Category Archives: Uncategorized

Might it be you?

I skip and skim too much, really.

Too picky, you know?

Might spend an hour in a bookstore, and come out with nothing.

Just ’cause the first paragraph didn’t grab me.

Didn’t invite me in.

Well, that was an hour I’ll never get back, right?

With my iPad on its lazy boy bedtime stand,

I skim through WordPress Reader,

Playing eenie meenie minee moe.

What a way to do things.

I’m sure I miss some gems.

Whoever said the old have more patience was a little off the mark.

My filter is set too finely, you could say.

It’s that way with the people in my life, too.

Fewer and fewer seem to get through,

or perhaps just give it up as a bad job.

Maybe they’re right.

The louder they get, the more deaf I get.

But you, now.

You’re a funny duck.

A person of few words.

Coquettish glances and winky smiles.

Always seeming to recede in the distance,

but always looking back just before you disappear.

Like an elf peering from behind a sketchy tree.

You beckon, without gestures.

I am aroused from a sleep on the silty bottom,

like that wise old lunker,

still captivated by the shiny golden lure.

A dream of northern climes

Twenty years have gone by, such a passage of time,
Since I dreamed the most singular thing.
You and I, we were natives of a far northern clime,
And we traveled from winter to spring

Our huts we would build out of snow as we went,
And we’d live off the fish and the seal.
When the weather’d relent, we would set up our tent,
And we’d both have a bountiful meal.

Secure in each other is what we had felt:
Two adventuresome souls on the trail.
But I would not wait for the spring ice to melt.
I’d a place I must be without fail.

You knew this was coming, and I would but go,
Still you stayed with me all of the way.
We picked up supplies at the local depot,
And we pulled them back home on the sleigh

A good sturdy team of some strong husky dogs,
With a sled they could pull all the day.
And I needed them all for the hard lonely slogs
I would face, many days, up that way.

Yukon gold, I was after, and swore I’d be there,
Before anyone staked their own claims.
Already I’m missing your presence so fair
And must go while the time still remains.

So we stand at our parting, in the twilight deep blue,
With the heavens’ great dome overhead.
The snow is so sparkling, with this beautiful hue;
I must go many miles before bed.

There’s no need for our tears, or our unspoken fears,
As I hitch up the dogs to the sleigh.
I whistle a tune, it comes back to our ears,
As if spread by the starlit array

I did not look back, as I put on my pack,
And departed this heartbreaking scene.
I saw not your face, but remembered your grace,
And your wonderful soul, so serene.

Photo credit to:  https://www.magneticnorthtravel.com/blog/details/the-arctic-and-the-polar-night

#14 Things in the swamp (not at all pleasant)

we’ve been led here. I feel we have. on a forest picnic so bright and sunny. dappled trails. you wanted bare feet, and carried your funny shoes. mossy springy grass. squishy clay mud between your toes, and you laughed. wee violets and buttercups so pretty. we half expected to meet the dryads of the woods. why did we go so far in? happy hearts caught in a halcyon time. afternoon shadows are getting long, and we move to go back, but take a wrong turn. the sun’s at our back. yeah, it’s wrong. at each other we look, then quickly behind. in the greying gloom our recent walk, foot prints and all, seems to have been sucked away, vanishing like Alice’s confusing path. new trees, as close together as a bamboo forest, crowd each other in a riot of obstruction. there is no going, except forward. this very bad thing has us confused and frightened, and we hug tightly. nothing for it but to go on, although there’s a foul smell, the keening of bugs, and sounds of heavy splashing. you put on your shoes, and we hurry ahead with far fetched optimism that we’re nearing an outlet. as we go, there’s a chuck-chuck-chuck tat-tat-tat as trees sprout behind in terrible time lapse, like arrows flung from a thousand bows. we run. the smell of rot in front. our path behind is blotted in a zipper of foliage. and now, we are here: the vestiges of sun show us a lime green cesspool of swamp, lapping against intruding bush on all sides. On the opposite shore is a (fake?) hallway through the trees, a hint of daylight at its end. things flip and slap on the pond’s surface, disturbing the pale lilies. you, the brave one, walk into the warm steaming water, telling me to come…it’s not deep. and we go. halfway now, the silty bottom sucking at our shoes. slithery things caress our ankles and knees. tiny teeth seem to test us. only waist deep, we pause, hanging onto the roots of a fallen tree. and then, you’re down. gone. so fast. i yell and scream, grabbing green slime, and i’ve got your hair, then your armpits. leveraging against the roots, i hoist you up, parting your seaweed coiffure. you vomit a chunk of green mucus onto me, and then i see your face. you are not you. you are my dead school teacher. i let go in terror, and you sink like a stone. i hear insane laughter from the far shore, and there you are waving, silhouetted in the dying day. you turn and take the appointed path. new growth closes behind you. dark has come.

momma, momma, momma.

