040521d

 

loafing the day

away on wings of words

dropped like pearls from lips

smacking the hours

into night

120920b

 

First daughter's birthday today. The rest of us in the next 6.5 weeks. Every time around the sun let's us see the cosmos roughly 365 times, if we look at it once per diurnal cycle. Aw.

Lou Reed said it best: "But that's just some other time."

100120b

 

train's calling

but the dog doesn't move

dreams she's running

092320b

 

sun breaks through

I try to warm

my autumn bones

082520

 

you fell into the time gate

came back so changed

I didn't recognize you

I thought I'd lost you

mourned your passing

then I looked in the mirror

I was lost too

it was ok

032320b

spring rain     oak cane on a slippery ramp

030820

the years keep getting shorter;
to an immortal,
the years flit by like
days to a child do;
the fall of Rome
feels like yesterday;
dementia,
almost a relief

12071 9 c

When this nurse was born, my youngest daughter was six years old. The nurse has a baby and looks pretty darn young. we are both enjoying her learning about how to deal with someone in my condition. So that makes me feel virtuous and makes her a better nurse -- good for both of us.

073119c

never to climb a tree again
quadriplegia
or just growing old

011119

happy birthday to me
1 year older
for 12 days
gotta make the most
of my stint as eldest

091018b

Laid low this weekend by a bad cold. Got nothing done.



mortality
understanding why some writers
vanish from the lists

013118

even the sun dies
shining without a flicker
up till now

101917

Not Getting Old; Always Was Like This


what I need to do
in my office
is not even "what did I forget?"
at the end of the hall
I'm on to something else
no blank slate here
but chores forgotten
again and again

101817c

the love song of rabbits
where fur meets fang
and the green slit-pupil eye
the old man has still got it
though white hairs freckle sable
and he pauses
before a high jump

101017e

Links

I’ve always gone for patties, but them eggs,

They’re fried, not raw, not scrambled, poached or boiled,

And grits! Could write a paean just to grits,

But this just ain’t that pome; this one’s for links,

No not the links where there’s a hole in one,

The links of which hot dogs are but a shade,

The grease of them would kill you now for sure,

You’d better give them to the dog this time.

Gee willikers, there was a time long past,

The links were ev’rything to clear-eyed you,

Aw, yoghurt now for breakfast if at all,

The whole-wheat toast with jam on special days,

And wouldn’t 10-year you have said just kill

Me now, I never want to live like that.

A blank-verse sonnet.

090117b

printer cat
sleeps in sunlight
dreaming of chipmunks
which he exterminated
in his youth

081317

Set a spell

The cabin hid behind its sagging wooden porch. Only gradually did one realize the frayed clothing in the battered folding chair held a man. The jeans were patched and re-patched, the shirt might have been yellow once, the hair and beard were white, the face was lined and dark. Behind the cabin the land fell away. The front of the structure already shadowed, the valley behind was drowned in light. The old man might've been staring at a young visitor standing in front of his home.

The Colonel cleared his throat, unused for so long. "Johnny? Is that you? City treating you well?"

Silence.

There might've been a time ... but no, there was no one. The fading sound of a car going down the little-used dirt road, a brief pause to the bird song and rustling in the dry leaves. The house was empty as it had ever been; on the porch a gray rag and a couple of broken sticks were heavily carpeted with dust.

Publ. Daily Cabal 2009

063017b

nothing brings home the feeling
of do it now or else
like the slow oncoming train of cancer
the teetering tower
cliff-base erosion
incoming tide
of call it what you will
but finish that book
make the trip
say the words
look into the eyes
procrastination no longer the best option
savor every drop

061017c

It seems that, except for a few years here and there, the world has been going to heck, handbasket-wise, my whole life. This may be an illusion. I know that parents have been complaining about use and their irresponsible behavior for more than two millennia. We have written records. So maybe things have seemed to be going down the toilet for longer than there have been toilets. I hope so.

I don't know what drivel the leaker-in-chief is going to be voiding at 3 tomorrow morning, but I'll find out sooner than I want without any special effort on my part.

And now my expected visitors here, scarcely more than 10 minutes late. Something does run on time but I don't know what. Maybe only time itself.

010817

Letter from a Red-Shifted Star

You flew so high that you flew into time,

Like a fly caught in slow glass,

You may emerge someday when the sun is cold,

And I am dead or transformed, and no longer in love with you;

Something we will have in common, finally.

And the Velvet Underground, in Dallas,

Football fans all, chagrined at a lopsided game,

Sang about sex, drugs, major surgery, and rock-and-roll.

Their dangerous music,

Which led many children to ruin,

Hardly seems different from Perry Como to kids today.

I don't even like your dog,

Which I will be walking twice a day,

Until the stupid thing dies.

I couldn’t kill it, though I tried.

Damn right I sold the antique DVDs, china,

And all the house plants;

The 3D never needs to be watered.

I will keep the old CDs though,

All those that work; you didn't even like Frank Zappa

But I dig his quaint attempts to shock.

The things they thought outrageous a century ago!

Listen closely, here's my bullet:

I never needed you.

First printed in Abyss and Apex 12, 2004