What was the most tired you been?
Slept standing or fallen down tired?
Been so dizzy? I hallucinated.
At POW camp they
would not let us sleep.
Peed in a #10 coffee can,
locked in cell, both overflowed.
To learn how to survive capture,
being treated beyond awful, we endure
such misery; to live it, feel it, survive it.
I thought I would not. Might never try.
How did they survive not knowing;
forsaken and forgotten?
Many decided to die. Too awful
to live. Most decided otherwise.
Sometimes, dancing in the rain,
or walking through the fire
are both hard-learned lessons.
Look both ways for light at both ends of the tunnel.
Mind the gaps in the dark until you can see.
Find life. Love freedom.
A Starbucks in a grocery store,
it’s still a place to shop
for food, and in this state,
wine and beer—a super market—
what my mother would call
the Acme (pronounced ack-a-me
in the vernacular of “The Valley”
where I grew up)—
those early places that put
the small Mom and Pop, corner
stores with personal
one-on-one service and where I,
even as a kid, could say,
“put it on our bill,” out of business.
No receipt. No stolen identity fears,
just trust. A time and place where everybody
knew my name and who my
family was, and knew more about all
of us than any one of us did. And
the cash register had a crank handle,
and I could walk there
in five minutes and nobody
had a credit card and Starbucks
and my first child were still
then, 15 years from now.
That Mom and Pop stuff
is all gone now.
But there’s $14.65 left
on my Starbucks gift card.
Look both ways, there is no time limit on gift cards,
and I will think of you every time I use it.
Mind the gaps, they have limits and must be used.
The vertical pronoun was your god,
the long corncob pipe,
a crutch as you’d exude imperious
confidence of irresponsible
narcissistic self-assured vanity.
Brilliance without wisdom never
questions self or knows dark
duality like Hastie Lanyon’s soul.
Your crime, a distant impassioned
supercilious and cavalier concern
for the misery your pomposity
beset upon your courtiers, devout
mindless adventured foolish demons,
lost souls who rose to the peek
of principled Peters with blindfolded
ignorance of history in the future,
now a legacy of incompetence
foddered with pride. With hubris
envied by Xerxes, you forced
your own shameful dismissed
demise.
The wisdom of a fading old soldier
heroically without end is clouded
by the dark shadow of your way,
the way, and the way of stars.
Legacy looks both ways, but history finds truth in justice.
Mind the gaps of human success for the failure of the soul.
Not since Mobile Bay’s view
of the infamous Poop Cruise ship
(2013 docked view from I-10)
have I joined thousands on
a wasteful float to who-cares where,
doing nothing to be in the
vulnerable middle of
a watery nowhere.
Cruise food may be good
and if you are looking
for the ten pounds I lost
you may find it there,
but must we live
in postage stamp rooms
with a view of nothing
ever new, to overeat well?
I’m done with cruise line
silliness, getting on and off
and making memories
I’d like to forget,
but I hope not
so much for eating well.
ROAD TRIP!?
***
To look both ways, we must know one from the other.
In the middle of truly nowhere, not even the gaps can feed the fish.
At night they come
poems left undone
words yet to write
from mind ‘n sight
as craft anew
they slowly grew
words darkness knew
I begged to plead
I really need
Look both ways in day or night, no poem’s ever done,
till from the poet its freedom’s won.
Be awake and mindful of the gaps.
Checked in on a Saturday afternoon
to a cheap downtown Sacramento motel.
Got a room away from the others,
but the place was deserted at three.
Cowtown Marathon showtime
was at six in the morning. I had to be
up and dressed, ready to drive
with all my stuff to the meetup place
for coffee, food, and start line directions.
At two in the morning I learned why
the motel was empty and the desk clerk
was already apologizing when
the party moved in, filled every room,
with loud voices, the distinct click clack
of hard, high stiletto heels and reveling
drunks having a wild noisy time.
Up and out at four AM, everyone was
gone when I returned at noon. None too happy
with my neighbors of the night, another
greater challenge run finished alive,
but tired and sore with a medal in my hand.
Look both ways and remember the idiom
about sleeping with dogs in cheap downtown motels.
Mind the gaps and the ladies in stilettos, tap-tap-tap.
This economy lies with deceptive pleasure – destruction, pending one hell of a bill to pay. We suck and devour the heritage of descendant’s gifts, their demise through our greed. When the well runs dry, the piper calls for payment, recovery of burnt offerings to self without gods who care for a prayer. Easy plunder blinds our need for air, water, food, and fire. Misery awaits death and disaster, sending ignored warnings past personal pleasure.
