We laugh
And dance
We take
A chance
The best choice
I ever made

This bright
Gold band
Upon
My hand
A symbol of
Love that stayed

That I
Could be
Made whole
And free
With you
Forever after

It makes
Me cry
So blessed
Am I
We have
Such love and laughter

You're still
My love
With eyes that shine
I, your servant,
Willingly indentured

Since Nineteen-
Hundred
Ninety-nine
We have had
Such adventures!

Contentment, worry,
Love and fury,

Fear and bravery,
Knighthood, knavery,

Joy and sorrow,
Today, tomorrow,

                                        I accept it all.


Truthing, lying,
Singing, sighing,

Sitting, leaping,
Running, sleeping,

Living dying,
Though I'm crying,

                                        I will eat it all.

Last night, we buried her body
Down at the bottom of the hill

The moonless night was crisp and cold
    The slip of foot and blanket fold
        We very nearly lost our hold
     I caught a nasty chill

From seven till nearly half past eleven
We dug a hole and buried Lil.

This was no common dog
This wonder, understand

Was gentle beyond words and could
    Do any trick you want, for food,
        She'd even say "hello", she would!
     She'd weave or sit or stand


So somehow
we believe
she would never leave

But she had to go...she had to go
...it's not
what we had planned

But Lily,
darling dear,
we understand.

--

Altruism, at its best,
Is only a means to pass a test
That you perceive you are in...
Of an absent God who licks your chin

    "What, in her do you see? Pray tell!"
"She's so selfless; generous to all."
    "So she tells me", I think to myself.
"...To all but you.", I think.  And stall.

What do I tell my dear dear brother?
What do I tell this brilliant boy?
That I'd rather he find another?
Altruism schmaltruism - Where's the joy?

Out of the ashes
Altruism arises
Here in this place
There are no prizes

There are no rewards
Other than bragging rights...

Cut the cord. Loose the bonds.
It's flimsy fodder - to offset fights

Let us go then
Back and back

To that place
Where we first met

Nineteen hundred and ninety-four

You in the bar,
I on the floor

I saw you and
Desire sprung

From toes to groin
To head and lung

I knew your face
From misty past

And fancied glances
Fancied fast

(And where, my Dear, is fancy bred?
In the heart or in the head?)

I never dreamed
That fateful day

That our paths led
The selfsame way

A new day
Rife with possibility
Insert some new tranquility
Into your mind

A new way:
Looking at the positive
Believing life is causative
A new lens we must find

Truth is
Difficult now to discern
But even so down deep I yearn
Now to make headway


Love is.
So don this mask for now, shall I
And in the face of fear I’ll fly
For today's a new day

Ah yes, I remember this well,
The fumbling about in the darkness of  the cottage, as the narrator feels his way around the room,
The hair raising sound described,
A pronunciation of his friend's name,
By some being that seemed crystalline rather than organic
And the adrenaline that electrified his whole body upon hearing it.

The odd extra-tellurian reference frame that the creature seemed bound to so that it was not quite perpendicular to the floor...
...but that doesn't quite describe it.
It was, more accurately, that the creature was tied to some external reference frame which doesn't quite match our own.

While reading the story aloud to my children, Modulating my voice as adroitly as I am able, Pausing occasionally to define terms or explain references to the preceding book in the trilogy, I'm struck again by the author's talent; the depth and breadth of it, the power of description to elicit mood in the reader,
The completeness...and I wonder how many rewrites it took.

I notice the breathing of two of my three children has become regular.  
They've drifted to that other plane of existence.  
I pause...and Lottie's voice, a little too loud, cuts the near silence, "You aren't stopping, are you?", causing her sister to stir briefly.  "Nope!", say I, and I continue, doing my best to keep the theatrics in my voice.  
But the words are starting to dance on the page as I grow cross-eyed in my languor.

Finally I reach the chapter's end, place the bookmark and say, "And that, my dear, is where we'll pick up the story next time".  
I reach to turn off the bedside lamp, and sleep for an hour or so until Lady Di gets home from the hospital.

These beings, surrounding me now, causing me to lie on my side at the very edge of the bed, taught me what love really is.  I love them more than I can ever express.

