I am a miserable ****.

Traffic jam thoughts.
Aimless speech.
Fever dreams,
coffee with no cream,
love with no pulse,
alone at restaurants,
            at grocery stores,
            at parties.

I have no identity.

Shifting shape, black to blue,
trading girls, red hair for Persian skin,
parents and gods,
politicians and lost purpose mobs,
all asking me to be sacred,
                            to be loving,
                            to be trusting,
                            to be active,
                            to have no spine.

All I want is a bit of my own time.

A grenade of change,
to end the coagulation of my brain,
to leave me hungry for anything
other than me,
didn't somebody say I was promised something?
                                            I was going somewhere?
                                            I was unique?

I am the same miserable ****,

As every other miserable ****.

The ******* that cut you off on Highway 62,

The person that complained about too many pickles,
on his precious fast food,

The boy yelling at his baby sister for getting too much attention,

The girl sexting your boyfriend,

The boy sexing your girlfriend,

The generation divorcing everyone it knows so it can fall in love with

itself.

All different,
in exactly the same way.

Traffic jam thoughts. Traffic jam thoughts.
                   Traffic jam thoughts. Traffic jam thoughts.
            trafficjamthoughts. traffic. Traffic Jam Thoughts. Thoughts.
Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. Traffic. Jam.
thoughts. traffic. trafficjam. trafficjam. traffic jam thoughts.traffic.
traffic jam. traffic, traffic, traffic. I am a miserable ****. Traffic jam.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Cashing A Check
by johnmac

I just saw this wonderful line
in a column in a motorcycle
magazine:
"The mind writes checks that
the body can't cash".

The vision that many from the
old neighborhood have of me is
short and thin with a Pepsi in
one hand and a cigarette
in the other

Others will remember me as
taller and thin, hitting a jumper
from the corner or throwing
a "no-look pass" to a cutter.

Others will picture me at the
end of the bar in the Broadstone
with an open pack of Pall Malls and
a half-finished beer on the bar;
Don Gibson's "I Can't Stop Loving You"
on the jukebox.
"Pat, one more when you get a chance"

Age has taken the jumper
Diabetes has taken the Pepsi
Common Sense has taken the
cigarette and *****.

I am older and wiser and
hopefully more tolerant
I am satisfied with my life

but

to just be able to once more
fake the man guarding me and
go up with a jumper and
get nothing but net

To be able to, once more,
"cash that check"

”Milestones” by Robert Rasor, American Motorcyclist; March 2006
Copyright 2006 John F. McMullen