noticed when you noticed me
During lunch under the oaks
And a touch of mayonnaise
Highlighted the corner of your mouth.
You smiled and looked down
I saw the blush creep seductively
Across your cheeks
And the curve of your neck.
I could tell by the way you looked
Through your lowered lashes
That you found me not unappealing.
A slight smile was left
When you used your tongue
To removed the mayonnaise.
It was a hint of possible futures
When you looked me in the eye.
I bet you thought
I had similar thoughts as you
From the way I gazed at your loveliness,
But I was wondering how you would whimper
And squirm as I remove your beating heart
From such an enchanting chest.

---------------------------

Tuesday Afternoon

I was sitting at a small table
Under the overhang at The Java Cup,
A hip-looking, and missing, little place where you
Could get a cup of java and surf the internet.
I found you didn’t get decaf but only what’s available
And you paid high price for the condiments,
The sugar, the foam, and the flavored creamer, and such
They sweeten the instant coffee with.
It seemed their internet server was just as bland.
I sat and watched the thunderstorm rumble up main street
Blowing the debris ahead and washing away what was left.
She eased in beside me and wrestled
With an inside out umbrella
And wrestled with what come-on line to use.
Finally she asked if I knew
How birds feel being watched by cats.
I shrugged a negative.
Let’s go home and I’ll show you, she replied.

---------------------------

If I Were Going

If I were going to be a religious man
What would I be
Would I be a pious Christian
Seeking new lions to slay me
Would I be a Catholic
And pay a dollar to kiss a statue’s feet
A Methodist, like my father’s family has been for ever
Would I be A Muslim
Would I be a Jew
Would I give up pork
Would I be Wiccan, Druid,
Would I walk concentric circles
Would I be Aztec, or the ancient ones,
Would I worship a beating heart
An ear of corn, the morning star
Would I wear curls and not shave
Would I not shave and wear black
And follow a horse, a mule
Would I be a Unitarian
And know not what to believe
Just know I believed
Would I be atheistic
And not know to believe in what
I do believe I would have to be one of The People
I would believe in the owl, the raven, the water bug,
Kokopelli, the macaw, the gecko,
The Earth Mother, Father Sky, Ta Tanka,
I would believe in love, in war, in hunger, in art
I do believe

------------------

The World Situation

This is the way it began
This is the way the world began
This is the way we all began

Between the evolution
And the BIG Bang

Between husband and wife
Between sun and night
Between brother and right
Between a sigh and a whimper

Between it all
We wonder why it is all awonder

The first family
Was the epitome of dysfunction
They ran around their garden
Naked
They were evicted
Because She went with a Snake
And talked her mate into doing
A thing He knew was inherently
Wrong

Between a sigh and a whimper

What about brotherly Love
Children committing unspeakable acts
One child killed half the children
Of the world
And one-quarter of the people

And we wonder
Why are we like this

This is the way the world began
Between a sigh and a whimper

----------------------

IF

If I were God
I would not trod
On unsure sod.

------------------

An Old Lei

I knew what she wanted me to say
But the words would not come.
I don’t know if it was because
I didn’t know how to say them
Or I just couldn’t say them.

As I drove away I could see in my mirror
The boat cleaving the smooth bay waters.
The turning of the screw pushing the boat out to sea
Widening the chasm of my heart and head parting
As it also churned up my emotions.

I could take it no longer, turning the truck around
To park at the seawall and stand at the rail
Among the well wishers still partying
As I watched the boat shrink
I felt the hole in my heart begin to heal
Then I threw this love into the bay as if it were old lei

-----------------------------

Birds

I am an artist
The dealer of illusions
The poacher of images and thoughts
I am Vonnegut’s canary.

I am a honey bee
Trapped in a house
Full of plastic flowers
I am Poe’s raven.

I am a runaway train
In a switching yard
Of random track changes
I am Casey’s owl.

I am at Pandora’s party
On a scavenger hunt
For the belonging of her trunk
I am Adam’s vulture.

I am lost.

----------------------

BLACK HOLE HEART

Do not think absence makes fonder hearts
It’s hollowness, a void, a black hole
Where heart and soul used to be,
And mankind, as a part of nature,
Abhors a vacuum. Slowly
As eternities pass into moments,
Into days, ad infinitum, memories
Are sucked into black heart holes
Until:
It is as if she died long ago
And the times we had never were.

------------------------

CAROLINA

While buzzing
about the Carolina coast
I came upon
a Venus fly-trap
lying there,
open,
beautiful,
and inviting.
She waited
receptively
letting me
make all the moves

until I touched
the trigger hair
trapping me in
her embrace.

---------------------

Chasing calico cats
Under Cassandra or Cassiopeia
It is late summer and I’m not sure
Which constellation is peaking
Sometimes one is over Cherry Street
A couple of streets over beyond the oaks
Sometimes the other is over my street
According to the season I sometimes
Sit on the stoop and watch the night sky
Some nights I dream dreams of childhood
Space pirates and far-flung adventures
Some nights I look in wonder at what I have become
The adventures I have had chasing calico cats
For the girl who kept me from Space Pirates

------------------------

Crystal Centers

The world looks
a little different
today
Not that it has changed
only the ways
I view it
It is with softer edges
blurred centers
Crystaled sights seen through
tear stained eyes
Yet, though I have
cried out
and I am
cried out
The more so nothing
changes nothing
I have reached out
For your departing shadow
And pulled the empty absence
to my heart
I am using the coldness
as a punishing comfort
To justify inane actions
into softer centers
blurred and crystaled

----------------------

Even Between

Mountain streams
Sunny shores
Wild flower bouquets
Long walks
Silent talks
What is love all about
Why eternity is long lasting
Moonlight shadows linked
I do not know the whys
I do not seek any answers
All I know is little things
Like loving her
Even between the seconds

---------------------

Friday Late

I’m standing on the jetties
Rod and reel in hand
Line out into the outgoing tide
Four middle aged guys from Georgia
On a weekend fishing trip
Keep crowding me
Like I know where all the fish are
I have nothing better to do than feed red fish
And tell whopper lies to these four guys
And watch a cargo ship loaded to the line
Ease its way through the pleasure boats
Into the sunset and out to sea
Another ship has left without me

