Posts for June 27, 2021 (page 5)

rain clouds nor lightning
can change 
the shining of the sun

startled awake
at three thirty, I forget
I’m in the woods,

in the hammock.

must have dozed off
after moonset, keeping
watch over the solstice.

what was it that woke me?

not so much
a sound
or even a stirring,

though now
I swing erratically
to gain bearing.

before I dare scan
over the fabric I feel
eyes upon me.

I am aware
of breathing
not my own.

low and heavy,
a guttural warmth
of mammal near.

for fear I gasp
to hear a rustle
of dead leaves.

no mouse, no raccoon.
from that sound it is
obviously big.

seconds pass
like epochs, I pray
it is a dream.

I know better
than to even peek
from my cocoon.

Then the wooly mass
nudges
my backside.

I had hung the hammock
high and so I know thereby,
it’s plenty tall.

And it was no
appendage reaching,
but the body

of the beast,
brushing it’s gravity 
as if to guess my weight.

it sniffs and searches
to decide which part
first to eat.

then in awful silence
too still for me 
to take,

desperate I offer 
out my hand,
a gesture of surrender.

I feel its wet nose
then it’s tongue,
“easy fella”

it shakes its fur.
sighs out a yawn.
and settles under me.

we sleep.
come morning,
it is gone.

Just because you see
Two people are standing
Beside one another
Doesn’t mean both are
There
At the same
Time

If any of y’all get a chance between now and Tuesday at midnight, would you kinda cast a kindly eye toward the sky or the ocean or a tree or even a blade of grass and mumble something like “Michael said to tell you he said, ‘Thank you, Mike.’”?

Mike died last night up in Northern California. He was kind of a show-off and a glad-hander and I didn’t always agree with everything he did, but in 1971 he insisted on reading something in a public forum that me and a lot of Vietnam Veterans Against the War had been trying to get said out loud since at least 1967.

After having spent three months in solitary confinement followed by four years of trying like hell to do my duty to my country and my friends-and-comrades-who-were-still-in-the-military while literally being called—to my face, almost always by civilians not to mention draft-dodgers and the otherwise deferred—a “traitor” (and, yes, I was literally spit on by pro-war construction workers, among others), when news of Senator Mike Gravel’s reading broke I remember feeling not so much vindicated as finally welcomed home to a land I swore I never left.

Here’s a bit of today’s New York Times piece:

“Mr. Gravel drew much more national notice on June 29, 1971. The New York Times and other newspapers were under court injunctions to stop publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret, detailed government study of the war in Vietnam.

“He read aloud from the papers to a subcommittee hearing that he had quickly called after Republicans thwarted his effort to read them to the entire Senate. He read for about three hours, finally breaking down in tears and saying, ‘Arms are being severed, metal is crashing through human bodies — because of a public policy this government and all of its branches continue to support.’ (In a major ruling on press freedom, the injunction against The Times was overturned by the Supreme Court the next day.)”

So if between now and Tuesday, the anniversary of the reading, you’d just, like I said, cast a kindly eye toward the sky or the ocean or a tree or even a blade of grass or some such and mumble something like “Michael said to tell you he said, ‘Thank you, Mike’”, I’ll be one truly grateful tear-stained old man.

💔🕊❤️‍🩹,

      🦦

P.S.: When I went to look up tear-stained to see if it should be hyphenated (It should), I stumbled on my horoscope for today (Thank you, Farlex Dictionary app), which read:

“6/27/2021

Things may be moving a bit too quickly today for you to grab hold of anything, Aquarius. There’s an element of the unexpected entering into the equation. Be prepared. The mood of the day is especially light and perhaps a bit superficial. People may not be entirely reliable. If there’s something you absolutely need to do, consider doing it by yourself.”

something about swiping through this mess 
of potential lovers once again
screams unloveable

it’s nice to imagine there are people
that want to know me
even though i don’t answer them

i keep asking myself
why i don’t feel anything for anyone
except for
a man that would rather crash his car
than take his antidepressants

I sit where I always sit
looking east over the golf course.
A soft fog settles over tufted grass,
grey-lavender clouds reflected
in the canal, a slight waver
on the surface of the water.

It rained last night I learn
when I go out for the Times,
water standing in the drive,
plastic wrapped paper dripping
as I pick it up.

I tell myself, look at the world,
learn from it.  The 10,000 joys,
the 10,000 sorrows.  Half the sky clear
with a slice of moon, the other
half cloud-ridden, a water-color wash.
Water shimmers, a limpkin strides by.

Paint chips fall from the barn door
Old man stands in the middle of the dirt floor
Old tobacco stick tower in the corner
Waits for one single movement to collapse
His hat feels his head
He wipes his brow
In disappointment
Tornado dances along these crops
But somehow it still stands 
The only thing
Dirt under nails doesn’t
Do the work justice
Advertisements don’t give it meaning
And time spent digging
Has only tripled for
Machinery and rakes
But at least there is shelter

*This is actually a picture poem. Unfortunately, I could not get the image to upload in the Editor. Here is the hyperlink to it. Simply scroll to the bottom to see it.

I keep watching the skies
patiently awaiting my chance
to confirm you are out there, you exist
cruising in your shiny metal disk of flight.
Surely your species
could use an old woman
who is most saddened by
the state of humanity.