Day was turning to dusk,
soon to be twilight,
and a lovely sight, one my
muse would give me clues
to a perfect poem, this
sight to be the meter
of my metaphor
for the twilight of humanity,
but it was not to be.
Going to the pool
to swim my hour, to do
aerobic huffing and
puffing, to get my
workout, after a day
putzing while working
around the house,
the garage mostly.
Sometimes, even as poets,
the best we can do is to say,
“Yes, I was there, I saw that,
and it was beautiful.”
Then I jumped
into the pool and swam.
‘twas a clear dark night
when I got out.
Apparently, my muse
can’t swim and retired
early that evening,
Leaving me even
as twilight comes and goes,
to be a verseless but happy
semi-healthy poet.
Swim both ways to lap away the twilight looks.
Mind the gaps as we seek piquing peeks.
Does hubris feed my ego? Is it the other way around, where my pride has need of honor and glory? Are the two without peer? Tell me please, the middle aged or old, has-been American male; and what of truth? When did somewhere in the middle cast the shadow of failure? When did wealth become honor, dishonor become firebrand, and fact become fiction?
Can I stand naked and alone, on my own merits and feel sufficiently honored in my own skin? Do I need groupie demagoguery to feel satiated at my needy soul?
Look both ways to see the approaching train-wreck.
Mind the gaps and seek the truth.
I’ve written that the best thing about August is September. Not this year. September brought several personally stressful events into my normally complacent private world. October was a month for healing and action. Gradually, recovery unfolded as those things apparently changed to my favor thanks to the efforts of a few loving people.
I did not win the lottery, but I began to relax. November was the best of the three months—not exactly perfect, but the worries from two months earlier seemed controlled. I’ll take it.
Thanksgiving Day is the traditional time our immediate family gathers. It is our time. Indeed, we had a house full, but I put in my notice for next year. We’re too old for that shit. It was fun and we are all grateful for how things have turned out so far. But there are people out there trying to make a living fixin’ turkey, giblet gravy, cranberry whatever, and all that stuff. I should help.
This poem was written about me writing a poem each day by a friend from my writers’ group. After Ann, who I like to call Barbara Ann (not her real name – long story: Ba ba ba ba Barbara Ann and the Beach Boys), read it during one of our poetry sessions. I requested, and she gave me, permission to post it here.
One Poem A Day? By Ann Bordelon
“A poem a day?” That’s quite a task! I say that’s wa-a-a-a-ay too much to ask. One a week might be realistic, But one a day is too optimistic. They don’t have to rhyme, you say, But still, one every single day? There aren’t that many words in my brain, I’ll run out in a month, what a strain. Please tell me that this is a sort of a joke And the reality is that you misspoke. Instead of “one poem a day” you meant, “One poem a week is what we should invent.”
Thanks, Ann. Wonderful poem. I’m honored.
I don’t know if I could cut back to less than one poem a day, much less to one a week. On this coming New Year’s Eve, I will complete my mission of composing at least one poem each day during 2019. After that, who knows?
The titles/topics of the daily poems I wrote during November were:
Dying Dignity
Ineffable
First Reading
Finding Treasure
Poets are Dying
Editing
Don’t Bite Me
Natural Brutality
Liminal
Some Cussing Required
Precious and Rare Days
To PC or not to PC, a Question
Thoughts
Imagined Solutions
Muse Berries
Draconian
Up Your Rolex
My Colorado Morning
Extraordinary Knowing
Lie to Me
Dear Deer
The Gap is Gray
I Hear You Died
The Final Week
My Twilight Swim
Ignorance is not Bliss
Expectations
Cowboys 2.0
Body Gremlins
Morphology
As we enter the last month of the year, I look both ways—to future months
as I wonder what’s next with a curious fantasy about the advent
of a new time and age. I think about past months
with more satisfaction than I’m entitled.
I shall mind the gaps in my life, one day at a time.
So I titled this Morphology. Click for her blog page, rules, etc.
Morphology
We are corrupted sons and daughters,
DNA mutated zygotes of morphological mystery,
victims of copy and editing errors
peppered by pinpoint mutation mistakes
riddled with repeated chromosome
rearrangement. We are human GMOs
hopelessly mutating and morphing,
naturally.
Look both ways, inside and out, for wonders and miseries of life.
Mind the evolutionary gaps in dividing cells.
Who said, “We’ll leave the light on for you?” Most adult Americans probably know who (Tom Bodett) and why (Motel 6 ad). It’s a famous advertising end tag.
I don’t advertise, sell, or profit from either of my blog sites. But I do use the static intro taglines feature of WordPress themes for both blogs. You can’t see the intro tagline on Our Literary Journey because this page is a clean and sanitized theme. While the menu icon brings up more info, it does not display the tag line (Driveling twaddle by an old flapdoodle). Maybe I should create something less self-effacing.
However, the intro tagline is front and center on the Dispassionate Doubttheme. I do not use an end tag there; usually it’s just a relevant meme or quotation.
On September 4, 2016, a few months after I started Our Literary Journey, I began using the Look both ways end tagline. I change it slightly each time to relate to the post. Seven weeks later, on October 21st, I added a second end tag, Mind the Gap (or gaps), also changeable.
Both end tags are philosophically metaphorical phrases for living life—staying alive and healthy. They suggest considering all sides (pro and con), hearing people out, looking for answers (or for questions), discerning danger, being careful and taking risk, learning and remembering lessons, and trying new and different things. Although, consistency and longevity are credible virtues.