--------------------

I Think Things

I think of the things I could have been
And the things I haven’t been.
I think of all the things I promised you,
Promised myself I’d give to you.
I think of all those things
And other things I shouldn’t think
When I think of you.
I have lines across my forehead
And around my eyes
From staring off to the distant horizon.
I have surrendered
To the gray surrounding my ears.
The sound of your voice has been my lighthouse.
I look around at the life you and I have.
I sometimes ponder that life
And what I have had with you.
I think things I would have been without you;
All I see is a layered clothing look with shopping carts.
I think these things and know

--------------------------

It Was

It burned
It pushed
It pulled
It shocked
It screamed
Something screamed
It overcame gravity
It slammed
Dirt and ants
Leaves, brown and rotting
Into his mouth
It was honor
It was fear
It was failure
It was horror
It was a little boy
Who wished his mommy
Could come halfway
Around the world
To kiss the booboo
Blossoming in his chest
And makeIt go away

--------------------

JOY

When our eyes first touched
The northern lights became
Dull and commonplace.
It was as if I’d passed
Through the gates of Eden
And here was my Eve, my Venus.
Her voice twinkles like
The silver buckets Elves use
When ladling out the dew.
Her eyes sparkle and gleam
Like fresh melt
Rushing over granite.
Her smile, never quite gone,
Beckons like a ray of sunshine
After a violent thunderstorm.
When she took my hand
And said my name
I knew I was home.

----------------------

Just A Cat

Aloysius Thomas Alleycat died
Sometime during the night.
I do not mourn for him
For he had a nice life
But I will miss him
For he made my life nice.
He and my wife
Had a lot in common;
When I worked in the yard
They both would find
A comfortable, shady spot
From which to supervise.
He would curl up and watch me,
And the doves above
A feeder overflowing with seed,
With those large yellow eyes of his.
Whereas my wife would point out
Those things I had yet to do.
We both would look at her and blink, slowly.
Alley lived a long life; thirteen years at best guest.
As I said, I will miss him
That is a long time for a friendship
Even if he was just a cat.

------------------------

life is great

life is great
in the world of Tom Sawyer
and the Bowery Boys and Hop Along Cassidy
and bubble gum and no girls
life is great;
but, alas, Tom Sawyer
turned into Hess and Vonnegut,
and the Bowery Boys
and Hop Along Cassidy became late night—
early morning old John Wayne movies
and wine replaced Bubble Gum
and when the Bubble Gum was gone
there was nothing else left to do
but get involved (sigh);
life is great

------------------

Magical

She is magical
and mystical
She can heal
with a touch
She can calm
and excite
with a look
She is wonderful
in all things
Yet sometimes
she upsets me
So
I forget that I am
the luckiest man
alive.

-----------------------

M’LADY GEORGIA BLUE

I call
She looks
I step to her
She runs
I look
She hides
I chase
She runs ‘round roses
I shortcut
She detours
I ignore
She comes
I catch her.

--------------------

Notes To An Insane Man

Buy a notebook
Learn a cryptic shorthand
To keep your truths in order

Remember what face
You put on this morning
And keep it with you
Throughout the day

Just think
Who Love’s Ya
And why
And what do they want

When she’s smiling
And waving at you
With force and energy
Count the fingers

Remember your wedding day
And be thankful your hips and knees
Will not let you do that to yourself

Sometimes when you are treated
Like you should be wearing
Short pants and shoes
With a Kid and Dog in them
It is for your own good

---------------------

Perchance To Dream

She wants to sleep like spoons
I sleep like a butter knife
I like to lie on my back
Sometimes on my side
She likes to lie on my chest
Her thigh across mine
So when I awake my leg sleeps on
Making me hobble around the bedroom
Like some sort of crane in a mating dance
Sound effects included
She likes to have it arctic-like when she sleeps
In her flannel gown and socks
With only the tip of her nose barely seen
Whereas I like to sleep
In the outfit God gave me to wear
Even though old and wrinkled
As I dream of South Sea Islands
Blue skies and puffy off-white clouds
And other warm places of the heart

----------------------

Significant Events

No significant events
Are scheduled
For the near future
Won’t you take my hand
And we’ll go see nightrise
Sitting on a seawall park bench
Evening breezes blowing
Sun sinking through clouds
To slowly reach the water
Then disappear in a blink
Moonlight on a calming bay
Nothing to say at all

----------------------------

STAINLESS STEEL

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

Lovers come and lovers go
Friends arrive and friends leave
Questions come and answers are no
And there’s no one thing to believe.

It’s a Stainless Steel world
Full of food for squirrels.

Bills come and bills don’t go
Relatives come and forever stay
Governments come and what do you know
We’ve all lost our bloody way.

It’s a Stainless Steel world we live in
And not a damn free thing is given.

Scientists come and help us live longer
Help us exist better in some forgotten corner
But what can you do not getting any stronger
In a Stainless Steel world without a mourner.

It’s a Stainless Steel world Baby
There just ain’t no room for maybe.

--------------------------

THE HORSE

A cow and a horse were
Standing out in the middle of a pasture.
It was a government pasture, public domain,
Because it was enclosed in barbed wire with signs saying,
“Government property. No trespassing.
Use of deadly force authorized.”
The horse was munching
And the cow was chewing when the horse said,
How can you chew that crud?
The cow just looked up with large, sad brown eyes
As if to say you wouldn’t understand.
As they were enjoying the day they saw a human
Walking the pasture with a rope in its hand.
The horse said, Well, cow, the human has come for you.
It is going to take you to the slaughterhouse.
It is going to eat your meat and strip your hide
For shoes and belts and the such.
And the cow replied, Yeah, but it is going to break you.
It is going to put a metal bar in your mouth
And tie it to your face with pieces of my hide
So you cannot spit it out,
So you will go where the human wants to go
When it tugs your head around.
It will kick the air out of your lungs
So a saddle can be buckled to you
Then the human will climb its fat ass up on you
To ride you in style anywhere, anytime, it wants.
By kicking you in the side with metal spurs
It will ride down by the road where it can be seen on your back.
Yes, they are going to kill me, quickly.
But you will be rode for the rest of your days
Until you are sway backed and broken down
All because you look like a large dog,
The human’s bestest friend.
When you are of no more use
They will make glue out of you.
And unless you went to the human
And specifically asked for this
You are broken. To be rode.
---------------------------------

