Give a little click on ‘saunter’ to fly on over to Sammi’s blog and read more words of wonder.
Now Dance
I can almost see in my memory
when mother was proud of me
for those first sobering steps,
my cheerful run. Later,
I saw and heard mine;
Billy, then Steven, finally
Julie taking first frantic steps of life,
another charge without
casual saunter. We learn
to run, then we slow down.
Look both ways as we walk, run, or saunter through life.
Mind the gaps, do the best you can, and have fun.
It’s a one-way ticket.
***
And now, a 1980s fun rock as Dire Straits teaches us about the “Walk Of Life.” (Hilarious)
I used to ponder the meaning
when an attractive young lady
(she could be 50 or 60 nowadays)
would cast a trusting smile
my way and say, ‘you remind me of my father.’
Was she calling me old (true ‘nuf),
a difficult, somewhat deaf defender
(also true), or childhood disciplinarian?
A boomer, for Christ’s sake.
Perhaps it’s my ego,
maybe just plain self-guilt,
conceivably a DSM diagnoses.
I don’t know. Anyways.
I’ve finally realized
she could pay me
no greater compliment,
no higher honor, than to say,
in whatever loving way,
(or not)
she thought of him. When
she looked into my eyes,
she saw him. The first man
she ever loved.
Look both ways to understand.
Try to see yourself as another sees you.
Mind the gaps for confusion and clear understanding.
***
Gloss: DSM refers to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association.
Click on the graphic image to be transported to Sammi’s page and other ‘goodnight’ works.
Ginny-Ginny is Forever
I wish we were again
She, her; I, me, when
Somehow two were one,
All days and nights were special
When bedtime was large
with Daddy’s love.
I kissed her neck, repeating Goodnight, g’night so fast, ginny-ginny
became our special time,
She’d laugh, then sleep.
Look both ways at special bonds of love,
for wanting to be better than we were,
for past moments that will never be forgotten.
Mind the gaps of imperfection in humanity.
***
“A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.” ~ Unknown
“Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million-dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.” ~ Jim Bishop
The streetlight was
outside my second-floor bedroom window,
about sixty feet away,
kiddy corner from me,
but right across from Packy’s Bar.
At night, it dimly lit my bedroom.
(I didn’t like the pull-chain single bulb
that hung from a chain in the middle of the room.)
There was another light
a block farther up on Main Street,
and another was down on Washington
where a traffic signal clicked
when it changed to another color (all night long).
It had to be late and quiet to hear.
I didn’t care.
When I pushed my bed next to the window,
I could feel and smell smoke-free night air.
I saw and heard street and sidewalk sounds,
I watched the glorious night rain,
and sometimes people who were quieter at night.
Summertime I could see bugs flying around the light
as I listened to the raucous people up at Packy’s.
The light was near enough
to work with my mind adding drama to boredom
as the nearby maple-tree limbs and leaves
silhouetted diabolical shapes and shadows.
That’s how I saw them.
Frightening then. Old friends now.
Along with rain, the streetlight showed me
falling snow or eerie fog on dark nights.
Streetlights comforted me.
Now, when I get up before sunrise, I look out
to see another lonely, bored streetlight father away
on a much quieter street with no bars (just houses with old people).
I recall the days when I looked out for the light to tell me things.
I still do.
Look both ways to see the light.
Mind the gaps, the bars, and the interesting shadows.
Watch people.
My Dog was a big, ugly, fat fucker (BUFF),
boasting an un-pavonine but prominent
forty-eight-foot-tall tail
painted a horrid unreflective tar-black; likewise,
his underside, from empennage guns to radome nose.
Chemical odors inside mixed with piss and puke
fouled the air; noise enough to deafen,
disaster and destruction filled his big ebony belly.
On command, my camouflaged killer would ‘Cry Havoc;’
wreaking horrible death and terror onto the earth below.
Now, we haunt display grounds at air museums across the country.
Look both ways.
What you don’t see can kill.
Mind the gaps and don’t be a target.
Note: Allusion is to “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of Shakespeare’s history play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
A B-52D (circa 1975), also known as a tall tail or the “Old Dog.” It was the B-52 model (there were eight) used in the novel “Flight of the Old Dog” by Dale Brown.
Click on the tractor for link to dVerse post by merrildsmith in Poetics.
Old tractors can’t retire with much dignity.
Ours rests over yonder, near the barn.
With winter’s cold, snow, and ice,
or dry poundings of hot summers,
she tries to show well, just a little rust,
peeling paint, heavy worn tires.
Made to plough and cumber a heavy beam,
an ox of steel and rubber, she carried men to work,
sowed seeds, and tilled the soil.
A mammoth farm and ranch hand, she
pushed and pulled cultivators and harrows,
drug fertilizer wagons,
pulled mowers, rakes, and bailers
with tires heavy with water and mud.
I still remember the day I first grabbed ahold
of her wheel learning to drive and work hard.
Thank you, my friend, for teaching me
so much about life, work, sweat, tears,
and the weather. But mostly about how
to age gracefully and with dignity.
Look both ways but history teaches more.
Mind the gaps, find the truth, keep your pride and dignity until a tractor retires.
From New York it winds
nine hundred mudlarkable shoreline miles
through the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic.
Unlike Billy Collins, I fished it,
caught carp, sucker, catfish, perch; swam
polluted waters; climbed and walked
bridges and trestles. I grubbed its mud.
Remember disasters. Before mountains rose.
The Susquehanna is in my blood.
Look both ways when the river flows.
Here it comes, there it goes.
Mind the gaps, the pits, the whirlpools, and vermin.
***
Poetic license: The Susquehanna River is 444 miles long from New York, flowing through the State of Pennsylvania (where I knew it) into the Chesapeake Bay. That’s 888 miles of shoreline. I rounded up. Disasters include the Knox Mine crime, Three Mile Island, pollution and environmental catastrophe on an epic scale, and many devastating floods.
Click the graphic to go to Sammi’s Blog. There you may read more prose or poems, and you can play along.
Yearning for Old Broadway
The Empire State’s
wonderful people
of the city that never sleeps.
Coney Island, Manhattan,
Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
That tall building, George M!,
Lady Liberty, the Bronx,
‘the city so nice
they named it twice,’
Gotham,
Broadway Joe, the fucking Yankees
in the Big Apple.
Herald Square, Times Square.
How I want to be there.
Sadly, the day of many hearts
broken by hate.
I love New York!
Look both ways.
Take the Staten Island Ferry and the NYC Subway.
Mind the gap, as in watch your step in the City of Five Boroughs.
Our Literary Journey 