There's Wishing it to be
       Wanting it to be
                 and Hoping it to be.
But instead
       Here's how it is...
                 It's REALITY.

It doesn't mean you should stop
wishing
       wanting
              hoping.
Because these are the desires
that keep us
      going
            flowing
                   forward.

Don't forsake it
       fake it
              or forget to take it
this striving in life for meaning.
        Remembering...

REALITY is what you make it!

Was it Witchcraft?
  Magic?
We weren't sure.
  We were just children.
    But we were witness to a manipulation of all things that abound.  There was influences on objects of nature.  Emanations of psychic force.
     Like on cold nights where an ethereal spirit box would quietly hum as it breathed warm air into our play room. (turned out to be a heater).
   Or where magically an upright coffin full of tasty morsels stood at the ready for hungry tummies. (Later we recognized it as a refrigerator).
   Where mysteriously cold water turned hot, spilling from an orifice  into a cauldron where upon us kids were placed like happy little guppies. (this we later knew as a bathtub).
   Was it super natural powers,
magic,
sorcery?
  Back then it was.
Because me and sister were just little kids.
And the SHE in control of all these magical powers?
  She was our mother.
      
             Happy  Mother's  Day

I thought I hummed a happy song,
but without a woman I was wrong.
A belief I was too blind to see.
Women are the best thing,
a man could ever have.
(she points this out to me).

She said that we,
collectively,
would open life's doors,
no less, no more, dance upon floors.
The joy we'll see.
(And while I'm out and about could I
run a few chores?).

She does wonderful things,
so I've been told.
At least I think so,
but this I know.
From the dawn of man,
through the times of sand.
Without a woman,
a man cannot stand!
(She wrote this on the back
Of my hand).

She lovingly wraps herself around
every aspect of my life,
my wife,
to the point I couldn't function
without her. Yes lovingly.
I wouldn't doubt her.
(She seems to have combined  both our power).

She had the word TAKEN tattooed on
my arm,
I'm no longer living alone, so what's
the harm.
You can love them or **** them -
thy name is woman.
(when I'm wrong, I hide in the barn).

I try to squeeze her and please her,
kiss her and hold her,
and be mister charming.
She responds by whispering,
don't you have a ballgame to watch
Or something?
(She keeps me running).

I'm a mouse in my house,
who sometimes sleeps on the couch.
While wheeling and dealing with the
strife of married life.
She says it's for the best.
(I now pronounce you man and wife).

I wanted a strong woman that stands
on her own,
stimulates my growth.
Runs her life and runs our home.
A woman who's so much more.
(Be careful what you wish for).

She said you best be knowing,
that lawns need mowing,
kids need growing.
I countered,
can't I just be a snoring and boring,
simply enjoying dad?
She double-countered,
and said, "Women are the best thing a man could ever have".
(Who am I to argue).

I want a mate to share my plate,
one who has the grace,
to have smiles break-out all over
her face.
There's no way her smile could ever
flip upside down,
and become a frown.
(Could it?)

I reach for my back pocket wallet,
but her hand is already on it.
She says sharing is caring,
and it's a wonderful thing.
She states, "You want to be
wonderful too,
don't you"?
(So I guess sharing is the only way).

She says I'm teachable with a
smidgen of logic,
so I'm flexible, and her little project.
Change my stubbornness from bad to
good.
Says I'm hard headed.
(knock on wood).

So that's how it goes,  I suppose.
To be a money provider,
a handyman, a chauffeur driver.
To be elated,
sort of appriciated,
to be a married man.

She keeps whispering in my ear,
for my brain again to hear,
and to make it perfectly clear.
"Dear", she says...
Women are the best thing
a man could ever have.
(So I've been told).

Saying stupid things at inappropriate times for me is like riding a bicycle, it's  something you never forget how to do...
    like when my uncle tried riding a bike for the first time in 30 years and then proceeded to plunge over a mile high cliff.
   It was my idea for him to ride the bike in the first place and I didn't know what to do so I leaned over the cliff and shouted, " pedal, pedal".

We would collect
the wrecked
And broken toys.
The unspoken for toys,
That no one cared about anymore.

Each year on that day,
they were shipped and sent away.
Where did they exactly go?
I finally wanted to know.

