Like a goose flying tail,
Or alone waiting mail;
Like a fly on the strand,
Or initials in sand.
Never give up.

You're fouled on a fair play
With the crowd in your face;
You shoot from the blocks
To a false started race.
Never give up.

You're stranded on the shoulder
With a tire gone flat;
Or walking a dark stretch
With a load on your back.
Never give up.

You're lying in a sitting room
With a match and a spoon;
Staring at a bare wall
When your skin starts to crawl.
Never give up.

You'll get your lead;
The strand may break;
The tide will turn;
You've lost the taste.
The spare's in the trunk,
Friends lighten your load.

Never give up.
There's light down the road.

We'll do another year, for now,
Know moments of anguish and triumph,
Know, too, that years are all alike
Riding on lapses of
Comfort in between.

Sometimes, I see heads sharing shoulders,
Or bodies close around a table
Looking at framed winter scenes.

Sometimes, there are piano keys,
And promises of music.
At times, I see a landing, gently,
That leads to a small smile of satisfaction.

In the morning we continue with the
Morning good-bye kiss.
We must greet each other again soon
In friendship and loving service.
It takes us forever to understand
Our witnessing of taste and touch,
But most of all, feel.

For now the instant becomes you.
Still each day
Replaces memories, for now.
As we, in the now and the is,
To the greatest degree of love.
As I love you - All.

Forever and ever
Without a choice,
Roofs were raised
In booming voice:
God the Father.
Proclaimed the choir.

In our two millenia,
The communal host blessed pro-choice,
With Omni-this and Omni-that:
Christ the Son.
Christ has won.
The carollers rejoice.

The Spirit transubstantiates
With tongues of creativity;
Is One with femininity.
What greater God!
What a Trinity!

I won the race,
  tail me.
I lost my balance,
Don't right me.

I won second place,
  bewail me.
I lost the toss,
Don't kite me.

I won the ribbon,
  impale me.
I lost my cool,
Don't ice me.

I won the job,
  avail me.
I lost the argument,
Don't cite me.

I won the bid,
  assail me.
I lost the battle,
Don't fight me.

I won the vote,
  hail me.
I lost the my way,
Don't slight me.

I won the lottery,
  blackmail me.
I lost some will,
Tread lightly.

I won the case,
  bail me.
I lost the cross,
Don't indict me.

I won the girl,
  unvail me.
I lost some teeth,
"So bite me!"

How could I know
So long ago
That I was in love.
No rhyme or reason
In our universe
Can form a law
To name that
Timeless feeling.
Not outside luck or chance,
If such exist,
Or serendipity, or
Imagination and will
Can define that
Timeless feeling.
No image or form
Confines the unbreakable,
Inseparable journey.
I call it that.
Compare it to the unknown,
Unfathomable universe.
The Big Bang,
Expanding, speeding, slowing down
Entropic love.

Zero One and modern blight
Travel at the speed of light.

We wondered on the Wandering Jew,
Or, in lieu,
Orthon, Urian or Lilitu.

We trepanned our empty skulls,
Searched our humours,
Were touched by Rulers!

Now troubling symptoms of want and need,
Have blighted growth of yesterseed.

Patient Zero left no lead.

East fingered West
(and vice versa)
Was Ireland really the cause of cholera?
Did Blacks languish in Tuskegee squalor?
We christened Mary, but drank the water.
Fracked Incubus and Succubus
From son and daughter.

Patient Zero left the slaughter.

We deprived women of their tea
To cure wandering womb hysteriae.
Deviances and leaking lesions
Were headwaters of women's *****.

Patient Zero has no season.

The barber sensed it might be smell,
So our widened streets became a sulfurous hell.
And wastelands swelled
Where curled cats dwelled.
(no talk of Michelangelo)

                                         II

Our children's blight has a techno name,
Like the rose, IT smells the same.
With zero tolerance I lay blame
On screens and phones and video games.

The world wide box stores flipped their lids,
Touching all who crawl the social grids;
From the base of Mammon's pyramid.