The Permit

Orca came to Neptune
And said, There are too many
They interfere with my life
And spy on my pod

Dolphin came to Neptune
And complained
They are too many
And constantly they net us

Sand Flea and Coquina
Came to Neptune and cried
They are too many
They walk over us without a care

All the fishes of the sea
Came to Neptune
To complain of the overcrowding
Neptune thought on the matter
And knew there had been
Easy winters and the shores
Had become over populated
And polluted with their kind

So he told Shark
I will offer permits for hunting
Just to ease the herd
To thin overcrowding
It will be open season

But no Shark may take more than one
Neptune opened the game preserve
Along the Gulf Stream
And the sharks did hunt

-----------------

Things I have seen

I have seen antelope, mule deer, flat-tailed deer,
White-tailed deer, doves, ravens, crows, magpies,
Condors, hawks and an eagle or two,
Ducks, mallards, wood ducks, geese and a swan or two,
Pigeons and sea gulls, prairie dogs, red squirrels,
Chipmunks, starlings, wild turkeys, prairie chickens,
Buzzards and turkey buzzards.
I have seen sunrises and sunsets that amaze with wonder.
I have watched night skies from mountaintops and train cars.
I’ve seen cows and bulls and sheep but no buffalo as of yet.
Yes I did, down in Arizona on the Grand Canyon Trip
Some Navajo had a few penned for show.
I have seen mile after mile of wild sunflower
Large ones, small ones, daisy looking ones,
Wishing I could get out and pick a bouquet for Sheila.
I have seen Navajo, Hopi, Apache,
Flathead, Blackfoot, Sioux and Cheyenne.
I have seen the Gulf of Mexico, The Mississippi River,
The Red River Valley, The Rio Grande, The Pacific,
The Colorado, dry washes, drying water holes and quail.
I have seen lava flows in three or four states,
Something I never expected.
I have seen petroglyphs on lava and granite.
I saw petrified forests, a painted desert.
I saw the Valley of Fires on my way to Roswell
To see aliens and ufo’s, and buy souvenirs.
I have seen mountains that took my breath,
Both figuratively and literally.
I have seen sea fog and mountain fog in valleys
And forest fires on ridge tops and smoke clouds.
I have seen big cities with building to the clouds
I have been on mountains above the clouds
I have seen the big sky and felt small
I have driven Interstates and two lane back roads.
I have seen ghost towns both forgotten and ignored
I have seen ghost towns as tourist attractions.
I have seen thirty states and the District of Columbia
I really enjoyed myself to the utmost of my ability
I have fallen in love all over again with my country
My countryside, my fellow countrymen, all of them,
But above all I have found a renewed love with my love of life
And with the woman that is the life of my love.

------------------------

Thunderbolts

When the signature of the elusive deity Zeus
Is graffitified across midnight skies
It captures the soul like octupi on oysters
Plays with fears as if it were plankton on white caps
Sends some children scuttling to mothers
And others to pull under covers like hermit crabs
Makes brutes shiver like reef coral in sea breezes
It excites and delights like shells and sharks
And I am pulled to dirty bay windows
Like the sea pulls at the shore
To see Zeus’ name etched in sky, water, and glass.

-----------------------

Understanding

I am made
To think
That I need not
Know
What the poet thought
In the choice of words
Used
That I need not
Understand
What the poet meant
Only that I read
And enjoy
The story

The Wonder of Being

2006-09-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Wonder of Being

Palm fronds rattling
At the moonlight
Shadow dancing
With elusive Elves

Tinkerbelle hiding
From whippoorwills
Among the fireflies

Golden-eyed owls
Watching, pondering
Clouds tumbling
To the horizon

The wonder of being
With lovely you
This enchanted evening

-----------------

Cold Halls

Wandering down cold halls
Looking at old memories
Like they were a photo album
Framed
And hung where no one goes
Anymore

I saw a picture-
Of you?
Painted by you?
Anyway
It reminded me of you
Hanging in a glorious way
Out of the way
Where no one goes anymore

Down these cold halls
Memories were lined
Some forgotten
And covered in synaptic webs
Some brushed clean
But unremembered

As I gazed at these
Memories
Some worthless
Some gems
All but forgotten and unseen
I thought of the times
These cold halls rang
With cheerfulness
And a future

But now
This part of the museum
Is closed to the public
And these halls
Will gather and capture
The cold and forgetfulness
Of tomorrow

-------------

A Perfect Day
Oh, man, the day was one of those perfect days
The type when the sun was as comfortable
As shorts and t-shirts and the trees just greening
The blue of the sky came down and rested on your shoulders
I was on my way to Montgomery and the NPR station
Was doing a special on John Phillip Sousa and military music
The big bass drum weighed heavy on my right foot
And I put that Ford into the wind without a care
The music was booming, I was rocking and the truck was rocking
The road was traveling on over the rolling hills of North Florida
As I topped the middle of three oscilloscope type hills there he was
The two tone brown car with the clashing blue lights beginning to flash
I don't know what he thought as he spun his car around for the chase
But I was busted. Busted big time and the chase was only a few yards
He adjusted his Smoky Bear hat and stomped to my side
"Do you know how fast you were going?" No, I said.
Thinking: Too fast to see you in time.
As he accepted my driver's license he asked "Where you going in such a hurry?"
I wanted to tell him his house but chose to keep quite
As he wrote the ticket he gave the lecture as if one went with the other
Just give me the ticket I don't need the lecture
I was speeding and you caught me lets get on with it
I signed not accepting guilt even though we both knew I was
After wishing me to have a happy day (an oxymoron in person)
He turned his car around and headed off to swoop down
On another driver like an osprey on an unsuspecting fish
As he topped the first hill and I the last I turned up the radio
And put the Ford back into the wind, marching down the highway
Knowing he was the last trooper before the Alabama line