I told dad these damaged toys sound like my brother Jimmy who was also wrecked and broken.
He couldn't control himself in his child like ways, was full of anger and ill spoken.

Where did you send my brother Jimmy to, was he really so bad?
Where has he gone to my brother Jimmy, where did you send him dad?

"Son, I'll be honest. Your brother Jimmy now lives with the other troubled boys...on the ISLAND OF BROKEN TOYS"!

It's a wide open art,
from the start.
Rules are for schools.
Dont fret em,
forget em.
So
Relax with a syntax,
clown around,
with a pronoun.
Squeeze the ******,
of a dangling participle.

Free flying like geese,
creative words release,
make it up if you please.
Example--the plural of mice is meese.

Flowery language isn't the exclusive domain of the professional writer, it's for everyone!
To continue then,
about the writers pen.
No write or wrong,
nothings too short or long.
Mangled,
bungled,
butchered,
bumbled, don't matter.
We don't need a librarian to admire what we have done.

Words aren't hard,
fling them unbarred.
It's not arithmetic,
or teaching a cat a trick.
Crunch them uniting,
mix them combining.
Fling them,
meld them,
Verb them,
sell them.
We don't need a New York Times best seller to enjoy the art of writing.

Uncrate it,
create it.
Use it,
and abuse it.
Don't bar us
from a thesaurus
Or a dictionary.
The spiel
is to write real
tell the tale
seal the deal.
WORD HATERS live in the town called Fictionary.

If I could
I  would 
But I can't
So I  won't
--Be the carpenter to the building up of your ego.
--Shower you with confident praise, umbrella you from dissident things.
--Figure out the high and low moods of an adrenaline *****.
--Nod in agreement, like a court jester, to the latest exploits of a drama queen.
 
 Its a constant chore I abhor just to get you up and moving out the door.
Push you out the nest to fly,
throw you in the water to sink or swim, to try.
It's what we do when children are all grown,
NOT what we do for girlfriends who are afraid to leave home or be alone.

It's  not a keeping score point system where I'm giving more than I'm getting. Its more of a witnessing to the feeling of the allowing and the letting.

If I could
I would
But I can't
So I  won't
-- pave a yellow brick road through your misgivings.
--Smooth off the edges of your indecisions.
--Give you the cowardly  lions courage he got from Oz.
--Lie to boss Hog that your sick in bed.
-- Tweezer out the splinters of your perceived injustices.

If I  could
I would
But I can't
so I wont
Cottle you, bottle you, can't promise you or promote you. Must remove you and remote you, no longer develop you or devote you. Your on your own.

And in the end, dispite what I  do and the might that I  do it with... the final road is one we walk alone.
  I have to let you go now.

All lies diminish me ---

As a card carrying member of the human race,
I consider it a disgrace,
when truth is subverted,
truth is diverted,
puts a frown on my face,
puts me in a bad place,
when truth is perverted in any way.

Lies weaken the laws of modern man--

If it's a shell game of opinion while avoiding fact,
modern society might as well take a giant step back.
To the plague days,
to the guillotine ways,
when might was right,
carry a big stick.
I dont want to go back to that.

Each lie told damages the soul ---

Are we here on earth to be false to each other,
to con with words or sister and brother? 
 To smother or dignity,  
break it and fake it,
knowing wrong from right but go ahead and forsake it?
I think no.

And the outcome of lying---

When those you trusted lie,
but don't  get busted - cry.  
Consider it the day truth died. 
 And down with the ship of truth goes honesty
       respect,
              rules,
                    civilization will fall.  
Tears to lend, prayers to send, 
lies will be the beginning, the middle, the end.
  Lies will be the death of us all.

Witness the gentleness of her spirit
soaring with affirmative hope.
To nurture the kindness and decency from others is her guiding goal.

Men aren't brutes it's just a notion,
a characteristic strain to be loved away.
Her sympathetic understanding is like a potion.
Her words hummingbirds, her tongue a bouquet.

Beaming smile, laughing eyes,
tender of heart for the witnessing.
You'll feel like a present or a prize
because she believes all people interesting.

Everyone and all want to be around her,
as far as the eye can see.
Who is this person of such profound magnificence?
It's YOU if you want it to be.

