If you could truly imagine
What it would be like to be blind
From birth or later in life …..obviously would change your state of mind
yet either course would be a source
of altered apperceptions …deceptions and apparitions
So that which was never seen
May or may not really mean
the same to those who once could see
therefore there are  those
who choose to believe
that they can conceive
by concept and projection
the differences…. that lay between
weak or strong-right or wrong
all truths remain
subjects to
the status of ..
   that portal to the mind
and in what way
one chooses and uses
their power of perception

Consider for a moment
What might life be like
were you unable to hear
to never know all
those things
being unaware of caused you to miss
from chirping birds
to a honking horn
of bitter scorn
or one whose purpose was to warn
for again we find
it's all intwined
with the threshold
at the doorway of
…an open or closed mind!

You might believe you can conceive
what life without arms would entail
a body without legs..or both
begs considerations
few able-bodied choose to make
as they pass by…
diverting their eye
to get beyond and leave them in your wake
sad how quickly that was accomplished
physically …at least
but how it's done mentally, emotionally,
or morally
is for each to deal with in turn
with lingering regret
or complete absence
of concern
ones own life moves on
in every sense of the word…until suddenly it doesn't
and maybe then you  realize
what you imagined wasn't anything like you thought
Think about that next time you wake up
get dressed,
grab your keys and walk out to your car,
tune up some media,
check the mirror view,
back up a bit
and move forward into your day …as you encounter someone crowding into your lane,
cutting you off as if you were unseen,
as they rush to leave you behind..
be they unconcerned by your honking
distracted by the real world
or within the vagaries of their mind
barely missing you
as they run the light
and you wonder, mumble or yell out " Are you deaf or are you blind?
Then go see what you can do about propping open or removing what exists …at the threshold of …
Otherwise you need to accept that they were just people moving forward in their lives.
no different than you are….if you cannot truly imagine anything like that…then I feel sorry for your loss.

...Something so familiar
seemed to be hanging
just outside my periphery...
like an annoying honey bee
Suddenly I popped up
from a languid moment
of heat driven exhaustion....
knowing something
had to be done.
So I grabbed my official hat
out my office door I...hobbled along  
due...to... my left leg being asleep
"wake up you fool"
I muttered as I angled
past the front desk
where
that new deputy stood playing on some little box
"Is that an IPOD?"
No sir! what's an Ipod ?
never mind
just keep people off that bridge
till I return and tell you different! Is that clear?
Yes sir Danial...uhhh chief ...!
Good now get going.

I got to go talk to the D. A.
then out I went to the most oppressive sept heat seen in decades

"NO! No way! That's not possible!"
You think so...? the chief asked
well just look out there in the streets.
Where are the kids-
home studying for school when it's still 2 days away?
Raymond Frazer D.A. for Upton county + 2 more back in the hill country.
"I am...de...
doodlytermined
so you coming?
"Yeah chief...but just to prove you...
can't and won't
overstep your authority."
And who would determine that? Judge.... Willoughby?well let's go see what he has to say then.
If you can get him
to approve your overreach
I won't say another word!

Hello Judge my dispatcher call you?
"Yes. She did and ,I must say...lunch?sure ,but it sounds like a walk down memory land lane
We might as well! gonna get some good bbq and cold beer out on the hiway.
10 minutes.
We will pick you up
after you get done with Betty Lou

oh and write this on a sheet of of cardboard and post it. .*** the judge chuckled
be there to pick you up in a jif.

Who's Betty Lou? And where we going now?
Find that Deputy of mine give him a special assignment.

County ordinance or 2
So ....
Technically
we were trespassers
By all truth of right, wrong or law...but
No harm meant by the rules
we bent
MAYBE...
Telling too many seemed the major flaw


That overbearing, solar flaring, heat streak
summer of desperation turned inspiration
When seeing people instead of watching people
Gave me different ways of creating separation

From what I see and what I'm shown
What I'm told and what it is
I actually hear
What I say and what I truly believe
And how somethings really are...just as they appear

Amazingly enough this cyber shift implosion
Crashed thru the outer me
careening around within my fragile core
While crouching down in a clump of bushes
Staring into caramel brown eyes of a girl...who was
Just as naked as me

It blew through town back then  like a hot dry wind on a July day
When people were melting like long stick candles   bowing
like an emissary to a King
In any window where the aftenoon sun shines bright
As it is
magnified...like the stupid cruel rumor

A rumor that a farmer broke a water main while plowing

Literally what else would it take to break
That fragil overbearingly irriatatingly ******* monotony
that held the midwest
American small towns dying summer that
year
a near-death grip
Except.... maybe...if
the rumor had
turned out to be phony

The trail of misfit cars, pickups, motorcycles rolling North
must have looked like the jailbreak/ carnival parade it was...that
seemed to gather stragglers like a magnet gathers iron filings
Soon on saddle bank road 120+ kids
Naked and as innocent in the fact...
That one might think that today was the day
they were born and in some ways...
they were! Fully fledged
in exodus
from the womb
of pure monotonous ladened
claustrophobic morality... have way to languished hedonistic daydreams

Static groups of slow-melting apparitions
Unaware uninspired unintended refugees
Of homes...
of family...
and abject boredom
of that sad summer of high petrol- low crude performance and
Summer jobs never blooming and now... add a drought.

As the final Saturday wilted on the absentee mind
Before the Monday rises to drag them back in...
...to the ritualized killing of all who found
The looming tedium  of lessons and tests
unbearably cruel to have school begin its pull
Without ever even having a glimpse
Of the dying ghost
of a summer break that never was.

