The now has left my body.
My mind is emptying
Of all thought of today.
The moment is receding;
I feel my feet lifting
My arms are floating
As if in a pool of light
Like water, buoying me
With untouching caresses
Lofting to evanescence
And I know it is fine
This feeling of pleasance
Of no worries in me
No hurrying to be done
Nowhere I have to be
No reason to run.

I am centered in this,
A feeling of completeness;
Of needing nothing else,
A spiritual sweetness,
A relaxing kind of comfort
Surrounds and enfolds
By singing unheard songs
Deep into my very soul.
I am happy here, smiling,
Somewhere in the self
Where not even I can see,
That I am someone else.
I am someone loving
And kind and caring.
I love this feeling so
I wish I were sharing
The sense of a world
Where everything is right
And everyone is floating
In the same golden light.

I like cussin’
I even researched the word.
It ain’t cussin’
There’s an R that is not heard.
We’re talking of cursing,
The taking of God’s name in vain,
Back when it was blasphemy.
Those days will never come again.

It ain’t the same way
Like it was back in those times
When spitting on the sidewalk
Was a jailing crime
And black people had to walk
Down in the gutter.
There were words back then that
Decent folks didn’t utter.

Well, I ain’t religious.
I don’t go to any church at all.
It ain’t that I am evil;
I’m not riding for some fall.
But there are times
Like when you hammer your thumb
That saying “Oh fudge!”
Sounds just plain old **** dumb.

I am not sending
Anything or anyone here to hell.
It’s just helps
To say hell or **** or fuckaduck
When you have to yell.
A shuckydern don’t fit the bill like
A shouted “****”
When you are *******, raving
Ready to spit.

I totally understand
That some words have a place.
Calling people *******
Can be seen as a huge disgrace.
But I still insist
That many times in a conversation
The word *******
Just fits the momentary occasion.

So, scoff if you will.
I’ll try to play by your nicey-nice rules,
But there are people
What are nothing but ******* fools.
I do hope you pardon
My not liking any more pleasant words
When someone says
The dumbest **** I have ever heard

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
He’s just what you found perfect
As long as he was in bed.
It turns out every time, the romance
It is all inside your head.

Even though he knows you’re hurting
He can’t do a thing
You really should have known this
When you saw his ring.

Even in the deep heat of summer
You’re out in the cold.
It isn’t like it never happened before
This story is old.

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
You think of you and him as a couple
That can never be
He has lied to her, why not to you?
This is your reality.

Maybe you decided this is better than
Being all alone.
What you think is love for you is like
The Twilight Zone.
He has a life without you and you knew
There was no ‘us’ or ‘we’.
You’re always the villain, homewrecker;
Innocence is but a memory.

You tell yourself each time he leaves
That is it, no more.
Then change your mind by the time
He closes the door.
Regret for what you do to his life
Is not your problem.
Like me, she has to learn the punches
And learn to roll with them.

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
He’s just what you found perfect
As long as he was in bed.
It turns out every time, the romance
It is all inside your head.

It seems I’ve always been dyslexic
But, I really didn’t know.
I just discovered this about myself
About a year ago.
It was a matter of some bedevilment
To deal with left and right
Up and down, on and off, and more
Excepting day and night.

Opposites like yes or no, black or white,
Were never easy or fun.
Then the days of computers came along
With their trials of zero and one.
It’s a basic lack of understanding things
At a minimal kind of level.
It always seemed I was forever lost
Between the sea and the devil.

I began to realize how deep the effect
Ran within my learning curve.
It was more than just a simple matter
Of which way I would swerve
When riding a bike or driving a car;
I could never drive in Kent.
I would invariably choose the wrong way
When the road was forked or bent.

I don’t take any of this in any light way,
It helps me to understand
Having problems in my studies long ago,
To piece together strand by strand
The insults and the teasing I underwent
When I made the wrong choices.
I can now put to rest my sense of doubt
That stems from chiding voices.