The alarm clock rings
and once again
the rooster sings
the morning new.
Slumbering flowers
lift their petals to drink
the drops of dew.
  Reliable Sun
vanquishes the darkness
as he lightens the sky.
  I see an honored guest
is in the garden,
his tiny nametag reads... butterfly.

       But on the other side of town
       someone struggles with
       addiction.

 Habits grab hard,
break will powers  in two.
The will becomes won't
and the power is all through.
Satiated,
temporaneously satisfied.
only till the next time the habit has to be gratified.
The victim moves on trying to reassemble his day
Avoid
a crooked roaded relapse,
along the way.

Oh ghost of the host why must repitition repeat the most
and feel so good in its continuation?
Why must familiarity breed the need
for more familiar feelings?
To the point of killing control, sealing a fate,
dealing defeat,
stifle healing.

     If your out there guardian soul, spirit helper, what's your roll, your goal? 
 Guiding with helping hand or let stand the habitualized
habit man.

Isn't there  a self preservation station within?
A gland or impulse control button to switch from sin to win?

Even Edgar Allan Poe stubbed his toe on a ten step program trying to get in the door.
Ill-begotten and craven, drunken and unshaven cried the raven...never more.

Guiding spirit it ends here!         

No more slave to the crave
or impulse picking from the addiction tree.
The need to repeat and repeat
the pattern becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

Back to normalacy, complacency,
it's a moderation that one seeks.
To enjoy the ****** of bells, hallalulah wails,
a babies dimpled cheeks.

Can you do that Spirit helper, please.
Let sing the bodies vibration.
 No more internal damnation.
No more self flagellation.
Allow to draw power from these words.
Think of this all as an intervention!

When she says she hears voices rattling and battling in the deepest recesses of her mind, then it's time to beware, take care, and make choices saddling you and leave her behind.

     Shes a case study of its kind. That even Freud would throw up his hands, make a grand stand in his frustrations and demand a vacation to unwind.

She's all that and more.

She'll wrap a man around her fingers  make him putty in her hands,
leave him babbling in his mirror
trying so much to understand.
He should feel something, but just can't comprehend,
left a mute, numb, mumbling...
carcass, of a man.

She's like an itch that becomes a
scratch that's becomes a pestering,
festering ****, till you look down
horror bound as the ****** swollen
thing has taken on a life of its own...

then it starts maxing out your cards,
throwing your clothes out on the yard,
yelling hard. Snooping on your phone. Won't go home. Won't leave you alone.
Is it a wound or a woman or a woman or a wound or both  simultaneously, concurrently?  Yes and no.
Oh the trials and tribulations I've known!


You can really pick em.
Daddy used to say, in his haphazard way, and really lay it on me in the harshest of phrases,  meant to dazzle and daze me, rile and faze me, knock me a kilter off my normal day.


Son, you stimulate and exhilarate  the
spirit of an untamed, pained, wild
child woman and it'll be the same, and here this,
as an insane drain on the brain most personally and certainly and most notably and you can quote me.  It'll leave you feeling like the beach storming at Normandy.

I'll  do nothing...
bad in life that will make my mother cry.
You can disgrace me, debase me, tie me to a railroad track.
But once the tears flow from my beloved mother, there's  no putting them back.

I'll  do nothing, bear this in mind and hear it,
I'll  do nothing that will diminish her spirit.
I  wont let evil near it. 
 I'll honor her by being like her, and proudly cheer it.

    A mother is nurture, she is the birth of nature.
A teacher not a taker, a mentor not a faker.
The ultimate God given talent, a human being maker.

She forsakes hers for the needs of  yours,
with dreams of high aspirations of her off- spring for,
nothing less, till their health and happiness soar.

Who else in this jaded,
complicated,
world gives unconditional love.  Who else.
Who else has you in their thoughts expressly, wantonly.
Who else has you in their thoughts religously, constantly. 
 
Concerned about your wants and needs, worries and dreads,  
doesn't want to pry, so she prays for you instead.
Who else.
No one else!

I'll  do nothing bad in life that will make my mother cry.

The significance of my being and meaning and impact.
When my time is over and mother nature calls me back.
Decomposing and crumbling  bones of my dirt nap.
The world turns and time in memorial won't give a crap.

      Nature's rules decide.
       All things abide.