This bright believing band
Far from foolish
Neither narrow, nor numbed
Not a bit of what I planned will work
Excruciating, their sound;
How they strummed...
E Major, A minor, E Major, A minor
Endlessly repeating
Waiting for a sign ...or something
Sit, stand...
Make polite conversation,
Our hazy cocoons enshroud us
And we can believe
(Or not believe)
Either is easy-
We're not proud of this.
We attend this mimsy mayhem because we're searching for something lost here during our childhood
A sense of tribe
Of familial bliss
But we've lost touch
We are isolated
Disillusioned
Done
We don smiles and walk out
Wordlessly

Lovely Lady Dee
She soon will be free of me
She’ll be dancing on the corner
of the dance floor

She’s a hurricane
Leaving splinters in her wake
And it got too hard to take
Now we’re done for


She pulled my heart out bleeding
And commenced to eating
It up raw

Her words are ornamental
But her tenderness is gentle
As I saw

What I saw

Lovely Lady Dee
Soon you’ll be free of me
You’ll be dancing on the sidelines
At the boat house

The papers have been filed
And I hope that makes you smile
You’ll be happy …for a while
My funny free spouse


You’ll get your strapping lover
& you’ll do your best to cover up your scheme
You’ll live the dream

You’ll no longer be beholden
To this funky freaky fuzzy golden boy
Oh rapturous joy

Go get your toy

Darling dear Diane
You have fowled up all my plans
You’ve smeared mud upon my face
And stuck the knife in

If they could know the pain
You inflicted on my brain
They would strip you of your badge
And take your license


They’d see through all your lying
And the elders would start crying
Vicious girl

And those that have your bent
Would that your stockinged legs be wrent
And give them a whirl

My little pearl

You were my world

My dearest one
Put down that gun
You’ll have what you are after
The dopamine
And you’ll be seen
Relaxed and full of laughter

My truest love
Sent from above
Please resist the potion
Steel your nerves
And all the curves
Will freeze; there’ll be no motion

My sugar plum
You’ll be made numb
If you ingest the snake oil
Grit your teeth
And far beneath
Your feet will shift the loose  soil

In your cage
I can’t assuage
Your sadness and your longing
My truest prayer
Will pierce your lair
A new era is dawning

As you walk away, please remember how much I loved you
And that so many days I tried to make things right
No, I wasn’t perfect, I know, that’s not what I’m saying
But I did the best I could do, before you took flight

Seems the spell you were under just never dissipated
I never snapped you out of it like I thought I might…
You grabbed the yoke, bent on crashing and burning, but I held on
Thinking after this valley of darkness, we’d reach some light

As you walk away
Out into the night
Oh darling, I’m aghast
Oh dear, it’s not right

And as you round the bend
I hope you get it right
I hope you can unwind yourself
Your knots are awful tight

Now every day’s been spent just raging and weeping
At the thought of what perhaps could have been…
And the images my mind creates of the acts are just teeming
I feel stupid and blind for the things that I should have seen

On my knees in the darkness, I pray to the sky for renewal
Looking hard for what the hell it was that I lacked
Running over scenarios of a repair to this wreckage
Hazy future images where we’ve made it back

But I now realize that this fantasy is just illusion
And I know your current strategy lies with him
But when this honeymoon period that you’re now into has ended
And he’s pulls you down to the deep I just hope you swim

I’d rather you get well and get happy, dear, believe it…
Than stayin’ tied in knots from which you can’t get free
Whatever was lacking …I hope that your new love fulfills it
Dearest friend, you’ll always have a part of me

As you walk away
Out into the sunset
Oh dear, I am speechless
Oh darling, it’s not right

And as you round the bend
I hope you got it right
I hope you can unwind some day
Those knots are awful tight

My bones are sore
At close of day
With pain in feet
And hair more grey

Now begins the
Springtime slurry
Winter's death,
The sprouting fury...

But it's the autumn
Of my days
And joints now throb
And mind's a haze

Yet Spring awakens
Yearnings which
Have long lain dormant
How the itch

Distracts a stiff
From daily dribblings
Daydreams, donned
With nubile nibblings

And out into
The wood I jaunt
Till pagan ponderings
Hellishly haunt

The corners of
My craggly crown
The parietal plunder
Pulling down

But satyr romps
Among tree bases
With myriad pictures
Of countless faces

Create a stiffness
'Mid sickened stones
Not of ***** but
Of the bones

At close of day
A man lay hoping
For another day's
Eyes to open

O new day come
It's not too late
Inner wellspring
Satiate!