It’s not yet too late to reverse unwanted ends with the wisdom of science, we can turn the page. What higher cause to save humanity, perhaps the planet, our tiny corner of the universe?
Look both ways to past mistakes, future consequences,
bookends for today’s wisdom.
Mind the gaps in human psyche for sources of timely recovery.
Some things I’ve always known,
like where the Library was,
especially the one with a funny name,
the Osterhout Free Library,
in my hometown, which to me
was and is The Library.
Looking like the Presbyterian church
it first was in 1849,
with (now gone) ivy covered walls,
hinting of mysteries, adventures,
and the wisdom within;
a mile to walk was nothing
for a keen young lad to go
for a book or two.
Through church doors that open
into the vast, once Calvinistic,
nave with colorless unstained leaded glass,
now with desks and shelves filled
with books and things,
one finds it all.
Hush! Whisper please.
People are reading.
Off to the left dim dark stacks
beckoned like a secret
church transept and silent choir loft.
The true spirits of the library’s haunted
dark and dingy, yet welcoming,
old book-scented stacks, silent
dust and maybe mischief,
with muffled giggles of children
or lovers, each playing with
resident hushing ghosts.
Long ago—a place of prayer,
now a sanctuary
of human wisdom and happiness.
***
Comb the dark stacks of old libraries looking both ways for dusty old history.
Mind the gaps and giggles of the ghosts.
Note: Because this was my first community library during my formative years, it was what I expected all others to look like. Not a bad standard.
It was not so many years ago that I wrote my first poem; an exercise in rhyming couplets about Abilene, Texas. I wrote and posted it for the first day of the A to Z blogging and the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) online challenges, both of which started on April (first) Fools’ Day. Each poem worked dual duty for both challenges in alphabetical order, cuz that is what A to Z is about.
By the first of May of that year, I’d written twenty-nine more poems. I felt a certain amount of pride (yay, I did it) mixed with relief, and some embarrassment about my ignorance of poetry, poets, and verse in general. The next year I wrote separately for each challenge, using the NaPoWriMo prompts each day and I have done so since.
Almost immediately, I loved poetry and embarked on a self-directed program of adventure to learn all I could about the craft and art of poetry. What is it they say about when the pupil is ready?
Since that experience, with one surgical exception in 2018, every day I have thought about, read about, written, edited, and/or read some poetry. Although, I probably did think or talk about it on surgery day.
I’ve bought, read, and reread books about poetry by the likes of Packard, Oliver, Hoagland, and other masters. I have often devoted entire days to a somewhat tireless pursuit of forms and styles; to the art and craft of poetry writing. I learned about poets, which ones I liked and those I’m not yet ready for. I’ve read biographies of poets, and I know many histories and life experiences from the Bard (or Omar or more ancient versifiers) to contemporary characters and personal poet friends.
One day while discussing poetry with a friend we decided we could refer to ourselves as poets after we had written one hundred poems. I claim it now, however, it’s still a forced thing for me to say even after so many poems and, in her case, a published book of poetry. I’m working on a book, too. No promises. I still suffer from imposter syndrome sometimes.
How It Started
About this time last year, I committed to writing at least one poem each day. I call them daily poems (I’m so creative) to differentiate from others. They average slightly more than 100 words each, although some poems are much longer and a few are shorter, like those for Sammi’s weekender prompts which have specific word count requirements. Most are handwritten into one of three medium sized notebooks. Others live in my laptop.
I work on (edit, revise, correct, review) every poem I have written before I post it. Dailies are first drafts and nothing more until I go back and work them.
The experience of writing 365+ poems has taught me much more than I expected. Sometimes (rarely) the first draft is not so bad, but every poem needs work.
I like to think I am a better writer, and if I may claim it, an improved poet for it.
Finally (drum roll)
December’s poem titles were:
Closer
When You Go
Making My Bed
Trudy’s
Happy Days
The True Void
Barricade
Finding My Way
What I Miss
Poetry Comes
My Library
Dream Library
Friday 13th Fears
How I Want It
Cleaning Crew
Electric Romantic
Taste of Love
How Difficult the Challenge
Erect Buck
Twelve Ways to Twenty
The Desert Call
Hubris
Average Joe
Why Do They Die?
The Gentleman I Wished to Be
The Sled
Matters Matter
Old School Casual
Complex
What if it isn’t perfect?
Clinical VA
So, this is it. A year of poetry and 11 other end of month reports like this one. It’s a new year, new decade, and new poems yet to write, but 2019 and my 365-poems project are fait accompli.
Always look all ways. Seek the gaps and mind them well,
wherever you find them time will tell.
Our Literary Journey 