You know, in Alabama they don't give a lecture

-------------

A SHORT BIO

He was born at 10:25 on a Tuesday night
It wasn’t last Tuesday but August fifty years ago.
He is somewhere between Richard Cory
And J. Alfred Prufrock, “ Do I dare?...”
Even though he lives on the Gulf Coast
And seen the mermaids they do not sing to him.
He believes in the Tooth Fairy and the Sanity Clause
He’s not sure aliens have come to his backwater home
But not conceited enough to believe he’s alone among the stars.
A poem is like any other piece of literature:
A little autobiographical, a little fiction, some wishing/hoping
Carl Sandburg wasn’t some fogbound cat, was he?
He is the new breed of migrant worker traveling the south
In the construction trade of heating, venting, and air conditioning.
During the long hours to and from the jobs each week
He has time to work his poems from memory.
Seeking fame not fortune, immortality, through his writings
Upsetting his wife who wants the money. Immortality doesn’t pay for jack.
He doesn’t know how to give a compliment without sounding trite
But accept rejection slips with a quite dignity.
Above all he is loved, gives love in return, and is happy with his lot.

-----------------------

Noon the Torrid Zone
Solar passage
through the Goat Horn
Hipparchus ancient astronomer
Studying pre-sextant angles
of twenty-three twenty-seven
of the ecliptic plane
The procession
of the equinoxes
Religious Festivals
Saturnalia,
winter sowing
Close the schools
and courts
Suspend military exercises
Free the slaves
stop the killing
Christmas is three days away
Time to Rejoice
Sing the Praise
Let me tell you
what I want…

----------------------

Low Country

It seems in Savannah there is a square
Every few blocks, all lined up.
We sat in one and took pictures,
Gonna tell people it was where Forrest sat
Only to find out we were one square off.
But who would know
It’s just two people on a bench under the oaks,
A pigeon encrusted statue hugging one side
Of the picture, background blurred.

Anyway, squares are squares in Savannah or Spokane.
No one cares about the picture
All they’re thinking is that you went on a vacation,
I didn’t get to go on one, now I have to hear about it.
Is it envy or boredom that guides their thinking?

An afternoon visiting older homes, now museums.
A fabulous piece of high priced art
In a place of notice, highlighted by small lamps,
Two pieces of bent sheet metal
Painted in white enamel
And filled with plaster of Paris
I asked the price and was told
In a condescending, hushed voice,
“We do not give out that type of information.”
I can see why, nobody wants to be remembered as an idiot.

Went to Charleston to see a house on Queen Street,
And took a carriage ride where she learned about oleander tea
The symptoms it leaves in death.
Sweet Cane baskets, Rainbow Row on the Battery,
Rice and low salt marshes, but no Bird of Paradise plants,
Just two on the road, any back road will do
Away from it all, just tourist doing tourist things
Making new friends and renewing our belief in each other.

------------------

Shadows Softness

Pondering statements
Provoking complexities
Cresting reason
Exhilaration and expression
Respectable synchronicity
Relaxing and awaiting
Appreciating movements
Softness and shadows
Soothing gloriously
Kisses rhyme
First immortal
And cresting reasons
Butterflies metamorphosis
Silky skies
Liquid mid-day
Perpetual currents
Shadows and softness
Conscious ending
Provoking complexities

------------------

Purple Zinnias

It stands tall and proud
Among the other bedding plants

When I see her
I think thoughts uniquely male
In origin and direction

Perfect petals petal out
Around a center that silently calls to bees

She strokes and fires me
As if I were an old steam engine
In origin and direction

And as that flower calls to bees
Her essence calls to me

---------------

A Mature Woman

She is a mature woman
With mature ideals
And a mature way
Of seeing things
Through enhanced mature eyes.
She drinks herbal teas
For her maturity
Brewed in teapots that whistle
To help her mature hearing
And to remind her mature memory.
Yet she has young teeth
She only got them Tuesday.

-----------------------

Stranglehold

I’m sitting in the airport parking lot
Listening for the sound of just one plane out of many

The clock is working its way to the touching of hands
The moon is high over head and the wandering stars
Have all wandered off the horizon

I’m listening to a song that takes me back to my youth
The hardcore driving riffs playing with me
Just as if I were the strings to be plucked and bent

I don’t know how long this song is
But I’m secretly hoping that the plane is late enough
I’ve missed her, her touching presence, but…

I hear the plane, I just know, and the song plays on
The mental calculations begin under the bass line
Time verses actions, wheels gripping the pavement
People shuffling down the aisle, down the corridor to Customs

I’m a betting man; I’m also a cautious man,
I have been a lonely man these past double handful days
But I wait on, listening to the bass and the drums filling time
The song releases its stranglehold on me

I look up to the heavens as I lock the truck door
A silent prayer, a will-o’-the-wisp on my lips
And I see a cloud pass over the moon
I take as a wink and a smile as I hurry to the baggage claim

I see her before she looks for me
I stop, pretending to be waiting
We both run to the smile we see

----------------

Somewhere between Mount Mitchell
And Clingman’s Dome I made use
Of a scenic overlook to watch the leaves turn.
I sat pondering the eternity
Of the mountains,
The Blue Ridge delaying sunrise
And The Great Smokies hastening sundown.
Also of the Oconaluftee,
The river of the Cherokees,
Slowly polishing river rocks to smooth conformity.
As I let the song of the river ease over me
I realized I was like both the river and the rocks.
And like the river I will sing my song
Just like no one is listening
Because that is my eternity, also.

--------------

A Couple of Songs

We were together
This woman and I
Once upon a time
We sang a few songs
And danced a couple of dances
It could said
We made music together
Yet in the end she said
You are like a singer
I heard on the radio
Some of your songs
Are pretty good
But I don’t want
To buy the C D

-------------

Nineteen Sixty-nine

I know there was a blizzard
in Trenton, New Jersey.

