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JV Beaupre Feb 19
Looking in all the wrong places
In Boston, I shared a bed with a stranger,
In New Orleans, it was rope...
In Memphis, I sat with a stray cat,
I smoked-- the cat did nat...
Just trying to lose the loneliness blues.

2. It’s just around the corner
a warm night in spring
flowers fragrance the air
is this the one?

3. The 90-day half-life
From like rabbits to sustainable passion,
The “inluvy” hormones
are nearly as exhausted as we
Time to work on friendship,
 and commitment to our future.

4. On the shoals
"It wasn't what was said, it was what wasn't said"
negative space shaping the conversation--
dancing, flitting from safe to safer,
like stepping stones across an angry creek,
we just try to get by.

5. An assessment
Love isn’t static
No, it evolves,
waxing and waning
to an uncertain end.
It can fade,
or it can continue to grow
and become something 
truly wondrous.

6. Live and let live
Hanging the toilet paper roll,
evil sister-in-law peeve.
Yes, the toilet seat thing.
A sock warming a room corner.
Not ******* on screwtops 
The toothpaste top, classic.
Every flat surface a shelf,
every car trunk a closet

7. Requiem
Alone again
I miss my friend
JV Beaupre Oct 2023
grotesque, banal,
sorrow and suffering
meted out to all,
but unfairly spread.
the litany of evil,
endless and pointless.
it's the four horsemen,
joyfully at work.
oh god,
how can you permit this?
a wiser man* than i,
in the stead of god replies,
it's just part of the deal.
*C.S. Lewis
JV Beaupre Oct 2023
All of a sudden, 
No light, no sound, 
no sensations at all.
My mind was freed--
it soared, 
I could think of anything,
and I did.
No sensory distractions,
no outside prompts to guide my thought
                  ?
At first, I thought I was alone,
but I wasn't. 
I was one among hundreds, 
thousands or more.
To the left of me, the right
front, back,
above and below,
silent comrades, 
on a shelf,
each like me.
                  ?
How did I know this?
I don't know, 
but it was true...
as true as anything else.
I was just a brain in a jar,
with the sensory plug pulled.
I just hope the nutrient
continues to flow.
JV Beaupre Sep 2023
You will become rich
You will become poor
You will eat an apple
You will swallow the core
JV Beaupre Aug 2023
temperature pales compared to heat
it signals without sensation
but sweat is the real deal
pretty hot out today
JV Beaupre Jul 2023
It's thin, it's yellow, it's HB or #2
It's a pencil with a worn eraser.
I've used it and its brothers and sisters, all my life.

Crayons were OK, but not for my airplanes,
careening across the sky,
bravely engaging Axis aircraft.
Rat-tat-tat.

In 4th or 5th grade, fountain pens were used for English and penmanship, of course.
***** things, splat-splat.
But math was always pencils.
Double digit multiplication, long division with lots of erasings.

When it wasn't peashooter or marbles or some other season,
it was hangman in the back of the room.

In 8th grade, I wrote a 10-minute play.
Subject forgotten, but it was in pencil,
pressed hard for carbons for the other actors.

In high school, another use:
Pushing my frog around with the point,
and getting formaldehyde on it.
So I sharpened it.

I moved on to doodling in class,
during the dull parts
when I wasn't looking out the window.
(Schools weren't like prisons then).

Scribbled math became scribbled algebra,
I started shading that led to watercolor, which I hated,
No precision compared my pencil.

College boards, multiple choice, filling in the circles,
special high conductivity, ultra black pencils.

In graduate school, class notes and coding forms.
School doodling becames work doodling.
Though, I confess, I sometimes used a pen.

Late in life, my  goal was to draw "real good".
Still pencils, but graphite too.
My new favorite is 9B for deep contrast.
That "real good" thing-- I'm working on it.

So put on my gravestone, for all to view
"He wrote as he drew, with a #2".
JV Beaupre Jun 2023
I’m now sure it was a dream,
but then I was 11 and it was real.
I’m still drawn to the memory.

We lived on the edge of the country on a gravel road.
The country started just beyond the back yard
— a brackish pond with a hint of sulfur.
150 South Cooper.

I rode my bike on the marge,
a little harder, but smoother,
and not as dusty as the road.
Left at the corner,
west along the corn fields.
Vivid greens in the sun.

One or two more turns
and along side was a shade tree,
just across the ditch.
I put the bike to the ground
and sat in the shade.
I’ve never known such peace,
either before or after.
Time passed, supper called,
I reluctantly pedaled home.

Several times that summer
I tried to find that place,
but I never could.
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