There will be  pictures I want to see.
Pictures of your life-line growing,
In a background with Christmas Trees,
School days, soccer matches,
Recitals and dinner blessings,
Parties, proms and outright laughing,
When all who matter are present.
I'm not taking the picture.
I'm not in the picture.
So, Remember Me.
Don't release me.
Sit with your children's children,
Open and tell a story
About a picture in the book;
They may laugh with bewildered looks
At the old Irishman,
The Da da, Daddy, Dad, and Faja,
The one who's loved you
From conception on,
Your old man.

I'm a young man in the spring,
Looking forward to anything...everything;
Undaunted in the offerings.
Nothing's too demanding,
What's out of reach is possible:
If I lift my arms I can fly,
Open my mouth I sing,
Close my eyes, I paint;
Reach out and envelope
What others too soon reject.
It's the spring of my year,
And summer's coming on.

I'm a thirty-something in summer.
Disappointments and expectations abound
Under a cloud-split sunny sky.
I can flap my arms, looking chicken-like,
I'm asked not to sing so loud,
I close my eyes, one at a time,
To read the chart.
My arms are getting full,
But I have room for more.

Autumn comes on my heels.
It's a time for preparation.
Savings, spendings, give-aways
Fill forty years of duty.
Taxes, mortgages, tuition,
Weddings, christenings,
Hellos and goodbyes to the loved.
Winter is coming in off the lake.

Today coincides with the solstice;
The least amount of light,
I can feel it now.
I close my eyes to nap,
I am grounded, well-grounded,
I accompany the singers with a uke,
And lip sync.
I hear every note.
I'm skating again at the arena,
Sugar Shack is playing.

Someone else always wins the lottery.
I've said,
It always happens to someone else.
That's what you'll hear about me,
When I win.
When I lose.

you burned,
like alcohol,
on freshly bitten nails.

more painful,
then the cold,
nipping at my ankles,

I loved,
like today,
wouldn't turn into tomorrow,

So you hurt,
like the sun,
and you left a mark.

The disembodied radio host asked:
If you could live a past experience,
What would you choose?
I searched my far and recent memories.
What would it be?
Some thought ensued...
Then some more.
A week's gone by. Here's why.
Seven days ago...
I'd like, I thought, to bumper-jump
In four inch snow.
Then six days ago...
The tender, innocent, inviting experience
Of my most amazing, surprising and tantalizing
First Kiss.
Then five days ago...
My university years. They happened once.
Then four days ago...
Achieving a pleasing place with my avocation.
Then three days ago...
The first born, second born, third born. Daddyhood.
Then two days ago...
My happy and contented first day of retirement.
One day ago...
A Guiness and a shot of Jameson. Grandahood.
And today?
What would I like to re-experience...
Many more days
Like today.

In my Honalee,
I abandoned the wish
For time to rocket by.
The burning suns didn't sink
Fast enough behind pirate's sails.
Where desire is the moon phasing
Like tidal currents to the watershed.
Youth and time inextricably race slowly
With each passing celebration,
Until the full-feathered fly like dragons,
And our present fills the sky, and me,
Keeping look out.

In my songs
I learned
Of love and peace and harmony.
Heard the injustices of humanity,
The harms incurred,
The hurts endured,
The tranquility of let it be.

Despite my flights,
I fed you,
Feathered the nest,
Did all the rest
To feed all your dreams.

Now weeks fly,
Your babies will cry.

Stay still thwarted worm.
This beak, though worn,
Is not yet ready for you.
The day will come,
The hour creep up,
The minute of expiration,
But it's that second one dreads,
That moment.

I don't like that picture framed,
Looking from my shelf;
You're no longer like that,
No longer you're yourself.
I don't like your smiling eyes,
I don't like your hair,
I don't like the way you look,
I don't like you there.
I had plenty,
I was twenty,
A life ahead of me;
I don't like your picture there,
Looking down on me.

I'll place a new shot on the shelf,
A recent picture of one's self,
Mirroring pangs of time,
The heartaches that are mine.
A picture of an aged-worn man,
A head that droops,
Shoulders stooped,
A face laced with worry lines,
A wry smile covering crimes;
A still life and a pantomime.
I don't like that picture there,
When I was in my prime.

I thought the world would go out with chaos
and zombies, at least the walking dead,
it would be like wow.

But alas it wasn't meant to be,
it went out with silence. Well near enough.
The day before I was being my usual accidental
self, I looked right, the way the traffic was coming!

Yes I didn't look left, who knew some pensioner
wouldn't look at the road in forgotten pools
that shimmered sight on there eyes.

Look listen, look again my mother used to say..
Now as I traverse the air, I feel myself broken.
But in a flight almost unending, till I land, limply.

I thought the world would go out with chaos
and zombies, at least the walking dead would
be like wow...

But we take many steps, we walk so many in life,
then we die. but some imagine there life as continual
that they'll have footprints that will last.

As I lie here feeding the pavement my life,
every step is a chosen one. We must not waste them,
for it takes only one step to become static.

I see people rushing over to my fastening breath,
how would have thought that out of the millions
of steps I had taken this would be my last.

Beauty walks this world. It ages everything**
I love them according to the seasons
Let’s start with the winter scene  
It reminds me of June bridal dresses
Woven into the likeness of winter themes
Capturing Impureness without stresses’

The colors of springs, the beginning of testing,
  The attitude of one’s happiness that lies ahead for bracing sea breeze
The mindset of the summer beauty :shine through summer madness:

as we slowly move into the fall months
We tend to have spiritual thoughts about the madness of summer
The spring will dwindle, as the windy days come
Embrace the beauty of remaining days of summer

The beauty will be bottle in our hearts and mind for ever
Beauty walks this world, it ages like any another thing