Posts for June 12, 2024

The other day I took the boys for their lessons at the pool
And much to our delight
A tiny bird wandered up to the glass double doors
And peeked in to see the sight
Of all the kids inside engaged
Enthralled and learning how to swim
For just a few short moments
The bird, it envied them
As it watched the kids splash and kick
Dive, dip and float
In a brief moment of regret
It almost seemed to wish that it had been born
In a womb, and not a nest
And suddenly, just as fast as
The bird appeared that day
It realized its gift
Stretched and spread its wings
And flew
Away

Sometimes with a new shirt
you might get “Extra Buttons”.

These extra buttons arrive in a specially designed
paper envelope with a little flap, a cloth pouch,
or a small plastic bag.
They are very specific to the garment they accompany.

Sadly, these buttons may never serve their intended purpose
yet they do add a certain comfort, even a sense of security
that helps you deal with the fact that most all things around you
are likely to fall apart, and you may at some point in your life
be that person who actually does loose a button. So you can look forward
to that tier of having these buttons, as they will make you very happy.

And not to be overlooked,
just getting these buttons symbolizes the importance
of the designers attention to detail.
The existence of these buttons underscores
that aesthetic way of seeing their raison d’être.
The designer is educating us to know that the wrong button replacing a lost one
could be a bad style move. Keeping track of your buttons is a big responsibility.

For many years now I have never been able to actually link
any of these extra buttons with the right shirt when needed.
For the most part the buttons have ended up outlasting the shirts.

But I do have a nice collection of buttons just in case.
I wish more products came with complimentary extras.

looking for anything but an axe to grind 

i want to right
this
poem

the words just
seem so 
wrong

You not be-
ing

Us not grey-
ing

We not laugh-
ing

twenty-five years
the truth still
the same

&

reality won’t
let me
right

this
damn
poem

“Im tired of being a butcher”
I mumble to myself as a doleful eye 
Ricky stared up at me. 

trapped in a cage my father hadnt warned
him or me about,
much like the hospital, not gonna die
but a far cry from living 

standard practice is to dispatch 
then unlatch, dump the remains
of naviety and boyhood away from the fence

“I’m tired of being the butcher” 
I mumble again to myself 
winding down the same road where 
a different dispatch was called in 
10 years before, MPDS 25 

I raise the cage door by the river
and they burst forth 10 feet 
a dumbfounded turn about, 
I think they said “Did I make it?” 

The pups cry in the car
so I know it time to go
a sunsets on two lives saved today, him and me. 

Give yourself grace,
can’t always control your brain,
allow yourself pace,
can’t always keep out the rain.

Can’t always control your brain,
is it a face or is it a vase?
Can’t always keep out the rain,
bring the umbrella in case.

Is it a face or is it a vase?
Is deciding a drain?
Bring the umbrella in case, 
it won’t always be in vain.

Is deciding a drain?
Allow yourself pace, 
it won’t always be in vain.
Give yourself grace.

Everyday 
I can’t 
Wait for 
You 
to get here
see your face 
let the relief 
of the day
fall away 
the world 
just dicipates 
your green eyes
melt me and I 
become content 

I’m tired of striving.
it’s not working today
these lines don’t show how hard I tried
I wish I didn’t feel like I have something to prove.
I don’t know how to say what I want to say.
I’ll try again tomorrow.

i feel not enough

A red-headed ghost–
or maybe it was a photo strip memory made up in black
eyeliner, a walking afterimage in a crop top–
floated past me as I waited
for my latte at the coffeehouse today.
She must have been within three inches of my face,
close enough for her to hear me whisper
her name.  

Do memories have ears?  Do ghosts heed our calls?

I wonder, if I had reached out
to touch her arm, would my hand have connected 
with solid skin or stoic air?  If ghosts have skin,
I’m sure hers would have been cool, slick
as an eel’s as she slithered
past me.

I stayed silent, statuesque, afraid
she would see me, and this would become real.  
Still,  I searched
for her face, but she wasn’t there. She had disappeared
again, as ghosts do, temporal,
unmoored, untethered from me.

Perhaps it’s for the best that she didn’t see me,
that we didn’t exchange stale pleasantries and suffer telling silences.
As long as we don’t speak, I can still pretend 
we’re friends, that one day we’ll reconnect,
and she’ll be more than the ghost
of someone I used to know.