Now Jake believes he's a gangsta dude
Since posting whatever on You Tube.
Nothing to gain, nothing to lose:
No services rendered but expects what's due.

Inflated egos are a system symptom,
Clearing firewalls, reaching children.

Patient Zero is no phantom.

There is no tale of rat or flea
As cause of lost immunity.
There is no open sore to fester,
The Selfie is the X-ray picture.

Patient Zero is so much quicker.

In our gel of techno bliss,
On our elliptic petrie dish,
Bathed in more than we could wish,
Patient Zero will finish,
And with that whimper
All vanish.

Everything about a child
Bundled against winter gets me.
A toque, under a taut hood,
Chapped, like lips,
Mitts covering hands
Joined like tin cans,
With fingers communing
Warmth along lines that
Join our hearts and souls.
Sleeves pulled down
Over mitts with
Wax-like icicles.
Bootsoversocksoversfeet
Under pants, over skin and bones
(that hardly seem warm)
All over me.
Now you see,
They're all over me like nothing.
Bundled in me for
All winters.

I don't have pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
I'll stay away from Yellowstone.
If one's asthmatic in the Eifel region
You don't pronounce the "P."
This won't **** me.

I don't have COPD.
Everyone coughs in blue smoke.
My throaty itch won't **** me.
I won't constrict and choke.

I don't have an infectious disease,
Despite my personality.
I run for shelter in acid rain.
I drink water with ice cubes,
And spray my green out back.
As much as I hate to, I avoid rusty nails.
*** is safe... and at a distance.
Despite being repeatedly told to,
I never eat ****.
The great imitator
Is a snivelling mime.
If I'm bitten, I recognize the marks.
The erupting of the ring of fire won't **** me,
but perhaps I was precocious
To drop the "P" in
Pneumonoultramicroscopicscilicovolcanoconiosis.

I haven't succumb to animal flues,
I stay clear from the bars.
I donate to the SPCA,
Bet on ponies or the odds of SARS.

I don't have meningitis.
I like lights and loud music.
If I get the night sweats,
I turn down my electric blanket.

I haven't the minor or greater pox,
I spurn comparisons.

According to the scoop and scope,
I ascend and descent C free.
But the time spent on Referrals
Might be the death of me.

I don't have botulism.
My smile still concaves down.
Curling convex above it,
A condescending frown.

I'm not a *****.
I feel every poke and like.
My digits number twenty...
Twenty one.
My glasses are smudge free.
If anything I see too well.

Alcoholism can't **** me.
Alcohol can.

I haven't cardio entropy,
But I'd be remiss
To dismiss
The wise counsel Oz gave me:
"Hearts can never be made practical until they can be made unbreakable."
So true.
So true!

Anyway, none of the above will get me.

But, I do have what you have.
The young and grown.
The able and ill.
A hand.
A sweeping hand.
A second hand
Setting those infectious nonogerms
Like diamonds
In my Time-x.

(the tics will talk 'til twelve o'clock)

When we make time,
When we listen:

The theistic preach deistic talk;
The atheistic preach pragmatic talk;
The agnostic preach proleptic talk;
The heretic preach shismatic talk;
The mystic preach prophetic talk.
(the mesianic and satanic never stop)

When we have time;
Then we listen:

The optimistic teach hypnotic talk;
The pessimistic teach sarcastic talk;
The altruistic teach empathetic talk;
The idealistic teach synergistic talk;
The pacifistic teach semantic talk;
The body politic teach charismatic talk;
The technocratic teach robotic talk;
The romantic teach poetic talk;
The critic teach cathartic talk;
The moralistic teach dualistic talk;
The ascetic teach platonic talk.
(the artist would rather not talk)

When we find time,
Do we listen:

The lunatic speak quizzotic talk;
The neurotic speak pathetic talk;
The chauvanistic speak monistic talk;
The nihilistic speak ballistic talk;
The hedonist speak narcissistic talk;
The futuristic speak galactic talk.
(the minimalist hasn't the time to talk)

Just don't.

Look.
Some tic reset the clock.