I know the New York Jets
won Super Bowl III

I know Viet Nam
Is 36 hours from Trenton, New Jersey

I know Japan is an hour and a half
from Plieku by air

I know I heard the Beatles
‘The White Album’ for the first time

I know April on the fifteenth parallel it is hot
and in Japan it is cold

I know I found the Allman Brothers
on a mountainside without any trees

I know I turned twenty

I know those unforgetable days
Are on a vivid, nocturnal loop

I know there is a calendar with that date
my mother has one with those days marked off

I know that it was all a dream, Kafka-like,
and I know I am really a year younger

--------------------

BOB HOPE

I never did get to see Bob Hope
We were supposed to rotate back to Plieku
To see the show of the Goodwill Ambassador
Spreading jokes and Playboy Girls
On a world tour to weary GI’s in far flung places
We were going to get hot food out of a mess hall
Take warm showers lasting longer than five gallons
Get clean new fatigues with unit patches, rank and name
But most of all clean new fatigues
And we were going to get to see Bob Hope
But some Major said, don’t you boys know
That there is a war going on?So I spent the show in a three-foot hole
Covered with a pancho to keep out the sun and or monsoon
I didn’t get to see Bob Hope but I did see Combat
It came on AFVN* on Tuesdays or Thursdays
And starred Rick Jason and Vic Morrow.

(*Armed Forces Vietnam Network)

---------------

Committed Fears

I am afraid of running out of coherent words, syllables even,
And I will end up grunting extensive sounds
Associated with Cro-Magnon Neanderthal types.
I am afraid I will end up in some cave of a nursing home;
Dark and dank, smelling of alcohol and urine;
Where I’ll have drool and pabulum in a slow race down my chin
To pool in the outlandish hand-me-down clothes
My heirs will designate I be dressed me in.
I am afraid my wife will not precede me in passing
And will not only allow them to persist in this pursuit,
But will even get to the point of choosing my clothing for the day.
I am afraid I will end up an old coot
In too large pants with a broken zipper
And an extra large shirt surrounding a much too small neck.
That I will be tied to a posey chair
Unable to whack them with my cane.
I am afraid my loving, gentle wife
Will spend the rest of her eternity paying me back
For all those small forgotten slights
I didn’t know I was committing.
All to be topped off by some tell all book.

-----------------------

Sunrise Service

As I lay here
I hear

Flight Nineteen
Droning down the coast
And out into the Gulf
Again lost

Tinkerbell
Trapped at the window
Beating against the screen
Does she want
Out or in again

Legions of Army
Marching down the hills
To the sea
From the sound they must be
Infantry

Turtle Doves
Cooing territorial rights
With Morning Doves
Over the feeder

I hear the poor bird
A near sighted woodpecker
Mistaking aluminum siding
For something
It is not

Two kittens
Playing race tag
And using me
For home free

As I lay here
Wishing I had nowhere
To go
I truly enjoy this
Spring Sunrise Service

----------------

Counting Stars

If I were to say
Those endearing words
To you
Would they be
Taken in the way
I meant?
With the way things
Turn
Could we stand
Together
On the sandy point of the bay
And count the stars?
I’ll count the ones red.
You count the ones that twinkle.
Because they are all
Winking at you,
At your loveliness.
Should I be jealous?
As you run out of numbers
I want you to know
Even though I don’t say
Those words often enough
For you
Doesn’t mean I don’t feel them
For you.

--------------------

A Singularity

To realize you had fallen and not even know
There was any danger, is a strange feeling.
The falling out of love is not all that noticeable
As the slight actions take place;
It is when they no longer matter
That you find yourself on the edge
To the boundary of the event horizon.
Each participant would have their own measure of time
As to where they were in the relationship
And no breakup can be less than a stellar event.
And a fall into a black hole would be easier.

----------------------

In Between

He is somewhere between
An Infidel and a Heathen
At times closer to one than the other
But never one over the other
Even though it seems someone is always
Trying to convert him to their ways

He found through personal experience
During the stylized rituals of war
That either God and Jesus wait in the bottom
Of a trench, a bunker, or a foxhole with open arms
Or there is something akin to the hollowness
So apparent in those who have lost faith
Who profess their agnosticism vehemently

He picks and chooses his tenements
From different books and beliefs
And tries to live up to the best of his ability
Without accepting all the trappings and applied guilt
Just to smile and nod at those with converting ways

He may end up like Pepin the Short
Who was the father of Charlemagne
And accept his faith on his deathbed
After living the life and style he is afforded
Yet on goes life as he knew it and enjoyed it
And will continue however he decides

------------------------

Language

A means of communication.
The use of words,
The little tote bags with designer logos,
To convey ideas
Is all fine and wonderful.
But, and there’s always a but.
The language of chemistry.
The language of mathematics
Where one plus one equals two
But the square root of one is not one.
The language of flowers
And of Bees and Ants;
Where the bee tells her sisters
Where to go and how to get there
With a little dance,
And the ants with their touchy-feely
Way to communicate.
But we humans with our
Language of diplomacy,
Our broken English,
Idioms, local dialects,
Pidgin English, gibberish.
Our polyglot vernacular jargon.
Our language of colors
Where I say blue but you see
Aquamarine, green, maybe that purplish blue
Only available on Easter Eggs.
And the prominent characteristic of language
Is the relationship between a linguistic sign
(In it’s little designer tote bag)
And its meaning is arbitrary.
On most we speak the same language,
Seem to understand one another.
We agree with the semantics
But other times we’re like mountain Rams
Knocking heads over the same thing
By using apples to explain oranges.

------------------

Labels

Soup can labels
Labels on blue jean pockets
Labels as to origin
whether a “made in …”
or a language label
Labeled as Victor or defeated
“To the victors go the spoils…”
Silently labeling old ladies
who don’t know foreign countries
Labeled as ‘wordsmith’
Labeled as a genius
or possibly an idiot
It all renders down subtly
That no individual labels itself
Its parents labeled it
with a name
maybe a new name
maybe a used one with a Jr. attached
A doctor to label it
as to sex
Schools and friends
as to herd position
So, my friend, accept the inevitable
For you have been labeled,
Both silently and loudly…

------------------------

Would You Believe

If I were the paranoid sort
I would believe I was being followed.
I first saw him outside my home
On a mimosa branch calmly
watching, watching.
I noticed him only because
He was somewhat out of place.
Yet I had things to do
And a train to catch
So I promptly forgot him.
I saw him again at the station,
Then on a R/R Xing outside New Orleans
watching, watching,
And a couple more time on the trip north.
I felt I had lost him in Chicago
But there he was in Galesburg
Watching me as I looked for Carl.
Then he was on the roof
Of the men’s room
watching, watching,
In the Painted Desert of New Mexico.
I noticed him once more in a juniper
On the south rim of the Grand Canyon
When he cawed out to me
watching, watching.
It appeared he’d gained some weight
With all the exercise between Florida and Arizona.
The tour guide said he was Raven.
I don’t care what his name is
This black bird is following me.

