Collateral Damage

On the trail I can pick a point

Out in front of me,

I can study the ground,

See where my feet will come down,

Make split second adjustments

To avoid unintended complications.

All my obstacles are concrete and nameable.

It is the same with everyday life

If I care to open my eyes,

If I care to crack open my chest

And feel the blood pump.

If I turn myself inside out

And study all the little sparks

Flowing on the internal tributaries

I can see what mechanisms they cause to fire,

Make a record of all the tiny bodies

Strewn about, all the carnage

Littering my soul.

Goofy

Is it goofy to get excited

Over those on line home value estimators

Coming in better than I figured,

Boosting my confidence

We’ll be able to have a pretty good retirement,

Unencumbered by the fear of living longer

Than the money holds out,

Being stuck surrounded by concrete

In some walk-up we can barely afford,

Instead having open spaces

Out the front door,

A nice kitchen and walk out deck for Jackie,

And a shop with space for out-feed,

And only a couple hours or so

From my best friend?

Holiday Poem

I hope you haven’t been waiting

For some sappy poem about thanksgiving.

It’s not that there are not things I could mention.

For some of us the holidays tend to emphasize

The broken parts of the human condition.

They come slinking to the table

Trying to hide their bandages

Behind polite conversation, which,

If you know me at all,

I have never been good at,

Never having understood the rationale behind

Pretending you are whole when you are not,

Making it bad form to express,

As broken as I am,

Thankfulness for being accepted as I am,

Bandages and all.

Critique

I approach the holidays with trepidation,

Still unable to find Norman Rockwell

Standing before an easel in my living room

Or out on the picturesque porch  

Under an eave festooned with Ivy.

Salvador locked him out long ago

Melting all the doorknobs and

Placing the keyholes out of reach.

He is discussing with Picasso

The possibility of Van Gogh’s entry,

All that blurriness being   

As close to reality they’ll allow.

Hold

What is the rule concerning dreams?

Are they more binding when the word

“American” is placed in the forefront?

Where do I file a complaint when one is broken?

Is there an office somewhere in DC

Where the paperwork gets lost,

Or perhaps a warehouse where dreams are filed away

Pending future disposition or denial?

If I want to phone in for information,

What’s the eight hundred number I call

To talk to a computer who can answer

None of my questions

Before I’m put on indefinite hold?

Flummoxed

I continue to be flummoxed

In my quest to determine absolutely

The right way to go.

Contrary to fearful opinion

There is no empirical evidence for me

To determine the existence of solid ground

Unless I step on it and,

Even then,

It may only be thin ice

I am venturing out on.

The verdict demanded by evidence

It seems to me I must place my trust in the

Sometimes suspect experience of

Those who have gone before,

Often based on an ancient text

Which scholars and philosophers have argued

The veracity and meaning of for centuries.

Perhaps a saving grace is

I also have my own experience to go on,

And, either I am delusional,

Am misreading certain unexplained phenomena,

Or I’m headed, if somewhat haphazardly,

Down the right road,

I really can’t say which.

I wish I had a definitive answer

And could be of further help.

I know that some who claim to have found their way

Are poster children for places you don’t want to go,

But it says somewhere you have to taste it

To see if it’s any good.

So, good luck on your journey

And I hope you find the way.

Questions of Faulty Design

It must be lonely to be right about everything,

To be aware of all the faults of design,

To see around all the corners,

To know the end of a sentence before it’s spoken.

It is a thankless task to blot out surprise,

To insist on an end to all mystery,

To whittle down everything to innocuous ends.

Walling oneself off behind religious precepts

Must be excruciatingly frustrating

With the world refusing to conform

To dictates narrowed down to remove all doubt.

Certainty is a futile pursuit

Given the finite nature of human design,

But then again, I suppose,

You would have done that different, too. 

Small Prayer

Is it too much

To ask

For a place

To land,

Room to walk

In the woods

After I get too old

To drive,

Or when after

I’m tuckered out

From climbing the stairs

To the porch

I can sit and watch

The trees grow.

The Same Side of Different Coins

Sadness is often the appropriate response to

Broken things.

Jesus wept at a friend’s passing

And, if they were around at the time,

No one would have called the men in the white coats,

Concerned over Jesus’s inappropriate

Display of emotion,

Though they might have called professionals

To fill in a lack of mourners

In the event no one cried.

Thankfully Jesus was not depressed

Over the sad affair

And did not refuse to rise from his mat

Or talk to any of his disciples,

Let alone brush his hair, get dressed,

And walk all the way to Bethany

To raise Lazarus from the dead

When he was only

Going to die again anyway.

Time Clock

I suppose I started running out of time

The moment I was born.

Everybody who knew tried to tell me.

At first, if experience is any judge,

I scrunched up my face and cried,

Waving my stubby arms around in furious impotence.

Later, when I first thought everything was new,

I toddled around wide eyed

Like things would never end.

Eventually I learned the error of my thinking.

I live in a finite world with finite resources

And I, my present self,

After my many adventures,

Will someday end,

Although on occasion

I will still take myself too seriously,

Toddle around and cry

Over all the spilled milk.