When measuring in eons and we're a mere blip on the screen.
The profoundness of our meaninglessness could be overpowering.
Unknowable infinity of stars and what they have seen.
**** sapiens defining sum isn't worth mentioning.   

   In the darkness, endless, maw
   All, follow natures law

From the Complexities of vast galaxies beyond mortal man's understanding.
To the smallest intricacies  of nanoparticles, molecules, and atoms.
With the eternity of continuous space which is still hard to fathom.
Connected composites of muddy space dust created modern man at random.

Mammy say don't fear the boll-weevil,
Just a bug, don't worry bout him.
But Pappy say the little devil evil,
so he believe in the cotton gin.

This Texas guy say he was an angel,
I followed lock-step, believed what he said.
Didn't seem to have any sharp angles,
he drank some poisoned koolaid now he dead.

Searched at end of rainbow for *** of gold
me be rich *****, no mo po *****.
Leprechaun belief, I been told,
While head in sky searching, fell in trench.

Politician and preacher keep saying,
I hear their voice noise grind and grind,
vote for me girl and keep praying,
but in the end it make no nevermind.

I tink at de end of the day I just believe in me.

When I was younger:
   I shuffled along,
to no urgent song,
didn't march through my day strong. When young and strong are the best time for planned  convictions.
There's no acting lazy, or slowing down to the crazy, unless you want to live ungracefully in this hard unforgiving world.
When I was younger:
   I lacked logic cause I didn't make clear my premise,
like a man with no plan, a sap with no map.  I wandered tither and yonder like a ghoal  without a goal, a ghost least of most,  no future to ponder.
When I was younger:
   I bogged down in metaphorical feces cause I didn't watch where I was wading, forsaking and debating, planning is for suckers, futures are for chuckers.
When I was younger:
   I did nil and stood still while the city raced around me, progress to astound thee, forgetting the earth constantly rotates 260 miles an hour- waiting for no one.
When I was younger:
   Like the Dodo bird I forgot to grow wings, was eatin by rats and things, became extinct and unlinked to a place run on business, consumerism and cash. On the rocks I was dashed.
When I was younger:
I became he who loses, with a broken compass and excuses, laying laggardly leaderless, with the snoozing and the boozing, and sold my initiative for a bag of grass.
That's when I was younger:
   I'm older than that now.  But I still remember. It's  hard being younger!!

Who knew that getting a Starbucks gift card would turn out so harmful and mean.
When pleasant, harmless, innocent me fell for the spell of treacherous caffeine.

Like a hype with a spike
doing harm to his arm
I  was hooked.
Leaped before I looked,
goose was cooked.

Now I'm here to play the blame game.
Innocent me, walking in free, joyfully,
just getting a coffee.
Then wham!
or should I say bam!
It hit me.
I walked out a quivering, craving, slobbering creature...
maybe not literally but like I said it was done treacherously, maliciously, instantaneously, I was a caffeine *****!

So here are some of the reasons why I'm  unhappy with Starbucks:
--- Starbucks caffeine influenced my body by elevating my heart rate (I'm not sure why I expected anything different).
--- Starbucks crafty, subtley and slyly habitualized me ( Oh god, I'm  a creature of habit!)
--- Starbucks (If possible) is too friendly
--- Starbucks manipulated my accommodating nature (I just wanted to be friends, but now they feel more like, dare I  say it... family).
--- Starbucks slandered me ( by assuming I'm lazy. "Sit, relax, make yourself at home, stay as long as you like").
--- Starbucks  exposed my weaknesses ( l feel naked to coffees influence).
--- Starbucks made coffee hip and cool (I'm  going to go ahead and count that as a bad thing).
--- Starbucks crippled my will power (my will power walks with a limp now).
--- Starbucks  blew up the sun!  
--- And the final reason I'm  unhappy with Starbucks...because they're probably going to sue my *** for writing this!

Original thought is not knocking at my door. It seems there's very little original thought at all any more.

Put my brain back in storage up on the musty shelf. Seems everything I believe in is learned from someone else.

I just simply repeat back the things I've  been taught. Year after year repeating thought after thought.

A collection of opinions, words of others that I spout. Seems the easy way, so I open my mouth and they fall out.