------------------------

A Fine Line

Between the action
And the belief
Is a fine line
Though overused

Between
The truth and a lie
Is a fine line
Thoroughly misunderstood

Between
Genius and insanity
Is a fine line
Wobbled down often

And just because
It is crap it is not art
Ain’t that a fine line

---------------

Etswa

I was way behind in my writing
When she danced into the room, Etswa,
Highstepping to the zydeco blaring from the stereo
I had a deadline and no story line.
How am I supposed to write to this?
Her finger waving high above her head,
A dimpled and dipping right knee
Pointing the way above a well turned ankle,
Toes just brushing the floor to a bass beat
As she danced around my desk turning my chair
To an opposing swing time.
I felt my toes hinting to my knees
That they wanted to join in,
And my heel had a hard time staying on the floor.
Hey, there fellow, you are extremely kind
How about I repay you with a kindness of mine?
So off dancing I went, Etswa

----------------------

Cormorants and coots
Cold north wind
Frozen over birdbath
As if one would take one
Narcissus blooming along the front walk
Pansies flourishing in clay pots
Porch swing creaks without riders
Orion peaks over the back stoop
And marks my nightly fencing trips with raccoons
Whitecaps on the Bay large enough to surf
And the Gulf calm as the Bay should be
Three degrees colder here than Anchorage
It a crazy mixed up world
And I wouldn’t change a thing
Except I would try to love her
A little more a little more often
Cormorants and old coots

----------------------

Behind A Tear

She tried to hide the moon behind a tear
It was a Lover’s Moon like the one they had stood under
And professed their undying love to each other.
They had wandered in their Garden of Eden in bliss
Choosing new names for everything, a lover’s shorthand
A lover’s precious name used by and only for each other
But as in every garden the paths fork and choices are made
And she tried to hide this Lover’s Moon behind a tear
As she turned away knowing she made the right decision

----------------------

Another Day Squandered

She walked down
The Grand Concourse
Into the friendly skies
And out of my life
Without looking back

I turned and walked away
Smile to smile
Not waiting to hear the droning
Of the departing plane
I had places to go do things

In the mourning sun I found myself
On the jetties casting my bait
Into the incoming tide
And feeding the big ones
Headless shrimp at $5.99 a pound

I squandered the rest of day
Sitting in the sand without sun block
Staring off to where the sea lanes
Of old intersect the sky
Looking for ghosts of Pirate ships
As they sail past flying the Jolly Roger

Maybe I could capture the wench
And make her walk the plank

What Is Nothing and other thoughts

2006-08-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

What is Nothing

If birth is just another form of dying, a change in existence, is the same true for death? I think I died once during surgery. I say think because I don’t know for sure. I saw no bright lights, tunnels, ancestors, I was not even aware of being dead or of being aware of the self. I saw, and felt, for one fleeting instant, Nothingness. No self, no light, no pain and no internal warmth, nor was I aware of the absence of these things. After that instant I “Was” once more. I was back, I was aware, and I was freezing to the core, even my blood felt cold. The first things I remember saying was: “cold,” And the nurse placing blankets over my fetal position. And you know what? I’ll never be believed. But that is okay, also, because I’ll never believe people telling me the wind is not green.

This instance was for less than a fleeting split second. There was Nothing and I became aware of this Nothingness. But once I became aware of it, it was gone. It was like looking into the darkest night while not knowing what night was, without eyes, without awareness of awareness. I cannot explain it because there is a lack of awareness on your part of what Nothingness is. This is not a flaw on either’s behalf, but just a fact. There has to be a change in beliefs that just because something is named it becomes something. This Nothing, although named, is still nothing. More so it is not Nothing but a complete absence of Everything.

Did I become aware of this nothingness because I am a non-believer? Because I had nowhere to go, so to speak? I don’t know. It was not a horrible feeling, it was no feeling whatsoever. Can this near death experience be a remembrance of birth and the first memories of the birth canal, the grandmother (any relatives), the brightness of the hospital room—any room after being in the semi-darkness of the womb? Who knows. I am more caught up in the nothingness than all the other implications.

It is like the Big Bang theory. I cannot accept such a concept. Because of the opening argument: There was nothing but this little point of something that exploded and continues to grow and expand. If there was nothing where did the little something come from? If there was a little something then there was no nothing and the universe has been here all along. We use the ‘red shift’ to tell us something is moving away from something else. Let’s see. We are spinning around at 24,000 miles a day, around a sun at another speed, and we are at the near end of a spiral arm of a galaxy that is spinning around a center at another rate. But let us not forget that this galaxy is going up and down at the same time it is going round and round. We’re going to look through our telescope at another point on a galaxy doing the same thing and say it’s going away from us. It’s like two children in the back of two cars looking out the back window at each other in the other car going away and thinking along the same lines. Only to find out they are just going around the block and will see each other in a short time.

The only way we’ll ever find out for sure is to change our concept of Time and Light. I have looked at the stars and found the time compression factor taking place, and I never left earth. Just lost in the vastness, the nothingness in between the stars, the place where God resides. Just a few years ago our grandparents didn’t think the human body could not take the speeds faster than a horse could gallop. Then we couldn’t go faster than 100 miles per hour. Not long ago scientist and pilots didn’t think we could break the sound barrier, that it was physical thing and would tear the wings off an airplane. Then Gregg Breedlove came along and went faster than 700 miles per hour in a land vehicle. The faster than light is just another way at looking how we cannot do something. Once we get past this flaw in our thinking we will get out to the places in between the stars. But even that is not the nothingness I was aware of. I have to change my way of thinking and speaking for that concept to be shared. And at this time I do not know how to do such a thing. It is an interpretation conflict; I cannot say it without using words to name it and when I name it you interrupt it as something else. Have you ever had a dream where you are falling? Right before you hit the ground, right before you wake up, where are you? That instant before you become aware of falling: Where are you? Those are the closest I can get to the feeling, the awareness.