I Still Haven’t Found It Either

  

I don’t know what I’m looking for

So I keep living my life,

Bumbling along without enough information

To tell if I’m doing the right thing

To prepare for the second coming,

The other shoe,

Or something in between.

They say the economy is about to collapses,

Or is about to boom

Due to twelve technological innovations.

Anyway they say something is on the horizon

Available to those in the know

If you join the right religion

Or political persuasion,

Or pay the low low price,

Or sign over your first born,

Or sell out your soul,

Or there’s that book you have to read

By some super pastor

Illuminating the nine steps to spiritual nirvana,

Also available in cassettes

Or handsomely bound CD collection.

Caution, Human Being Inside

I live my days one after another.

I do not prognosticate into the future,

Making claims of clairvoyance.

I am a combination of nature and nurture

And reject the notion it is one or the other.

I am just as mysterious as anybody else,

Not subject to labels put upon me

In an effort to make me safe to handle.

I am no safer than any other human and

I am subject to all the contradictions

Of being alive and sentient in the 21^st century.

Any preconceived notions of who and what I am

Or plans to make me something I am not

Should be discarded

As these will prove a great hindrance

If the goal is to know me at all.

If I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Maybe a little trepidation

And a lot of curiosity

Is the smartest way to approach?

Sufficient Grace

I’m avoiding today,

Not wanting to admit the fear I feel

In the consequences of what I write.

It is no fun being tired on the same old shit,

Beat down and seeing no way through it.

I make my pleas and, if his grace is sufficient,

I don’t see it.

I understand my seeing or not

Makes little difference in the scheme of things

And I know I’m not alone as David wondered

If his tears would melt his couch

And it’s probably good I’m using tears as a metaphor

As otherwise we would have drowned by now,

But I would appreciate some sort of response

Just to let me know I not

Yelling into the wind.

Mirror

It takes a lot of energy to deny the mirror

You seem to be constantly looking into,

You fault finding vigilance of everything

Not measuring up to deified standards

You hold to with a death fearing grip.

It’s that grip that’s killing you,

Lays waste to what you demand to be close to

With your scorched earth version of love.

Love is not what you think is best for someone else.

Selflessness is not killing yourself for the same reason.

These are the opposite of what you suppose them to be.

They are an attempt to make the world in your own image.

They are in direct opposition to
What you profess to believe.

Maybe

Sometimes I feel on hold,

Waiting for what I do not know,

Standing off someplace watching the world spin,

Wondering where it’s going,

If I’m invited to the party.

Or maybe some cataclysm coming,

Ending whatever world I’m not living in,

Don’t really get?

Maybe I don’t want to be invited,

Maybe it’s just some drag I’d rather avoid?

Maybe it’s God again, dragging me someplace

I don’t think I’m ready to go?

It seems I’m either dragging my heels,

Or taking a running leap.

Or maybe I’m doing both

And that’s why it confuses me?

Fire Machine

The fire machine seems, at onset,

To be working as required

By the manufacture’s design,

Not at all excessively dirty

Or filling with non-combusting pellets.

It’s a nice little machine

Producing an actual wood burning like flame

At the touch of a couple buttons,

With a nice distribution of heat

Due to the fan.

It would, however, become useless

In the event of a power failure

Or the discontinuation of the pellets.

If you’re a prepper,

A large stock of pellets would be required

Along with a sizeable storage area,

Somewhat moisture free,

As the forty pound bags swell when wet

And could rupture whatever structure they were in

If packed to tight.

So in the event of societal collapse

An old fashion wood stove would be preferable.

Otherwise, the pellet stoves are fine.

The air intake does require a little fine tuning

For it to burn at the proper rate.

Toxic Fumes of Betrayal

Toxic fumes of betrayal demanded Danny’s attention.

Aggie’s look withered his euphoria to silence.

She rose from her plastic chair an avenging Valkyrie,

Cut across the dance floor,

Tore Fleetwood off Fiona, spoke briefly.

Fiona followed her out.

Danny ran after, a forgotten puppy.

In the cold Highland night,

Under the sharp stabbing starlight,

With the air of a Furry,

Aggie forced a little cab to stop.

She entered. Fiona followed.

She fell weeping into Fiona’s arms.

The cab sped up the highroad with his dreams to Dunoon.

He stared after them deaf and dumb,

Bathed in the effluence of rotting fish and fuel oil

Emanating from the Clyde.

He went back in the club.

With the determination of a somnolent,

He drank himself stupid.

Wingnut’s Joke

Under the low ceiling in the big room,

On a dance floor hemmed in by round folding tables,

Fleetwood loomed lovingly

Over raven haired, busty Fiona,

She the pivot of his slow circles.

Sticking to a molded plastic chair,

Danny admired the slimmer Aggie.

She was much prettier than Fiona, he thought,

And the red head bartender

He flirted with while he got their drinks.

A fog of cigarette smoke swirled slowly near the ceiling.

Through the bay window behind the band,

Moaning through “Color My World,”

The oily dark Clyde glistened.

“Daniel J. Paradise!”

Danny tore his eyes from the rapturous Aggie.

Wingnut stood over the table

With arms wide, cheesy smile, and crooked teeth, he said

“How long’s it been?