Studiously learning what’s in the Mazatlán,
They caught each other’s eye as she sat in a corner booth,
The gleam he saw aglow there, he began to dwell upon,
The radiance of her countenance was akin to light and truth

He joked and mugged and walked a wire,
She gestured, and, the flames grew higher,
She told him of her man betrothed,
He shuddered but appeared unmoved.

But growing way down, deep inside him,
There welled a thirst, so powerfully pure,
He tried to bury it, to push it down,
But drawing him, pulling him, her enticing allure,

They stood calf-deep near Ontario’s shore
The moon smiled down and charged their glow
She’d lower her eyes and his heart would soar
That moon knew things that she didn’t know

For he whispered to the moon his heart’s desire
That this fair maiden would one day be his,
And the mother of the fates was summoned by wire
And soon, on the island, it was sealed with a kiss!

And she changed her destiny and his heart leapt for joy!
She could not have known how happy she made him;
There were fireworks and magic for that unseasoned boy
He was glad his thirsty thoughts had betrayed him

Fast forward five years, to a kneeler on the altar
A bond was forged there - which never will falter
And darling new creatures now fill their book
And he is even more smitten than at that first look

On Monday
I heard that song

It made my heart
…so blue

Because I realized that I
Had not tried that with you

My ego made me blind
So I put it away

And flirted with you on the phone
The whole ****** day

Enough with caveman thinking
I miss you so **** much

I miss your laughing mouth
I miss your tender touch

A stark realization that
I hadn’t asked you back

I hadn’t begged you, “please,
Let’s get us back on track”

     So I sent you lots of pleading
     And poetry and pics

     To try to see if I could woo
     You back from foreign tricks

     You’re using one another
     For your own selfish kicks

     So I tried throwing ego out
     And seeing what still sticks

Sad to say though, you,
Are set in your new ways

Myopia will get me through
These dark and lonely days

My turns of phrase fall short
My demons come collect

And you will be right there.
Your truest thoughts, deflect

     But I just didn’t want to be
     At some future family thing

     And have you turn and say,
    “Did you keep that old ring?”

    “Too bad we couldn’t work it out,
     And get US back on track”,

    “You said you’ll love me eternally,…
     Why didn’t you ask me back?”

So now it’s sinking-in
You did what needed done

You felt you had to crash and burn
This bond into the sun

You burn so brightly kid,
You sure know how to hurt

You give good pleasure for the meal
Then cut me for dessert

••



Over and over and over and over again
I will ask You to come and enter in

Why won't you reach out your hand?

--

I don't know if I can make it on my own
'Got people who love me but I still feel alone

Sometimes I just want to chuck it all...
But I don't
     And it's lonely
          for everyone

We've got to make it back home.

I am losing sight of the paths I knew
'Just got to tune-in my receiver to You

Must be some faulty transmission lines...
Oh what'll I do?
     Sit and stew?

I'm tellin' folks everywhere I roam:
     We gotta' make it back home.

Blue
     is what is
     TRUE

Black, a heart-attack

But
The dog-eared pages of the prophets and proverbs,
Smudged with the black of the resin on my fingers,
Folded and torn
The frayed edges
The murky riddles
The puzzle, the underlying meanings,
It is more of a black than a blue

And then she said
It's time for bed
As up the stair she led me

And as time flew
I knew it true
'Twas fate that she should bed me

That bright young girl
With skirts that twirl
Was never meant to parry

And on that day
It's fair to say
I knew that we would marry

It’s just amazing that
    A simple hat
Can transform me so

I put that pork-pie on
    And the spark’s begun
So let’s start the show

-

Looking for subtle phrases
    And all my graces
They seem to shine

Just wearing heart-on-sleeve
    And I still believe
That the words aren’t mine


Oh
          Where’d they
Come from?
                         Not me!
              I’m dumb.

-

I play here every night
    If I’m feeling right
So please come on by

My smooth responsive band
    Makes it all seem planned
When they’re primed and high

           -

But if you listen close
    You can hear the prose
Is a bit too loose

Mark plays his tight guitar
    An unheard-of star
In his wing tipped shoes

-

Oh

          Who needs
   An audience?
                       They’d be
           Applauding us.
                
