Poetry: Silence is no Coward

“I am strong, but I am tired, Stephen, tired of always having to be the strong one, of always having to do the right thing.” Brenda Joyce, An Impossible Attraction

I’m not always much of anything.
I’ve been an old white man for a long time,
a branded stereotype with good teeth
and a bad attitude,

apparently not supposed to ask for
some things, cuz I am old and white.

It’s okay. Perhaps they’re fucking right.
Equality is in, unless you happen to be
old…
white…
and have what’s left of an old hard on.

Others were (and still are) treated like shit
by white guys. Nazis were, are, white,
male; no fucking idea how old fits.

Some old men are idiots, non-millennial
impotent bastards who hate everyone,
and everything, especially women.
Stereotyped, hairless shit heads
with nothing to do
but make mankind worse.

It’s a tough world, but we can try
to make it better each day.
To make it last.

©Bill Reynolds, 6/13/2019

Look and listen both ways for real equality. At least, don’t be unkind.
Mind the gaps like lifelines with stories to tell.

Poetry: It’s Not For Everybody. Is it?

I almost never wanted this – to be a writer,
but I write, I drink too,
seldom too much
anymore.

That’s not discipline or pride,
it’s from bein’ too fuckin’ old.
Thinking of words, I write them and then
I point, and I say, “Hey look, I’m a writer.”

Quite certain that of the many who
thought they had taught me English
as an academic subject, who gave me
perhaps deserved grades without motive
with one exception, may groan in their graves.

A good man, Thornton looked at me, “Why
are you even here?” I think he knew.

School was mostly bull shit. I learned little,
but it was still involuntary servitude crap
I never wanted to do again. Not like that.
Even college.

Today, I might not kill them,
but they might think I would. Back then,
I thought I needed them. Now I know.
One or two might scare a bit. Maybe.

A few. Very few. Assholes are not
educated out of it. But I write.
Look at me.

I think I always liked it (writing that is),
but nobody ever (till years later)
said that I was good at it. Maybe Thornton
hinted. Even Miff W. said, “You know,
college is not for everybody.”

Maybe not Miffy baby, but it was for me.
Surprised? Don’t be. You motivated me.

Look both ways, maybe with some bitterness and sarcasm.
Find motivation in the gaps.

Poetry: Gettin’ Shit Done

I live my life on a road
somewhere among stop
and smell the roses,
live this day like it’s your last,
or be active and get shit done.

Torn a little between bitchin’
‘bout being old and its baggage
and happy as hell to be so well.
Lucky is what they say, privileged
to be no worse, like dead ya’ know.

I used to say — live fast, love hard,
and die young. Like the Meat Loaf song,
two out of three ain’t bad, and besides,
I’m still having fun wonderin’
and wanderin’ up-n-down this ol’ road.

It’s time for some wildflowers
and maybe tomorrow I will
stop and look them over, and live that day
like it’s my last, dance like y’all ain’t lookin’
maybe I’ll even find a way

to get some shit done.

©Bill Reynolds 6/4/2019

Live, love, and look both ways. Find and mind all the gaps. Live well.

Monthly Poetry Report – May Poems

I write two kinds of poems. The daily poems are first drafts. The others I try to improve and I post some on this site.

Ideas for poems (and for everything else) pass quickly, and my notes are usually insufficient to reconstruct ideas or inspiration. When I try to use notes, I either loose the true, deeper concept of the poem, or I can’t decipher what I wrote. Thus, I often write out a more complete, but still unfinished and unpolished, work before it flies off like a lost sock.

At the start of May, I was burned out after April’s effort and I struggled to recoup my writing rhythm. I did no Limericks this month as I had hoped, but I’ve not given up.

There once was a lady from Texas…

Here are the titles for May’s 31 daily poems.

  1. No Pass Given
  2. They Are People Too
  3. Effort
  4. Now
  5. Goodbye, John
  6. May
  7. Little Blue Circle
  8. Walk in Circles
  9. Off-key Birds
  10. The Charge of Thoughts
  11. The Birds Meet
  12. Thanks, Moms
  13. Drunk Poets
  14. Library Thoughts
  15. By Saturday
  16. House Guests
  17. Dawn of Promise
  18. Why is it Like This?
  19. After Midnight
  20. Retired Too
  21. Yes, I Drink
  22. Too Much Nothing
  23. Channeling Chinaski
  24. Euphemistic Bull Shit
  25. Man Up
  26. Little Mocker
  27. Monday Morning
  28. And…Um, but: whatever
  29. Ain’t It Funny
  30. A Rare Cat
  31. Waiting

Have a wonderful and inspired June.

Bill

Looking back to May and forward to June is looking both ways.
Mind the gaps, the deep ones can be dangerous
and the shallows hide interesting secrets.
Live, love, and dance; I’ll join you.

Poetry: Fixing Things

broken
dirty
people who want to feel better

puzzles and problems

edit to make it better
fix by ignoring edits
aligning painting adjusting
solving brightening or darkening
and resolving

healing and being healed

fixed or broken

repeat

© Bill Reynolds 5/30/2019

Look both ways and mind the gaps.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it unless it’s poetry.
Always fix a poem.

