You're born,
you live,
you die.
Is there time to evolve?

Sometimes I sit cross-legged and I hum,
and I congregate with familiars to hymn,
and I congregate with warriors to gym,
and I smash keyboards to poeticize,
but it there time to evolve?

I will not let you substitute my evolution.
It is not some rabbit evolves from hat trick.
It is not some ******* nothing to something odd.
I don't know what it is, but you're not substituting it.

It's something weird.

I can go insane and wake up a god,
is that not evolution?
I can fall in love and become superman overnight,
is that not evolution?
I am the ka-me-ha-me-ha fusion of my parents!
I was,
once as worthless and aptly sized
as the penny under your bed,
but just you wait (you know what I mean)
I became big enough to rob you of common sense
and maybe your cents (yeah, about those pennies... can I sleep with you?)
I became big enough to hurl mountains across lakes (warning: stated objects are proportional to ants).
I became big enough to be the most insignificant speck on the earth, but I could nuke San Francisco and you'd see my handiwork from the moon,
is that not evolution?

Evolution is the survival of the fittest,
that's right,
every football player could be the next evolutionary link,
just wait until the end of the match,
you might be the first witness ;)

Tell me I'm not wrong!
If you say the opposite, you're a communist... (see what I did there?)
Is that not evolution?

What exactly are we passing through,
to get from where I am typing "a" to you saying, "Why'd he choose 'a'?"
from all across somewhere else where I am not?
Mouthful? Mouth full of what? Imagination?
Is that not evolution?

I don't know where I am sometimes,
and then I pull out a cellular doohickey,
and I command a machine 100 times my size
that's somewhere where there's no air or gravity
to tell me where I am. Sometimes I threaten it,
"I'll give you the AIDs equivalent of a computer virus you,
you... you pervert! Yeah, I know you know where I am every hour,
of every minute,
of every second,
so... there!"
You've got to give satellites the what-for sometimes.
IS THAT NOT EVOLUTION!!!

I don't know.
I guess you don't believe me...
Is that not devolution? (See what I did there?)

Okay, okay, I'm not impressing you with anything,
neither wordplay nor swordplay,
neither hiccup nor genius,
okay,
I'll leave you with this.

What did the signing ape say to the other signing ape?
Boom.
(Is that not evolution...)

She should have been fine,
Right school, good family, right color,
But she was at the age when things go wrong.

She began to feel the weight
Of weightless things
And the need to be someone
No one could be outside the cover of a magazine.

So the doubt crept in and
Muddied her image in the mirror
Then frustration took hold
Because she couldn't reach a
Place that never was
Or ease the pain of that failure.

One bad day, the devil whispered
Through the mouth of a boy who knew her pain
In his hand a pill, he said,
“It's cool, everybody does”.

But she heard through tortured adolescent thoughts  
“Here is peace, acceptance is here, belonging “.

And so she did and did
And when she tried to turn away
The whisper became a shout, then a command
And the pill became a needle in her arm.
  
When money ran out, she started selling
Pieces of her soul in backseats, or ***** hotels.
The devil left her then, he had won.
No more promises, no dreams, or hopes or even fears
Only the need for something
No one ever needed.

Her world became an illustration
She maintained with just enough sense
To keep her on the street, but
It wasn't enough in the end.

Her mother found her in her bed
Afterward the woman always said
“She looked so peaceful and
So young. “My little girl “.

Somewhere the devil whispered,
“Peace” and laughed.

She left on a winter afternoon,
leaving her cup of chamomile

tea cooling on the kitchen table.
A cough of car exhaust and she

was gone.

She left behind only certain things:

a thin procession of dresses
hung in the bedroom closet,

a strand of costume pearls
curled in an unworn shoe,

a tube of coral lipstick abandoned
on the bureau beside her hairbrush.

Today the crocuses began to bloom.
I can bear the things she left behind,

but the warble of the robin’s song
is the sound of love as it unwinds.

There you are, holding the book with one hand,
with your legs crossed,
reading.

I notice you,
I always notice guys that read.

The seat right next to you is empty.
I take it.
My hand touches your leg,
I shiver.

There you are, unaware of all the things that go through my head.
I am emotional; I got some bad news today.

I desperately want to take your hand, squeeze it. I need to.

I take a peek at your book,
“marriage”, I read.
You look back at me and I pretend.

The bell rings, my stop.
I look back at you and there you are, holding the book with one hand
with your legs crossed
reading.

I burnt down the metal cage
that confined me

I have broken up with God
and I am blossoming

without his hand pushing
my head down

I eat blackberries straight from
the bush

tasting the dirt where they grew
the tightest bud bursting

into fruit that nurtures me
that sustains me

I am Godless and cageless
I am a woman of

flames, starting fires
wherever I go

burning, burning, turning
into ash

into the very dirt I courted
with my purple stained

lips

Dribbling crude slips through seams
as the icicles hang and the Robins play
in the snow fields surrounding Lake Oahe.

Distant stacks puke exhaust as
tractors come alive and
frozen tracks break free.

Roaring machinery drowns out moans
and wailing children hold tight to mothers,
tears stream down weathered faces watching
the destruction of their home.

From my home I witness the horrors
on grainy Youtube videos and
private Facebook messages gone viral.

With tied hands I witness a land *****
my eyes turn red and widen
staring
at the latest American catastrophe.

If you still have them around... write them a note. This was 26 years ago. I owe my life to her.
-------------------------
To My Mother
It is your 84th birthday today and I take this time to say, I love you. As I think back to my childhood days, it brings back good feelings of the times we had together.
I remember like it was yesterday the warmth when you held me close.  The nap times when you were beside me while I went to sleep. No greater love can a Mother show than just being there when needed.
I remember coming home from school and finding you about the house.  All was well then and I could go play. There was a ‘something’ about that, which I want my kids to know.
I remember the trust you bestowed on me when I started high school. It was an awesome responsibility to never betray that trust. The lessons learned has carried me through many a rough spot. It shaped my life so that the decisions I made would not cause you pain.
If it were not for your prayers over my 47 years, I shudder to think where I would be today. Thank you for showing me the way and living it with me.
You have molded four lives for which you can take pride. I thank you for making me the person I am today.
Thank You Mom. Happy Birthday!
( written April 1991 )

The moon was full and bright just
the other night.
The howling and appearance  of the wolves
were nowhere in sight.
Fog draped the sky like a velvet cloth.
Flying bugs showed up. ( Gypsy Moths)
Such a fear was released in the air.
It bellowed deep within me shattering
my thought's with bells ringing in my ears.
I fell to the ground, not being able to take the
next step.
A taxi then pulled up with a lady in the
rear.
I was told she asked the driver to stop.
That was the last i was to hear.
Morning followed with the sun beating
down on my face.
I awoke in satin sheets, and a unfamiliar
place.
Three knocks with a butler opening the door.
Asking "Coffee Sir"? I reached for it in
my pajamas of silk.
I felt like a piece of a puzzle that would
never find it's way home.
Interrupting my thought came a voice of
a woman. A beautiful woman. "Thank you Simone"
She said to me that i have been missing for hours, and
time to get up for my morning shower.
I did what she said, and at the same time thinking
i maybe dead.
That's not the case. I just happen to be in
another place.
My mind speaks to you. It's what so many of us go
through.
I'm a man with Alzheimer's. Someone who needs
to be cared for. Please don't make me wander
anymore."