What is nothing? It is the place where the wind begins. The place in between the seconds, between thoughts. Nothingness can never be realized because we cannot stop doing anything; talking, breathing, writing, thinking, moving, so it is only when we die are we able to do nothing. And then we are no longer able to be aware of it, truly nothingness.

We speak of silence, and communication. Of language and friendship. I believe, hope, they are all intertwined. This medium is has taken place of the pen&quill and riders on the Post Road. When I can read your words, break them down into meanings we have established so our communication doesn’t break down, form replies and new lines of communication. Yet all the while we do this silently. As an instance, we were in the Amtrak Passenger Lounge, New Orleans, when in came a woman toting laptop bags, book bags, and an oversized purse. Within five minutes she informed us she was a writer. Wow, I thought, I’m a writer; maybe we can discuss things. I asked what did she write? I was informed she was a “Novelist.” Two finished works, and one she was working one, but not published yet. That’s cool, I thought, and went back to “The Lord of the Rings.” When she left, after filling all the empty spaces of that lounge with her voice, Sheila turned to me and said, “She’s no writer. She talked too much. Writers are silent, they talk on paper.” Sheila is my best friend and every time I hear the Grateful Dead’s ‘Sugar Magnolia’ I think of her. I do not have many friends, but I am a friend to many people. What I dislike the most about meeting people is the shaking of hands. You stick that hand out there and expect me to grasp it. I don’t know where it says I must touch you to be introduced.

Really, though, what is a dialogue without input? A narration. This forum is among the best way to speak to each other, and the worst way. There is time between the post, the read, the reply and the next and so on, and so on...it gives one time to understand and form a reply, it also loses whether or not one is joking, being facetious, or just an idiot. For me it is either choice "C" or all the above. Sheila says I am the only person she knows who can put both feet in their mouth in a single thought, and this thought does not have to be spoken.

I know what is being saying about going into the experience of near death experience with preconceived notions of what is to come, what is going to happen. Is that why I went to nothing? I have no beliefs. Yes I do. I believe in a heaven and hell: hell was 1969 and heaven is when Sheila and I are on the same wave length. Waylon Jennings said it best when he said "hell is when baby ain't there." (The Outlaws: Willie, Waylon, Tompall and Jessi (C) 1976) I have been under the knife a few times (three major ones for an incident in '69 alone) and during that one time I've never been that cold before.

There is a physics law that says basically that nothing disappears, it only changes. Wood plus fire equals ash, water vapor, heat, etc. So if there is a "soul" and it is a physical thing then it would seem to suggest that humans change into dirt, water vapor, and another existence for the soul. When does an embryo become an individual? At conception? At the instant a soul is formed from the nothingness, the Big Bang(?), from the chemical catalyst of the sperm and egg DNA. There is such a thing as inherited consciousness,
deja vu, past life experiences, flashes of precognition. It circles back to the beginning: If birth is another form of dying / death; is death another birth? If nothing ever ends just changes then the universe has been here evolving and changing since before time began and will be cycling after time ends and the Big Bang is just blowing smoke.

But, a non-believer will never be converted and we are only preaching to the choir. I cannot make anyone believe in aliens, nor green winds, nor nothingness. I accept it, but I such like discussing it. You can not take over this thread, you can only make it better, believe me...You can only make it better.

Genetic mutations for seeding purposes only. Maybe food...Soylent Green is people...

Really? I believe we are from Mars, and Venus is where the dinosaurs are living. And we'll move there when the time is right.

----------

Peter Pan Abduction Theory

Has anyone seen the movie “Peter Pan” and/or the second—sequel—where the mother grows up and meets Peter pan once more? Is that movie about an abduction or what? Peter Pan comes in her window and takes her out to a large dark object in the sky. There are the lost boys who never grow old, but then again neither does Peter. They go to another part of the night sky. I just think it is about an alien abduction.

I can’t say I have been abducted, but there are incidences in my life that have such a taint to them. During the times of these episodes there was nothing remarkable about them. It was only later when a small incident happened that I began to think back over my life and these seemed to stand out.

I was 10 or so living in Miami, Florida, actually Cutler Ridge or Perrine, in the summer time. I was laying out in the back yard watching the heavens, and the Heavens they were – I was looking into the Milky Way and the sky was white with stars. I was, and still do find myself always looking into the night sky.

At this time Miami, Dade County, didn’t have the urban sprawl it has today and one could look into the sky. There was a pasture where we use to play. In the middle was a old barn, and this barn seemed to call to me. The first time I entered there was an owl that I appeared to have frightened, but I don’t know who was frightened more, it or me.

In 1969 I was in the Army stationed in and around Pleiku, Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division as an infantryman and an ammo bearer on an 81mm Mortar. I heard something in the air that sounded like Morse code. I do not remember seeing any strange sights in the sky other than helicopters. In Nha Trang, in the Evac Hospital I heard what I thought to be Navy guns firing at the mountains, sounding like 55 gallon barrels whistling over. There was an incident that happened that shouldn’t have happened, or shouldn’t have been allowed to continue; it went completely against what and how I thought the Army did things. Sorry, I cannot, and will not, be more specific, it was just an incident.

The next time was around 1976 - 78 when I lived in Dobbs Ferry, New York. It was in the winter and it was snowing. I had taken out the dog for a walk. The apartment was in the back next to a service road, and on the far side of the road was a stone wall. The only thing I can remember of that night was that I was leaning against the wall and an entity was walking away from me, disappearing, into the snow. He, I felt pretty sure it was a he, was tall, skinny and had an odd way of walking I remember thinking “Icabod Crane” only because the knees bent backwards and we were near Tarrytown, NY. When I saw the movie “Close Encounters…” the tall alien at the end was familiar.