********

Poetry: A Place for Weeds

Jim was watering his experiment
for his ag doctorate, Grasses of the Brazos.
The good ol’ country boy let his smile show
when I observed and laughed at him
for making a big deal out of a bunch of weeds.
They were not flowers or cash crop plants.

Jim said, without looking at me,
“a weed is just a plant out of place.”

Over fifty years now. Where did they go?
I remember Jim
and his greenhouse full of weeds at A&M,
we’d go spray water on them weeds daily.
Later Jim would defend his dissertation about
Brazos Valley dirt and river bank weeds.
Doctor Jim was a dirt man, agronomist.
Just a plant out of place.

Jim got his Ph and D in dirt.
Then, he moved away to California;
who with his high-pitched, out yonder,
Texas drawl, old Jim
was decreed Doc Jim, the good-old-boy
from Meridian, Texas.
In his own way, he became
a plant out of place.

Many times, I have been a weed,
a person out of place,
or so I felt.
I needed to be in a different place,
to feel unweedly,
wanted by anyone,
or not. Was I where I belonged?
Or, was I just another plant
out of place?

Was I
in the place I was supposed to be?
Bloom where you’re planted,
that’s what they say.
Weeds need to grow everywhere,
but it is nice to find your space.

No longer, am I,
a plant out of place.

©Bill Reynolds, 5/23/2019

Look both ways crossing but look all around for misplaced plants and people.
Mind the gaps, weeds grow there.

Poetry: Prisonless Thoughts

Freedom is a place
for minds and bodies,
one where I don’t belong.
It’s not where I am. I’ve never been.
It’s just not me. Can’t be.
And you’re not me.

With me?
Is freedom
no masters—no gods?
Am I free when I owe nothing?
Or, perhaps it’s something more;

I’m a life-long indentured servant.
Tell me what is freedom—will you?
Irresponsible of me to ask—but,
if freedom isn’t free, how can it be,
Freedom? Can you see?

Are we ever free?
Completely free, like birds.
A tree is more free
than are you and me.

Is there such a thing as truly free?
Can a society of people be free?
Or can’t you see,
the reality
of being
truly, truly free?

Ya know, it don’t matter to me—
we alone know
what it means to be,
or not to be
free. It just don’t matter to me.

Is there happiness in freedom?
How the fuck should I,
or should you, know?
We are a lot of things.
Free is not one of them!

© Bill Reynolds, 5/20/2019

Look both ways and be not slave to follies and deceit.
Heed the gaps for they may be the crevasses of your mind.

Dark Poetry: Forever Nothing

Part of me does not care. About anything. It hurts and yet, it dulls the pain. It is like a graft of nihilism on a life that screams fuck this to me, fuck you to the world, to the random meaningless of the universe. We are insignificant dots of nothing lasting less than a blink in the time bank of eternity. Dust. Then dust again. Can I love nothingness? Does the insignificance of meaning bring the refreshing quaff of the quiet hum of true love’s peace? What does it mean to not care?

Is that it? Dare I stare?
Is it? Are they correct?
AM I?
In the true end, nothing matters.
Is it all just one wee blip
unnoticed by a chaotic universe of
apparent orchestrated randomness
neither sweet nor bitter?
Are left and right the same?
Are choices and decisions fruitless?

Come to me, hold me, love me,
here now, today; this second is all
we have – no more. When this is done
we are finished. The dust of Cosmic rays
and light passing through hollow lives.
Find a good end. There is none.
Most are miserable psychotic,
drugged (if we’re lucky) endings
to whatever sufferable step through
the veil into the nothingness of forever.

Look both ways but live now. It’s all there is.
Mind the gaps, but don’t let them slow you.

Poetry: To Relax

Sit, stand, or lie
it’s the letting go
for a short time,
the normal
pace and musts of life.
To relax,
to retreat,
down time,
that sweet restful quietude of
peaceful nothingness,
without guilt or thought
of undone projects or
of others and their needs
or of love. Just the calm,
doing only what sustains
life—
enough breaths
in and out to be
conscious and aware
of the peace,
the silence,
nothing but the
sounds of time
passing, well spent
recovering fully
from living.

© Bill Reynolds 5/7/2019

Chill for now, look later to see both ways.
While in relaxing rest, gaps are meaningless.

Poetry: Unbleached Face of Death

Universal Death patiently awaits
each, forever it’s permanently there
welcoming every kind of life over eons
it’s always been the same, birth before Death,
if birthed at all, and some sort of demise
for both the stupid and the wise.

The universe knows each speck of dust,
each one of us for thousands of years
and will do the same for thousands hence.
We may count the minutes, hours, and days,
but in the end Death only counts the ways.

© Bill Reynolds, 5/6/2019

Look both ways in life, but we’ll not see beyond the veil.
Mind the gaps, in the end is the last gap.