How’s the wife and kids?”

In dramatic fashion he noticed Aggie.

“Oh. You’s with somebody.

Aint none of my business.

I got to run.

My little something on the side is waiting.”

E.M. Club

In the fall of 1971,

Behind a guarded chain link gate,

Across the black waters of the Firth of Clyde,

Steel monsters sat tethered to the mother ship

In the middle of the Clyde.

Across the road from the gate,

Far from home,

Nuclear annihilation intruding on the periphery

Of alcohol dulled brains,

Young boy/men careened like pool balls

In the enlisted men club in Sandbank, Scotland.

There, with females of the species in short supply,

It was a mistake when Danny and Fleetwood

Brought Aggie and Fiona to the E.M. club to dance. 

Off Kilter

Failing is the only thing I’m sure of.

Whatever I try to accomplish

I fall short of the goal.

It is, I suspect, my finite nature,

The impossibility of knowing all the variables

At play in any given endeavor,

Leading to inevitable miscalculations,

Multiplied to an unknown degree.

My inability to calculate the possible outcomes

Coupled with my desire not to be perceived an idiot

Sometimes leads circumstances ranging far afield

From the planed trajectory.

More questions Separating Delusion from Faith

Is it okay to pray for a dream,

A want I can feel in my fingertips,

In the curl of my toes?

Is it okay to plead with God,

To say I don’t know, but

It seems like You said

We belong someplace else?

Is it okay to feel home is

Five hundred miles away,

In a place we’ve never lived,

In a house we’ve never seen,

On ground we’ve never walked?

Is it okay to feel the sun

Coming up over the trees

On a hill where we’ve never stood?

Is it okay to give thanks

To what we have not yet received?

Buy the People, To the People

Its down right depressing the way bureaucracy

Has devolved not to work,

The committees set up to not function

In the most soul deadening way,

The promise of what could be whittled down

With the voice of each unspecial interest.

The blind men aren’t trying to describe an elephant,

They’re trying to build one,

Breathe life into it buy strapping it down,

Hammering out all the bumps and

Cutting out all the disagreeable parts.

They pump it full of hot air,

Patching up the holes with spit and chewing gum

As they go where nobody wants to

Except the lunatics on the fringe

Of one side or the other.

They stand aghast, indignant, righteous,

Secure in the justification their pandering

Will buy a few more sound bites

To lie convincingly to an ever widening constituency
Of the ilinformed.

Termination

I hear Arnold is going to play the lead

In a new Terminator movie.

It could be good.

He could be this old, broken down model,

Abandon in some dystopian future,

Some boy hero finds him

And he’s like some robot on Alzheimer’s

Who needs to get it together for one last mission

To terminate himself

From ever being in another Terminator movie

In any role other then a cameo.

I here he’s going to do Conan again,

Maybe playing a washed up old king.

Hit’em Again. Hit’em Again. Harder. Harder

.

In high school, doing our warm ups,

We chanted “Kill Evanston. Kill Evanston.”

Or Waukegan, or whatever suburb

We were riling ourselves up for.

We didn’t actually want to kill the whole suburb,

Just the players of their football team.

And we didn’t want to kill the players,

Just hurt them enough to take them out of the game.

We practiced diligently in order to be able to do this.

A good hit received much congratulations.

Seeing to the teammate writhing on the ground

Was a secondary consideration.

A lot of it was a mind game,

A game of intimidation.

We practiced that to.

I imagine the skill set of the NFL

Is no different than high school football.

It’s a brutal sport.

The skills and mindset off professional players

Necessary to engage in such organized brutality

Produce unique individuals,

And while hazing in the locker room may be a problem,

There are other more pressing problems to consider

Before more sons are sent off

To the peewee leagues

Where they learn to crash into each other

With ever more efficiency and force.

Empty

You’re not here,

I dropped you off and drove back

To this empty place,

The place where I wait

Until it’s time

To drive back and forth again,

Bringing you back

To make it not empty.

The War On Drugs

I guess, if you’re a big company,

Like Johnson and Johnson,

Or if you pockets are deep enough,

You can buy your way out of anything,

Like drugging my dad,

Who was on the receiving end of their scam

To market Risperdal to nursing home patients,

Enabling him to drool and fail to hold a fork

A day after I talked to him while he ate lunch.

After a strenuous objection, they took him off it,

But the experience was enough for him

To see where life was headed

And he stopped eating and drinking.

But J and J will pay their fine,

Thus, the government will get its cut,

And the war against unapproved drugs

And the citizens who imbibe,

Goes on.

A Different Nose

Maybe Gogol had a runny nose,

Imagined it running off in those Russian winters,

Or wished it did?

More likely it was snooty people

With their noses’ up in the air

Causing the barber to slice it off,

Unlike mine,

Which I’m more likely to loose

In a paper towel

(Tissues are much to flimsy.)

I’d throw away the towel,

and my nose would escape.

It would fail trying to put on aristocratic airs,

Being more a grubby Aqualung,

Living on the streets.

I would not have to chase it down.

My nose would come crawling back,

Trailing its slime,

Begging readmittance to my face.