It was such a subtle thing, and back then,
In the methods of long ago,
The parents and the teachers muddled on
Because they really didn’t know
That many of us were not ignoramuses
We just had an uphill fight
We had a dilemma in equal opposites
Like in and out or left and right.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for
I want to waste no time in *******’.
I may not drive a fancy car
I have no mansion to be rich in.
But I got fingers
And I got toes
And sometimes that’s
Just the way it goes.
I wake up in the morning
And jump out of bed,
And just be thankful
That I’m not dead.

I’ve got clothes on my back
And shoes on my feet.
A place to lay my head
And enough food to eat.
There’s plenty in my life
For which I am grateful.
And absolutely no reason
For me to feel hateful.

I see a lot of people now
Gripe about what they want.
I’m sure when they’re dead
They’ll want a better house to haunt.
It seems they waste their time
And they fail to appreciate
The hundred times a day
What they have is truly great.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for
I want to waste no time in *******’.
I may not drive a fancy car
I have no mansion to be rich in.
But I got fingers
And I got toes
And sometimes that’s
Just the way it goes.
I wake up in the morning
And jump out of bed,
And just be thankful
That I’m not dead.

Mama didn’t know
Our Daddy could dance.
He kept it a secret
In the name of romance.
We knew he could sing,
He did it every day
How could we know
He could dance that way?

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

Daddy loved his music
But didn’t like to go out.
Mama loved to go to dances
But she never liked to pout.
She just suffered in silence
And danced in all alone
In the kitchen by herself
In her own jazzy zone.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

The radio would come on
And Mama began to wiggle.
Dad sat and read his paper
But, he would quietly giggle.
Mama would take his hand
Try to get him to get up.
He’d just shake his head no
Go back to his coffee cup.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

Then their anniversary came
And we could tell Daddy didn’t
Have any idea what he
Could give her as a present.
So, he got them all dressed
And took her out to on the town
And surprised our Mama good
When he boogied her around.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

There is an ancient woman
In the market near my home
Who walks the timeless amble
Of a battered soul alone.
Her pasted orange tresses
A marmalade cascade
Fall so stiffly down to where
Her hand is always laid
Clutching her treasure bag
She goes her way careless
Ignoring chiding glances
At her faded evening dress.

Her story hides in rumors
Whispered by those who work
In the shops and restaurants
Here near McArthur Park.
They say she was a movie queen
Or an extra in the silent days
And an accident at the studio
Made her bald unto this day.
She refused to remove the wig
She ran out crying, in costume
And now she is still wearing it
Hoping he will find her soon.

The woman at the pharmacy
Said her hair caught on fire
At a movie in the twenties
Her boss calls her a liar;
Says the leading man did it
In a fit of rage and jealousy
When she wouldn't marry him
He set fire to the scenery.
Others heard that she was fired,
But she wouldn't leave the set
So deep inside her mind
She really hasn't left it yet.

Some have tried to talk to her
But she never speaks that much
Except inquiring prices and colors
Of the goods she chances to touch.
To direct questions and advances
She turns sadly away and leaves.
You can tell she is sensitive
You can tell by her face she grieves.
It is easy to see she is living
In some world that is not ours
Her world seems a place of gloom
Of thunderstorms and showers.

She caresses with her fingertips
Along the banisters she passes
And she seldom lets her gaze linger
Behind her smoked sunglasses.
Her satin dress has faded,
Like the color of her hair.
She still lingers in each moment
When she walks down the stair.
She never seems to notice those
Who stop and goggle at her
And they are many, these gawkers
But they just don’t' seem to matter.

She seems to have accepted
What her life has now become.
She has been coming to the park
For decades more than some.
This may be a playground
For popeyed urban gnomes.
But this is where she shops
This decaying place her home.
This park is very much like her
Many ages past its prime.
The vestiges of past glory
Have not been erased by time.