For so many reasons;
When the wow creativity
Of the young, new baby poets,

Bursts all over me,
Making me question
My egotistical perception,
Not a slap, but a belly laugh!
At the old fool, who once thought
Ever so secondary briefly, momentarily,
Unofficially, of his own esteemed self-worth,
Only to be reminded, deaf~dumb & blind~sided
By the fresh air, the aggravating sight of new insight
The delicious!delight  of reading the whole of all night
The explorations, the baby hallucinations, the trembling,
Insights of the explorers of the old, not re!newed, but, but.
Made anew, re~viewed with perspectives boldly unknown,
With crazy wisdom to expound, here, you! right here, right now,
I leave you and return to delight, taste, new extra languages, that
                                               I must
                                         learn not to speak
                                       but to peak, even to
                                     Cry, Laugh even Smile  
    
                              In all my new native tongues



Friday, July 18
5:39 AM,
2025
In the sunroom

Dictated in one fell swoop, not a moment to lose, dispatched while
Still laughing at myself...

Flexing patterns
Slight of hand
Flattering inspiration
Fostering me
In its warmth
Soft whispers
Like a breathable oxygen
Prima ballerina
Please grace
Me with your soft sweet movements
In limbo I’ve been
Four leaf clovers
Splitting lucks running on fumes
Army of me
Loosen up your
Bark
I’m just a man
Never claimed to be a king
Creaking floors shout
Gazing walls stare
Don’T shine like silver
Castles
Of sand crumble
A devoted
Loneliness
Just had to veer
It’s ugly head in
Fragments far to relevant
Excavated as the days go
Set by step
Word by word
Masquerading in every detail
To the finest degree
Executioner
Of life latched onto my
Footsteps and wouldn’t unite me

In July 2023 I posted a poem entitled For Hours of Time.
Little did I know at the time that it would be taken by a composer and turned into a piece of music (with my permission!) this year.
The composition is for a solo violin and choir.
Below is a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/mpGcrWHwb7g?si=5loGIGzfUcGVN7VN

I hope you enjoy Sy Anderson and Pagan Pauls collaboration.
I'm really proud of it!

To warm up we walked
       to the ravine;
              we could both wear my father’s
old running shoes.

You wanted to talk
       about us and if
              I’d stayed with your mom,
what we’d of done?

We started to run
       into the ravine,
              we jostled and touched,
“I would’ve done this…and been more tenacious,”

— you’d already heard,
       so we horsed
              on the narrowing path
until you disappeared.

I caught you up
       the last twenty steps out
              of the ravine,
you smiled: “Old man,

you’re going down,”
       and we raced the half-mile
              back to the house, where you turned
to watch me return;

how I lost
       with all of my heart,
              so far behind;
I’d thought

I seemed more than I was,
       but you weren’t surprised
              how easy
you’d put me to rest.

On your last solo,
you had six matches,
a tarp and a rope,
a bag of granola
on a tiny island,
afraid of the bears
on the mainland;

without any birch bark,
to kindle a fire,
you waited for dark
crawled into your tent
to sleep for the morning
that never comes,

once that full-moon is high
above the black lake,
and you hear them set out
over the water.