Marshmallow Moon

Me and my dear daughter
Are a-goin’ to the moon
She’s pilot of our spaceship
And we’ve gotta get there soon

We’re bringin’ back some samples
Of rocks an’ dymond jools
We know somebody up there
We’ve never been no fools

She fires up the thrusters
Her job, it is to land
I’m suited up and ready
To go at her command

The ‘Puter says we’re landed
Though our ship, it seems to bounce
So tipsy and unsteady
Like it didn’t weigh an ounce

We finally seem to settle
The ladder, down I climb
With shovel and a pick axe
I hope we’re here in time

Our man we knew had told us
The “Window” was so shallow
But late we were, and so the moon
Had turned into marshmallow

Say not goodnight

how has it come to this pass
has it all been for love unrequited
or that yours has never been seen
all that you have reached for
all the rare moments of joy
every dream, hope, yearning
dashed
your vessel is frail, dry, and hollow

say not goodnight yet
close not the door
gentle one
there is no solace in darkness
there is at least one who loves you
do not fear
dear one
lay your head to rest
upon the downy pillow of expectation
and let your spirit be soothed
by the hand upon your brow
and the other, holding yours.

Wanting to stay

Slovenly sleep, or so it seems….
in the lightening shades of darker dreams.
Delicious lucidity, floating the soul
over depths of disturbing finality.

Let us stay in this state, where spirit flies,
where youth has returned to our watery eyes.
Still granted our wisdom, our memory whole;
a vacation from earthly reality.

In the glow of the warmth, where the cold never bites,
a candy shop counter of spirit delights.
Release and forgiveness, that’s been our goal,
and the cure of the pain of our malady.

The times, they are a-changin’

The Elder bugs tasted the best, Itchy thought.  When you couldn’t get crickets, that is.  Toasting them like so many pine nuts in his banged up aluminum frypan,  he fancied he could hear little screams as their legs shriveled and they made popping noises under the lid.  Their chitinous wing cases sometimes got lodged between his teeth, like so many popcorn hulls.  But the flavor, crunchy and al dente, kept him going.  A steady protein supply, and plentiful in this time and place.

He didn’t know his own name anymore, just the things that people called him.  The name Itchy stuck, ’cause all he ever did after the flash was scratch.  Lots of nasty scabs he had.  When they got nice and hard, he picked and peeled them, just like normal people used to peel the diaphanous skin from their sunburns.  Put ’em in his pocket.  Save ’em for later, for the desperate times.

Normal people were hard to find now.  He had fallen in with a group of wanderers, on a time.  They had welcomed him in, and had given him his benediction.  But, boy, they all got real sick after a while, getting blue and bloated, with cracks and open sores.  He thought he would get it too, and so he ran.  Collected useful items along the way, things that seemed to have rained haphazardly out of the sky.  A wavy-edged lid from an aluminum can was his knife.  A curved lens from someone’s pepsi bottle spectacles served as his fire starter.  The pot and lid from a collapsed cabin.  Leather shoes, still smoking a bit, and a little too small.

He tried remembering how old he was, but he had no reference point.  Further and further he got from the old city, and he began to find houses still standing, country type homes isolated on backroads or in the bush.  In one of these, he found some good tools that he could carry, and, as he was taking his leave, he spotted a calendar hanging on the kitchen wall.

In the month of July, 2027, someone had circled the 3rd, and penciled in Bad news today.  This might be it for us.

***

Image: Pixabay

From under the eyebrows

As a young man, out with the raucous crowd of youth,
he’d followed their lead.
Made with the dirty giggles,
the snide remarks, the invented names, the donkey grins
whenever they came upon
the white-haired, the bent, the shambling, the cane-walkers.
Sheep that he was, he had followed and fit in.

Some returned the glances
from under salt & pepper brows.
May be the colour had washed some from their irises,
but they burned all the more brightly.
All the more knowingly.
A disturbing bane for the schooled bully.

The months of his donkey following
gave way to uncertainty,
and then to a budding courage
that was not the courage of the crowd.
Still a young man,
the stabbings of life made their wounds to him
too soon.
Loss, pain, emptiness, the hollowness of yearning.

And now, on this late day, his old leg does not work very well.
He grabs a fallen branch from the yard,
whittles it down a bit,
cuts it to just the right length for a prop,
and shambles uptown for a much needed haircut.

He has this peculiar feeling.
A kind of swelling, more like a welling.
A burgeoning anticipation.
There will, after all, be something more.

In his slow progress up the sidewalk,
he meets with counterparts out of his youth.
Cocks his head a little, gives them a glance,
without balefulness,
and they pass by with tremulous laughter.

The barber asks what’ll it be today?
He says neaten up the curls, trim the beard,
and (with a sly grin)
skip the eyebrows.

Fatherless

alone i walked
before the rivers were named
the raising up of mountains i beheld
mine eyes floated in mists
my ears heard the hiss of original rains
i was shown all creatures
and was known to them
i knew their purpose
and they mine
through the thousands and the billions have i been
within the living flesh, so as to teach
and in the swarming airs, so as to watch
to teach and to watch
you,
the second comers.