Until...that steady drone
rose from a distance
Those 90cc pistons
spitting hope as its frantic echo
Seemed
to somehow announce
from 3 miles away
"help he's killing me!"

Razer was making that hybrid bike scream
then...right down main he came shouting thunderously
But to no avail...
....as every word
unheard...
undecipherable

"...daughter shake
bigganake
common shop..." was the word that ppl heard....

...then it died
PISTON ROD took off over the barbershop
Headed for the moon

Razer stood over the smoking carcus
Spit on it ...kicked it... then saluted it ...
Before saying hey common nowz its flowing and growing
Quicker than quick ...
and that was how summer came to a glorious end.

with a ten acres puddle
Water spraying 30 ft high and by gawd we took to it like
butter to hot biscuits.
until that is
the cops arrived!

And we all run to hide.
.. so here's where
I started this tale

Shhh.. I said
to this *******
beside me
Flesh-colored and glistening ...
We better stay put
you know...
... till it calms down
Hey!  I don't believe I've ever seen you around...the town before...
do you live here... in Braeden  I mean?

We just moved here
she said.
Hi, I'm Joy-Ann Hope
And she surely was at that!
  forever  ...well
Until I changed her last name and she became Joy-Ann PAYNE.
HEY IM NOT TO BLAME
9 MONTHS  later we
met a little girl
named Summer Dawn Payne!

We know all that Daniel...but you cannot expect us...the DA and Chief judge ..not to mention members of the school board and...
Shut that up Judge Willoughby...
and be Mickey Willoughby and Ray Ray ...not D.A.Frazier for a second so you can remember.
Think back 38 yrs and how that line of dried out ,dusty, forlorn kids suddenly came alive that day ...the horns honking, bicycle tires spinning and Ol Joey P ...rest his soul on that horse of his as it clattered along the concrete and clopped by the lead car by galloping along the grass shoulder.
Beat us all to the puddle and I will never forget what we saw when we got close
Him and the mare neck deep ...ha haha ha Yes. Joey P and Nantucket Grey were good people. Rest in peace old friends.

Okay ...the heck with it say the judge mickey to the sad moment of revered silence ...I'm about ready to retire and as I recall that day now I realize 1 thing
Crystal effen clear now
I saw Mary Hortons ...uhh Who that day..and that I somehow got old.
I'm sold Chief ...Sorry, Daniel what do we do?
Well Ray Ray County DA what do you not have to say now?

Just Question guys...shall we go get a tractor or sledge hammers?

Oh come on guys this is the 21 century and I am chief of police with ... well army surplus courtesy
of the fed gov and everything we said we would fix when we got "growed up"
Maybe today we help the next gen or two know what freedom really feels like.
Ray .. call the sheriff " little Bobbie Jones " and tell him
- and them-
to stay the f away.
Judges order.  
Hope wins again.

WHATS IN FASHION
IS...
THE DREAMS OF THIS GENERATION
IN HOPE
THAT THIS NATION
CAN MAN ITS STATION
IN THESE....
.... ESSENTIAL TIMES
WE ARE FACING
TRUTH IS A DYING BREED TO THE FALLEN SEED
OF A WITHERED ****
THAT RESTS ITS PEACE
IN THE BATTLE FIELD
WHICH FACES EAST
TO A RISING SON
THAT COMES SEEKING
POWER
TO BE HONORED
BY MANY WHO SHALL NEVER KNOW PEACE
IN THIS LIFE
OR IN THE WISDOM THEY ARE AFTER
BUT I SHALL HOPE .

There among the silage
Groomed the scarecrows of foolish dreams
Earthstained relics of past follies
And erstwhile fallen schemes
Where lost rumors bend fables
Out of scattered tales of woe
As tumbled foes aligned in rows
Defeated by the midnight mists
Stilted ...wilted to be bowed by amorous winds

Sometimes when you feel
Like you're down in a hole
Lost in the darkness
Losing control
Don't feel like fighting
Ready to just give in
Don't know where you're going
Or care where you've been
Way past believing
That you'll ever rise up again
From feeling so hopeless
Feeling so low
Then a passing stranger
smiles at you
...and simply says "Hello"
Sometimes...
....that's all...
that's all it takes.
"🙂HELLO "

Don't be scared
Life is many tiered
Layer upon layer
Is what makes you who you are
And in my eyes you will always be
A superstar
I knew you long before
You figured out who you are...
that needs to be shared ...don't be scared.

The open source
of my open sores
Is the reason why
  my open soars ....
...come so far and few between these days

IN  so many ways ...so much
Is being lost ...without fair value
for the price it costs
and no reason exists ..in the midst ..
..of all the turns and twists ...
...for not attempting to displace - replace , erase
OR EVEN EMBRACE
whatever grows from changes
From what is seen.... and by how one rearranges

Or even exchanges
ONE THING from another
One Another for another ...or another
for the ONE THING we already had ....
.....all along!

Living...flowing...ever knowing
GLOWING
like the wingtips of a flight-bound Dove
In shadowed effect of a sun-backed vision
Silvertipped and golden tinged ...glowing as hot as the sun
Without threat of being singed

Immune to the effects of latent remorse as a source
effecting the continuation of any open sores
that might reflect upon my own ability ...to take flight
IN MY EVER EXPANDING FREEDOM AS MY OPENSOARS