-

    And I’m just fine to be here in this place
    Where the rain can’t touch our chilly faces

And we can bless or we can sort of derange
We can play Roc-city for pocket change



    It’s just so weird and funny that
    I can be transformed by this magical hat

And I wouldn’t change a single note
As it’s ushered forth from my scratchy throat

You were a good man
I wish I'd thanked you more
You never sketched out this plan
Now you walk along the golden shore

Along the edge of the glassy sea
Outside of time and space
One day you'll give us the nickel tour
As we grow accustomed to your new face

We will know it's you right away
From the way you welcome us all
With your oh so familiar laugh
And your West Virginia drawl

And you'll regale us then
With the deep things you've derived
Hand in hand with the author of life
Between 2016 and the day we arrive

Sitting there
With your artistic  eye
Taking everything in until

Your steady hand
Such expertise
Creates in us a thrill

Your ebullient knack
For storytelling
And lack of inhibition

So inviting
And so loving
Of every human's condition

Your tender heart
Sets you apart
I think of you and I sigh

Charlotte my dear
Don't you fear,
I'll protect you 'til I die

It's always just out of reach it seems
Dreams are something better forgotten
Rotten, my wrongs, with regrets of paths not trod
Fodder for turning and throwing my lot in

I desire it in the innermost places
Paces I've put us through seem to outshine
Divine interventions I thought that I wanted
Haunted my wish for true joy to be mine

HELLO UP THERE LORD, Is there anyone up there
Cherishing children who call on thy Name?
Shame that I can't seem to hear see or feel you
Why so taciturn, seems such a shame

Sarah, Charlotte, and Little Pete
Wander down the tree-lined street
Toward Listwood playground's swings
Charlotte hums and Sarah sings

Peter talks without a breath
Bores his  listeners half to death
For they don't know his special speech
"I weawwy weawwy twy to weach"

"Weach fow da staws, it's hawd as heww
To say the aw sound owa fowm an ew" +
R's and L's are not his forte
But that won't stop him from trying to say

Whatever is flitting through his mind
And my boy Pete is oh so kind
My children make me proud as hell
And every day my love will swell

Pushing swings beneath the stars
Then hanging from the monkey bars
Then up the pole and down the slide
Then home with these three by my side

Their Daddy loves them so much more
Than anything he's loved before
Except, perhaps, for their mother
I love these four more than any other

Oh the screamers are screaming
And clawing and mooning
They soon will be dreaming
They're crammed in and spooning
If it weren't for my many interventions tonight
Surely, they would have, committed a crime
One, or more, would be out of the fight
Down to the mat for the very last time
But now, I'm here...as chaperone;
As mediator; as bodyguard,
They unite against me here alone
In this bedroom prison yard

Long, long ago
More than a few grandmothers back
The eye of Mr. Strachan
Was drawn to one Miss Jex
Out for an airing
With pipe and tree
Moss and rock
Water of the Awen
Began to flow
And his quill flitted
Across the leaf
As the veery thrush song
Spiraling through the air
Stultified him there
In his personal sanctum
‘Neath pine and locust
And glints in orbs
Foretold the progeny to come
The rabbit-cart-man
That hard-working peasant
Claustrophobia and smoke rings
Whiskey with sweet and smoky notes
Industrial accidents
Morality lessons
Spiced with misinformation
And hearty laughter before and after
And all led toward my creation

My thoughts race~
In my inner monologue I hear:
     (I mean in my head, ...not actually in my ear)


“I hope we can make it through all of this”

                                ...

What?
How did I “hear” that?   And who spoke those words?

...’cause, if that’s a thought that came from in me...

           Then who is the “I”?     ...Who is the “we”?


And how is it that I can take note
           Observing these thoughts that ring

Who is thinking and who’s observing...
           The conscious mind is an amazing thing

Brother Jimmy, stop a while, take a seat and listen ...
Listen to the whoosh of the A/C ebb and flow...
It seems imbibing corporate rules and little lies that glisten
Is not a healthy diet, don't you know(?)

This place has got you sick and tired and haggard as a hound
But bless your soul with rock, and roll your eyes, you stilted hack,
Though this time, maybe, wait until review time comes around,
"The man" is just the man to hold you back

We find that just a tad of mirth to hide the grit-teeth might,
Just be the way to keep the ship from sinking.
And when the pounding's in my head, my eyelids clamp down tight,
My prayer then, is reign me in, and guard me from free thinking