People that I meet and pass
In the city’s broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places —
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.

— People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?

An Apathy for Effort

What happened to the world?
What happened to all of the happy people?
Drugs, money, *****?
None of the above.

I'll tell you what happened.
People happened to people.
Although, not others and to each other.
People happened to themselves.

Satisfaction became fiction
Men and women lost the grip on their vision.
Not eyesight, but people forgot the initial mission.

The concept of being happy
with what you have got
And worrying less about what you want.

If everyone would just shut up
And see how truly blessed they are,
Perhaps they would see
How truly blissful life can be.

Because what is bliss, but simply
A continuity with the whole.
And not a hole in the wall,
but the make of two halves.

If half the world gave half a hoot
We might experience bliss.
But we all individually feel deserving of more
As if we should get more than what we work for.

Yet NOBODY, is willing to give more
than a lift of a finger to attain.
It's too much of a chore.

We all expect the doors of life
To open to us, like a Walmart Super-center.
Where's the effort?
Where's that fighting spirit?

It's taking a nap with all of the hypocrites.
Those who spend their days feeling
sorry for themselves.

Those who left their aspirations
in a a Mason's jar
High upon the shelves, then claiming ignorance
as to what happened to their dreams, like lost car keys.

They know where they left them.
Hanging on the seams of their memories,
Abandoned when it became too hard
To work to achieve.

It's a sad state of affairs
When a man settles for his second choice of lifestyle.
Simply because his first choice was having an affair
With difficulty. Making it fairly difficult.

What is that man scared of?
Failing? You only TRULY fail if you don't try.
so instead he settles for second best,
While his heart sits idle and cries.

His heart cries:
"WHY?! Why won't you try?"
He is scared to lose,
That's why.

The sad thing is.
It's not as hard as that man thinks.
He simply needs to go out and do it,
and he will know happiness for the rest of his life.

But of course he's now too busy,
******* it all away.
Sipping on his bottle of sorrow drowning firewater,
somewhere when it's 5 o'clock.

As the whiskey burns and numbs his senses,
he attempt to consent himself with his settlement.
Living out his days with his mind and his heart
In constant battle.

Wondering what could have been.
What SHOULD have been...

So I beg of you,
don't choose to be another misfit or mishap.
Be you and always be true.
True to your heart and ideals.

Don't ever be frightened by adversity,
Be EQUALLY adverse.
Do not ever lose your grip on what makes you, YOU.

                                                -Nathan W. Smith

For Veterans day


Will briefly pay honor to yesterday’s heroes it is good to think about our boys I think this will help first to a place that was home for
Eight months Fritichie air field over in back of fort Ord by Monterrey it was small but it had about three giant hangers and some of the
Guys had those roadsters the long one’s that they use parachutes to stop them they tested them on the tarmac then the Walters
crash truck this behemoth carried a driver and six man crew the tires were six foot high it had a water cannon on top swiveled three
Hundred and sixty degrees a four inch nozzle that shot water and with the flip of a switch a mixture of foam two hundred feet
And you would empty fifteen hundred gallons of water in fifty nine seconds but we turned it into a snow maker you had this back
Drop of California climate palm by the fire house fanned palms in the yard but we pulled up in front at the side and cut loose starting at
the farthest point in front of the wall that housed our sleeping quarters mixed with foam we laid foam four feet deep all the way out to
The tarmac there you go white Christmas it didn’t last long in the sun and heat but for a little while we had Christmas it was cool.

Our first hero was a returned medic from Nam this was after I was transferred to Hunter Liggett we were in the barracks he had his
Shirt off what I saw told the story four nasty bullet holes and the skin grafts it took to close them one who runs out in a fire fight
To tend the wounded and hears just kids crying out mama as they are dying the cong didn’t honor this medical angel of mercy just kept
Shooting him he was the same but he wasn’t he was damaged goods he had a quietness a sadness you couldn’t reach the real person
He used to be, he is part of the wounded brother hood I never suffered as the day now out of the service and back out in California I
Read a piece about a homeless vet living in Golden Gate Park next To Height Ashbury it cut me deeplyit was hard to get it out of my mind he couldn’t hold a job depended on family then the cold streets of Frisco and I knew the other hundreds hiding in Washington state in the forest their children with
Them I knew this because of the stories of how and what their children did to them if they this innocently walked up behind them and
Said daddy. This will give you a deeper knowledge of how long and deep this haunts all of our heroes after getting out of the service I
Stayed in Monterey worked in the church and worked as a painters apprentice in the painters union a painter was at the Presidio right
Above fisherman’s Warf this facility has many functions but one in particular is the study of linguistics so this naturally had many
Nationalities coming and going in this story Japanese was the problem one painter I guess bored walked up behind an older painter
Poked him in the back with his finger the older man whirled around with a four inch brush the metal part took half the guys front teeth
Out afterwards the old man apologized profusely he gave this even more scary account he told the man all day I have been back
In world war two fighting **** this is now nineteen sixty nine the older man said you are lucky you didn’t come up behind me two
Minutes before I was scraping with a six inch putty knife I would have cut your throat the man lost teeth he could have lost his life. This fighting for our freedom Doesn’t magically stop when they come home from battle fields please honor them and again the greatest warrior whose birth we
celebrate this month extol him and know we can never know how he suffered our hearts are not that big but he defeated
out mortal enemy we owe him our lives. Christ our great captain

A forgotten idea
Left behind
In the back of a mind

A note resonating throughout the atmosphere
The beginning of a sonata
Eternally remaining midair

A lingering touch
Barely felt
Then gone