My pulse prayer is simple
With every inhale and exhale

Every red thrum-a-drum
Heartstrings from then and there

Move through the world with care
Be good to each other; then some

A muscle in my metacarpal twitches
A metallic smell pervades the air
I think I hear a high-pitched whining
Hairs rise on my arms and neck

Heart rate slows
Thrumming in my ears
Pores perspiring
Pupils dilating

Something’s coming…
Or someone…
(Or something wrong?)
What!

Flight or fight has me
A finger twitches and
Eyes flicker
Stay or go?

STAY!
STAND!
BALANCE STANCE!
PREVAIL!

I am in fact a dinosaur
****** into the late 50s

Child of the 60s
Emancipated: late 70s

Came of age through the 80s
Became a man in the 90s

Time travelled in 2000 but
The naughts were frought

Better when in the 2010s
Seeing liberation by the 20s

Extant not yet extinct
This dinosaur still roars.

I believe what I see and
Dread what is left to dream
Fearing the fog between

I am in fact a dinosaur
Clearly what has come before
An optimism fossil

Someday what is actually known
If better than the either other
Will confuse these old bones

I sometimes let the credits roll
Dénouement with music beautiful
As the artist tribe parades

Fiddle faddle
Twitter twadle
Use some CAPS!

Call out SNAPS!
Sez rez Prez
Fake! Huge! Fakely huge!

I remember sentences
I remember sense
Nothing rhymes with orange

American
Armenian
Canadian
And Mexican

French
English
Portuguese
And then again

Latvian
Bulgarian
Czechoslovakian
From somewhereelseian

Earthlings crawling
On this speck of dust
Gravity flung around a flame
Trying to make sense of it all