I also started having a reoccurring dream. It began as I was going to sleep. It was like I was growing and shrinking in time with my breathing and then I would float like a feather does with a pendulum movement. In the dream I was laying on a wooden stage, I could feel the roughness of the wood. I was naked lying on my back with my right leg raised, and the audience also to the right. At the time I was thinking it was so my genitals wouldn’t be seen. I couldn’t see the people, but I had an over whelming feeling they were just outside of the stage lights watching me. At this point the dream would change locations.

I was lying on an examining table in a room that was sort of like hexagonal but seemed to have more than eight walls; walls that I felt were plastic. This is a feeling that was so strong that it felt true then, and now. The walls were white and the light seemed to come from the walls in a defused way. The walls seemed to go up to infinity, but the light only went up about what I thought was ten feet. I had the feel of being watched, but I couldn’t see any one or thing. It was like an examining room and I was laying on an examining table. I cannot remember the table or getting off of it, just a feeling of being on it. After I left the room I was in a corridor ten feet wide. As I walked I would come to another corridor crossing at about fifty feet or so, sort of like a grid. I didn’t feel tired but it felt like I had walked all night, until I came to an oaken door with metal studs and hinges, like in some Fantasy story with Elves and Trolls. When I went through the door I would awaken.

During this time I worked for a company as a salesman, or rack jobber, where I would travel to the different stores and restock the shelves with the products the company sold. The first year I had a route that took me to Massachusetts and Connecticut one week and New Jersey the next. I began to collect owls, sometimes I would surprise myself by having an owl item without the remembering when or where I bought it. I had porcelain owls, ceramic owls, owls on calendars, I even had a gold chain with an owl pendant. This pendant was a little over an inch long and three-quarters of an inch wide; it was noticeable. I couldn’t pass a gift shop or store without checking to see if they had any owls. I had owls everywhere, but I hadn’t started a scrapbook – never did. This went on for about 2 years. There was a change to my territory; Pennsylvania was added and Massachusetts and Connecticut was taken away. I would fly to Jamestown, NY, and drive back through Pennsylvania. I was somewhere between Clarendon and Punxsutawney on a two lane road. I was doing about 60 when I saw a large owl drop out of a tree and head right for the car. I heard, and felt, it hit just above the windshield, but I was traveling too fast to stop. By the time I talked myself into going back, and finding a place to turn around, ten or fifteen minutes had passed. As I drove back at a slower speed I couldn’t find any evidence of the bird. I felt like I had passed the collision spot but continued on for a few more miles. When I turned around to continue my trip I still traveled at a slow speed. Never did find anything to do with the owl, nor was the car damaged. But I stop buying owls and began to get rid of the ones I had. The dreams went away. This was in the mid-seventies.

I get these feelings every now and then that I am being watched. But nothing comes of it. I have nose bleeds for as far back as I can remember, back to Miami and that barn. I always connected them with the migraine headaches I have had since I was about ten or twelve. They went away when I was about 25 years old, and now they have come back after I turned 45 or so.

We have lived in this house for nearly twenty years. A few years after we moved in, or about 5 years after living in Dobbs ferry, my second wife said she woke up one night and there were different colored balls she could see in the bedroom without any lights on. She also said there was a woman in the room. When she told this person that I was hers and she couldn’t have me the room cleared and she went back to sleep. I was not awake nor do I remember seeing anything like that since I gave up the owls.

I have no way of proving any of this. I don’t even know if I want to prove it one way or the other. It is just a piece of my life that I have lived with, making me some of what I
am today. I have been searching the Internet for a reference to owls since 1998 and this is the first time I have read anything close to what I had experienced.

--------------

Dream Sequence 8 16/17 2006

In the dream I am with my wife. I don’t remember seeing her but knew she was with me. Before the following sequence there are bits and pieces of the dream that I can’t remember. It is disjointed images of hotels, hotel rooms, bus rides, large area with covered table for eating and bingo(?). We are in a car, convertible, with another couple on dirt/gravel road through an area like a gravel pit. It then changes once more and the other couple are gone.

We walk up to the back of a building that houses a seafood restaurant. There is an open area access by an arch. There were a few tables and at one was a black family of four. They were having fried shrimp, grouper and the Captain’s Platter for seventy-five cents, a buck and a quarter and a dollar ninety-five for what the people out front were paying fourteen ninety-five to twenty-four ninety-five. In the back right was a guy sitting, he had on an apron and a towel over his shoulder. From the back left came a voice asking, “How long have they been there?” The cook answered, “Seven minutes.” At the time, during the dream, I didn’t think anything about it, except that it didn’t seem like seven minutes. I couldn’t tell you how long it was, but it wasn’t a long wait like some waits are. At this point the guy on the left began to escort my wife and I to the front of the building. During this my wife and I were separated but I didn’t think anything about it. I awoke before going any farther.

The seven minute answer was on my mind when I woke up and it has bothered me since then. How could the guy know it was seven minutes? And not answer, I don’t know, a few minutes. Or, not long. Why seven minutes?

-----------

First Impressions Versus First Meanings

When I read I find myself associating the words with my first meanings. I know each word has its own meaning but I find myself going with the one I got from the first time I heard the word, first impressions so to speak. As with individuals we only have a few seconds to present a first impression and probably less time for forming such an opinion for / of someone. I find myself going to certain writings because of what the title says to me in those first meanings. Sometimes I am surprised, but most often I do not get the exact meaning the writer was going for. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I go to writing because of the writer, and the first impression I made of them, with my first reading. I once took this writer’s piece apart line by line based on what I got from the poem. It was not a critique, it was done out of an experiment, a workshop, to show each other what the reader read and what the writer wrote. The concept is based on a writer saying she did not enjoy readers telling her what they got in the reading when it was not what she wrote. She felt she was straight forward in what she wanted to say in the choice of words she used. It goes back to first meanings. What words mean to each reader. As an example, there is a car company here that has three letters for its name, but when I see this word I do not think of cars but what those three letters mean to a US Army infantryman from the Vietnam era. Even though I do not always get exactly what the writer meant, I do enjoy the read.