Posts for June 11, 2020 (page 7)

Oops, sorry.
Ignore the dirt in my nails. 
I’ve spent the last ten years digging myself out of my own grave.  

Didn’t realize it would take me that long. 
Knew there was a load of dirt on top of me
                                                                           just not that much.  

Used my hands, but had to swallow some of it as well.
Didn’t go down very easy, choked me up a bit.
Brought tears to my eyes and a heaviness to my heart.  

But I kept digging.  

Sometimes you just have to do that.
                                                                           Keep digging
                                                                           Even though you’re
                                                                           Choked up and your
                                                                           Nails are dirty.

my closet stands bare,
just a few scattered old tanks and dress shirts
that didn’t fit the profile for my suitcase

my hardwood floor is now exposed,
the piles of things
shoved into a green suitcase
and a red duffle bag

I always overpack
I lie awake for hours the nights before
and make mental lists of 
unnecessary things to add

I don’t know when I’ll be coming home
so I even took my favorite collage,
framed in black,
just to make the room where I’ll be staying
more familiar

The boot is packed, with a
french horn, bicycle, boxes of food,
suitcases, random pairs of shoes, pillows
and so much more

we are ready to leave this place,
to see the people we love
and take a break from each other.

Now I’m a big fan of the recumbent bike.
Bike a sprint, then lower the rate.
You want some stress, some sweat.
Along with fewer nighttime snacks,
watch the carbohydrates.

Yes, you can mix walking and jogging.
If you feel tightness in the chest,
stop. But, for most of us,

running runs its course. The heart stiffens.
Normal circulation never returns.
The heart doesn’t relax.

manpath –
determine path

MANPATH is set,
manpath will simply display its contents
and issue a warning.

manpath will determine a suitable path
and display the results.

The path is determined using information gained
from the configuration and the user’s environment.
OPTIONS
–quiet
Do not issue warnings.

–global
Produce a manpath consisting of all paths

man must override
the SYSTEM environment.

MANPATH displays its value
rather than determining it on the fly.

the value is determined from the content

comes at the end.

—
Found poem (erasure) from Linux Man Pages
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/manpath.1.html
AUTHOR
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).

At worst, Mr. Huntingdon,
M. Emanuel.

When you need me, which you will,
I will be walking the moors.
Petulant Heathcliff.

This wild hair in another time is not as wild.
I set pen to paper day after day
after day after day.

If it takes me the rest of my life,
Which it may.

And you are Mr. Rochester

The ocean bobs the raft up and down,
The movement is very calming and smooth,
Happiness comes and life is wonderous,
Until the impending storm arrives,
Churning and twisting the water,
Throwing the raft in every direction,
Until the raft tips over,
And you sink to the bottom of the ocean,
With no chance at salvation

I know I seem short with my words
it just gets hard to write with these fingers I have popped ritually, five minute mark
one day soon my attention span will be long enou-

so anyways the other day…

When I was a kid they said 4 leaf clovers
bring good luck 
So I scoured the jaunty green 
clovers to pluck
careful to avoid bees sucking nectar
and spreading pollen
from the white bristle headed blooms.

I would always  find one
during the hunt
place it in a book or my Bible 
to flatten
my lucky charm.
The thrill was in the hunt.
I forgot about my talisman
never contemplating if indeed
Good fortune came my way.
I learned early on 
I was not the driver of Destiny
and too young to know
Synchronicity..

My father’s back porch at 4 a.m. Stars
scattered in the low

sky. White ice on gutter metal. Moon
hum, then wind. The only

time I felt safe with him
was riding in the dented

Ford flatbed. It was barn owl-grey,
rusted out. I remember the jazz

channel blaring Ella, Duke
& Billie. I tried to replace his shifty

touches, imagine him in safe
corners where I yearned

for him to stay. He’s aged & it’s made
a difference. He’s worn down

& tremorous, no longer
able to follow through & he

doesn’t remember his aberrant
habits. Perhaps he’s relieved

they no longer, like a crazed
internal gyroscope, compel

him. I came back to town
a decade ago after bolting

wildly for 25 years. I help out
with laundry & groceries, confining

chores to weekends. Can’t get too
close. Small items are beginning

to show neglect. His hummingbird
feeder has dried up, crusted

nectar stuck to cracked red
plastic. Some days I’m almost

able to forgive him once
& for all. I sense the end

of blame like the next
bus. Here on the moss

covered deck he’s too feeble
to fix, I convince myself he

can no longer violate. I gaze into
December & petition the cold

sky, but no grace comes. Maybe
a few chores will do for now. Wash

& drain the feeder. Wipe it
clean with a dust rag

& fill it with hummingbird
nectar. Wait until spring.

Mother folds herself into blankets,
inside, on the couch, while I slip
out to brisk air and blanketing night.

So much has changed—for her, for me
over the past couple years, over and again,
and she in her chrysalis, and me in my silk,

are only just emerging—stretching feelers
across a world that is barely recognizable
any more.  Under the fading moon, I wonder—if there is anything

as colorful as the beauty of the crone,
shades of strength, and clarity, and love,
or if my mottled brown and greys compare,

or can share a single hue
of the magic I see all round with this current
dark so plentiful, wings spreading—

Lady Moth, you alight on the glassy palm
of my screen, like a mirror of my mind—
child of lunar flight, winged perambulation

in the labyrinths preceding, and presiding
over seams where I sleep, where I travel, where
I wake—truly wake—to the wonder

of a thousand worlds, both here and now
and those others–of which I can merely dream
might welcome a nocturnal vagrant

preparing to write—that diurnal denizens might 
see with the eyes of the dreamers
who walk the new dawn out of night.