Over the years, I’ve become more aware of the word gap (retail clothing notwithstanding) and how we use it. For a three-letter, one-syllable word, it can mean so many different things. To the degree that gap is synonymous with crack, I find much meaning in Cohen’s song verse.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. —Leonard Cohen, lyrics from his song, Anthem
Gap has several definitions. It could be a break in a barrier (such as a wall, hedge, or line of military defense), an assailable position, a mountain pass or ravine, a separation in space or an incomplete or deficient area. A gap can be a break in continuity, a hiatus, lack of balance, or a disparity such as the gap between imports and exports. It could mean a wide difference in character or attitude, such as the generation gap, or a problem caused by some disparity such as a communication or credibility gap.
Mind the gap comes from the warning on the British Underground/subway. So, when I say mind the gap or gaps, it is a cautionary plea to protect oneself. It is also a suggestion to be careful and pay attention to your environment, particularly what you might not see. Yet, it is more than that. There are gaps in our knowledge, gaps in scientific explanations, gaps or figurative holes in our lives, or maybe gaps growing in our relationships. There is even a god of the gaps.
In my opinion, the biggest gap is between human imagination and reality.
This TEDx talk is about minding the gap. It’s what sparked me to write this post.
And yes, look both ways, into your imagination and toward reality.
And mind the gaps, those eternal infernal spaces
where the light gets in and shines upon mystery.
I chose to go into the Air Force,
twice,
and to stay long enough
to eventually be told,
“your service is no longer required.”
So, with that, I promptly retired.
I joined up. Some call it served.
I’ve never been thanked for joining,
only for service,
a word with twenty meanings
as a noun,
five as a verb, and five more
as an adjective, where I fit in;
but not in the three more legal terms
nor most of the twelve listed
as kids definitions.
My service included my promise
to kill millions of them
should they undertake
to kill millions of us, as we
would both destroy more than
half the planet in the process
of a world-wide Armageddon.
My service was learning
how to do that and fully
intending to do exactly that!
It was my sworn duty to protect
and defend the Constitution, and,
as I understand it, still is because
I have not been released from
that oath, and, technically,
I’m still on the payroll.
I struggle even today with
being anti-war, but if
there is one,
I’d rather not miss it.
If a deed needs to be
done to protect and defend,
and if I’m still able, let me
stand in line to join up again,
with others, willing to kill
and maybe to die for
some vague idea which
so few of us seem
to correctly understand.
Don’t thank me
for my service,
or for your freedom,
or for any sacrifice
by my family or me.
Thank the Constitution
for that. Or, better yet,
if you can do for your
country, which is the idea,
join up in a way
that suits your person
and your conscience.
As I watch the guards, I notice they march both ways.
There are no gaps.
I recall, eons ago, when I was neither adult nor child,
during a phase of life known as adolescence
or numerically, being a teenager.
I also recall later being
a male adult parent to three, at one point—
all three almost simultaneously fitting
the technical teenager definition.
We all age up, but teeny boppers, as was once
a more affectionate term, stay the same.
Someone is always oddly 13, 15, 17, or some
age of that hormonally unbalanced
and the musically misguided post-pubescence.
I recall that back then, I was often bored unless
in the midst of violent volcanic eruptions,
and even then, given time, I found them dreary.
Almost everything of interest
involved getting into trouble, things which
I confess to doing with reckless abandon.
Now I look around and see grandchildren,
mostly in some phase of teenage-ism,
some exhibiting familiar behavior, some not.
I see parents, once teens themselves, distraught
over viewing in their progeny reflections of
their former life, a past they seldom
confess or want to remember.
I have no solutions and few suggestions for
those raising difficult teen personalities, like me,
like them, maybe like my parents in the
years of the Great Depression or
WWI or II. But I smile slightly
and I sympathize greatly.
Two things in life are not for sissies:
raising teenagers and getting old. That,
having done both, I can swear to. But,
in the long run, they are worth it.
May we all live long, prosper,
and remember. “Tomorrow, and
Tomorrow, and So Forth.”
Look both ways as life transitions. Be mindful of the gaps in denial.
The poet sits and stares,
then doodles and sketches,
wondering where this will lead.
A sip from the cup of wisdom,
a wandering stare looks
through a window, searching
for worldly ineffable words
of brilliant order, expressing
the unspeakable, describing
all indescribable forbidden things.
A pen finds the artist’s hand,
familiar fingers hold its frame
and place the nib upon paper.
It begins: a poet’s search
for perfection and beauty.
***
Look both ways through the window of inspiration.
Mind the gaps for perfect words.
October is my favorite month
after September, until
it is November, which then
becomes my favorite month
before December. Then,
January changes everything and
I begin to dread July—
Which is when I start to yearn
for October again and
I look at the calendar and
I’m fixin’ to bitch about
the miserable Texas heat,
When my wife asks me where
I would like to go and
I answer, anywhere with
air conditioning, or where
it is October and she says,
it’s October now and
91 degrees outside.
I decide to go look
at the thermostat and to
think about Thanksgiving,
a good economy, and global
warming. She refuses to
live where it is cold.
Look both ways, but time is unidirectional
and never stops, until it does.
Gaps in time are cosmic to the mind.
Our Literary Journey 