Getting Older by the Day

Today is my birthday. As a young child I watched this day approach with all the anticipation of awaiting a circus train. But as a much older man, the day is a curiosity; a thing at which to wonder. I think I will celebrate by getting my long-ish hair shorn closer to my scalp. Perhaps then I will be less attractive to the blade of the young bucks, seeking a trophy for their lodge poles....oops. Wrong century.

James

By the Memory and by the Minute

By the Memory and by the Minute

Darkness mocks me

Stares back into my
Wide open eyes.

The hell with digital clocks
Is they
Flash time precisely
Unlike the grace of
Sweep second hands.

So I dance
With my demons

By the memory and

By the minute
Wondering endlessly
At the why's
And where-of's
Of this too-brief
Life.

Had I stood

A half inch to the left
Those bullets
Would have killed me.

Had I have been 

A bit more kind
She would have stayed.

Had I stopped

For coffee
Or had I not
Taken that call
Pivotal elements of my life
Would not have

Happened.

Life is the construct

Of choices made

In a single second.

I tease
At life’s frayed edges
Unraveling the moments
In the dark.

The void stares back at me

And I know...

Sleep is paper
Memory fuel
And time fire.

Secrets

Secrets may bind hearts
As surely as love.

Secrets shared
Are secrets compounded.

It is no longer the secret
But the secret that there are secrets
That knot the attachment.

Quietly held
The way evening holds shadows
Unspoken mysteries
Like darkening hues
Grow more potent
As time passes.

At an undetermined point
Parallel lines converge at infinity.
The secret
And those who held the secret
Become known.

The secret dissolves
And loses its mystery.
The power that bound the two
Instantly disappears
And its particle remnant
Is known as shame.

The two secret keepers
Once fast friends and collaborators
Now cannot tolerate the presence
Of one another

The world clicks
Its collective tongue
And a new secret is born.

The new secret is
That secrets themselves
Are not based in love
But desperation.

Desert Thunder

Desert Thunder

I live on earth
Lightly.

I make no footprint
Take nothing with me
Leave nothing behind.

My breath dissipates
Wispy as mist.

What few words I speak
Are as a turtle song
The coo of a dove
The thought of a dream.

The boldest of my speech
Is desert thunder...
Rumble without echo.

]My shadow shrugs off the soil
Like an old coat.

I am unencumbered
Of this shrink-wrapped
Pre-packaged
Tawdry and cheap facsimile
Of what passes for life
In this sad age.

I live on earth
Lightly.

Lazy 8's

Lazy 8's

Isn’t it strange
This turning of the wheel
Drawn on the sky?
Like lazy eights
And the breathless way I feel
As I watch the biplane fly.

What a turning we have been
Twisting in the air
End falling over end
Coming back to earth
Devil may care
Without wingman or friend.

Would that daring flamed you
As it did my soul
Weightless tossing of the heart
Horizons lost
Craft falling in a long, slow roll
Nearly tearing me apart.

You flew one way
I another.
In time, our time had passed.
Any heat I feel, I vent
The breath I have, I smother
Knowing nothing ever lasts.

So, pardon this sense of awe
And how I seem to reel.
It’s bent within my frame
And the nature of my flaw
To act on what I feel
And play my token in this game.

It’s like lazy eights
Etched upon the blue
Stark white, and strong
A testament to fates
The old becoming new
No matter right or wrong.

Write this on the sky
Let the Ariel song be sung
In verse bright and bold:
Let us live before we die
And be young
Before we’re old!

Wondering

How strange it seems
You should be where we last sat
In the dappled sun
Of late afternoon.

Cars moved slowly down the boulevard
Headed to suburban homes
While we leaned against the Parthenon
Home to Athena, and memories
Of whispers and glances.
We were like school children
Bashful and hesitant.

You wrote
You had returned
You were leaning against our wall
You missed me
You said.

Tell me
Was my shadow
Lingering in golden light?

I was wondering.
I have not cast one since.

No Citizen

My birthplace is not my home.
I came from here
But my identity is not here.
I have no blood here
And I've shed no blood here.
This is a dot on the map
And is incidental to
My identity.

My home is a few hundred miles
Down this red rock road.
I come from these dusty cotton fields.
My people wore home spun.
My grandma labored in her hot kitchen
Snapped beans on the front porch
And drank Dr. Pepper at 10, 2 and 4.
My grandpa teamed dray mules
In pole barns
And turned these clods into crops.
He fished in the St. Francis
And cooled watermelons in its stream.

My dad went to war from the depot
In this town
Came home three years later
And married my mom
After getting the blessing from 
Grandpa.
That's how we do things down here.
 
The bodies and bones of my kin
Rest here
And a few still clutch the Stars and Bars
In their bony grip.

So when you ask me where I'm from
I'll tell you quick.
No, sir. 
I'm no citizen there.
 



 
 

Background Noise

So much time
So many things
Between us.
You are background noise
And the static of
Things lost.

Pain seems to come from
My fingertips
Like electricity
Sparking and lighting
This unfamiliar path
And all I know
Is the keening ache
Of realizing you
Are past knowing
Are irretrievable
And I will not see you
Cannot take you into my arms
Again.

We are citizens of different times.

The Package

I couldn't see this coming
This inner security
And sense of control.
It arrived in a 
Plain brown wrapper
Addressed to 'Occupant.'

I opened the package.
It leapt from the table
Into my chest
And fit as though it were
Custom made.
  
It cleared my bleary eyes
Sharpened my hearing
My sense of smell and touch.

The only thing remaining
Is my sense of taste.
I'm looking for something
Appetizing.

And that seems to be 
More difficult than I imagined.

I don't need sweet
And don't want sour.
What's between?

Maybe that package
Has yet to arrive.  

I Am Coming*

Those with a noble
Pure Heart
Will Forgive you.

How they may stand
Beside the blood splattered
Wreckage
Remaining of the structure
In which their children and wives
Were butchered 
And extend to your savage claw
A redemption that continues 
To elude you
Is beyond my imagination.

No.

They may humbly
And righteously forgive you.
But I will not.

I am coming for you.
Directly at your front.
From the shadows at your back
Or quarter.
I am coming from below.
I am coming silently from above.

I will allow you just time enough
To recognize me
And the colors I wear.
And then you will
Die.

Because I am coming for you.


* "Thank you" to our sons and daughters that wear the uniform of our allied nations and provide that hard wall that protects us. Sometimes evil penetrates, but where are we without our military, and our law enforcement? Bless them!