The politicians and teachers and experts and the news. Have radically systematically denied my freedom to choose.

Unwitting copycat and imitator who historically repeats himself.  Without a genuine idea, put my brain back on the shelf.

Has everything I've learned and believe and everything I  know, produced an unauthentic me, God help me if it's so.

A wealth of original ideas, that would be my kind of wealth. If not take what I've  got and put my brain back on the shelf.

If that's what it takes:
I'll pluck a strand of her hair, make myself small,
use it as a rope and climb down her throat.
Hike to her heart and set up camp there.

Make myself smaller and surf through her veins,
get to know her inside out,
set up shop in her brains.
Paddle round her ear canal,
get some ear wax.
Whisper that I need her,
But yell I love her, yell it to the max.

I'll  go out of my way:
I'll show her, help her, always to buy her.
Pamper her, preen her, never deny her.
Take her, forsake her, defend her from factions.
Proof of love is based not just on emotions...but actions.

That's what I'll do:
With hearts a pumping, bodies thumping, glands a screaming.
That's one way to show off loves true meaning.
But after fun, there's work to be done, under the sun.
After all, someone's got to pick up the dry cleaning.

Then I'll finally know:
I'll done coo her, done woo her,
no leaf left unturned.
My heart open and hoping, not to get burned.
All this work will be put into my many satisfactions,
Proof of love is based not just on emotions... but actions.

I try this job
         I try that      
         they tell me
         That's not where I'm at
"Your not college grade material."
"Try a trade school."
         I feel the fool
        down- and- out sad
         I get the same
         from me mom and dad
"Some times tryings  not enough if your not smart enough."  "You'll have to work two jobs to everyone else's one."
          I slog on
         Shuffle my feet
         Beat the streets
         to The work man's beat
"Good jobs are for others, take what you can get." "Don't expect a lot out of life and you'll be fine."
         I try my best
         ain't good enough
         Hurled in the world
         where it's rough and tough
"Get you a bus pass and some free government cheese."  "You'll get ***** hands and need a strong back."
          Food, rent, clothes, life
          On minimum pay
          No way no way
          can this work day to day
"Find a roommate, sell your blood, collect cans, get to love 29 cent ramen noodles, you'll  be o.k."
           Thousands upon thousands
            In every city
            Ain't  pretty, real ******
            And zero pity
"Sorry but there's the "haves and the "have nots", welcome to the lousy end." "Buck up, other countries  are worse."
            While the rich get richer
             and the poor get poorer
             How did surviving in
             America
             Become such a horror
"Your the working class, blue collar, the modern day slave, get used to it. Now shut up and get back to work!!"

If you want to work less,
then don't want bigger, better, best.
If you want more to rest,
don't require the latest, shiniest, trendiest.
And if you want more peace,
desire less pieces.
Desires are mostly selfish WANTS  you see,
but or NEEDS are quite a simple thing.
Food, water, shelter, basic things,
All else is merely bling.
Separate your WANTS from your NEEDS in two lists,
WANTS run forever,
NEEDS fit your fist.
Hop on the WANT train and it may never stop,
There's more at the store,
shop till you drop.
Keeping the greed out of NEED stops excess,
Ghandi, Jesus, Buddha, say that's the way to live best.
If you want more peace,
desire less pieces.

Like a tank he barges in
talking loud shaking hands
hard almost mad.
  Yeh thats my dad.
   Your opinions be ******
while his are grand
his advice taken
not To be forsaken
or he'll  be mad.
  That's my dad.
His lessons you'll learn
or you'll  get burned
by the outside world
or some sneaky girl
don't question or you'll end up sad.
That's my dad.
   No laziness or wallowing
his rules are for following
no goofing around
sun up to sun down,
eee  gad!
Yeh that's my dad.
But in the end it's true,
he's the only father that I knew
now he's dead
our family head
He's the only father I ever had.
Yeh that's my dad.

You can't unring  a bell
what's done is done.
Don't  live in the past
and the future's unknown.
   Be a PRESENT to your self
and that's where to live.
The here and now
this moment to give.
   Sure learn from the past
and plan for the future
Insure your house for leaks
and your health to be sutured.
   And dreams propel us forward
and experience teaches how.
But all we have this very second
is the here and now.
            Live in the  now!