Into the death room I was led.

Where nature's last sparks of electricity
pulse through a familiar body,
barely stimulating a heart to pump blood
through frail and ag'ed  mottled skin.

Where light behind once azure eyes
slowly dim to opaque blue.
Eyes open, but not seeing,
ears hearing, but unable to respond.

Dentureless mouth agape,
taking almost mechanical shallow bursts of breath
in marionette fashion,
as if strings pulling bony shoulders sharply up and slowly down
were methodically, dramatically, skillfully manipulated
by a hand unseen.

Sunken face reveals the hidden shape of the skull within.
Smooth, silky flesh
stretched o're an unfamiliar, emotionless, flicking gaze.

No incoherent moaning today,
no unconscious slowly floating arms,
nor grasping of my fingers to let me know
.....I am still here.

The light switch is being turned off.

In the death room the dash between ones all important dates is born. Mary Elizabeth Fields Goodwin .......Born 7/31/18 - Died 9/17/16
…...like a babe, the dash is delivered.

Was it a full life, this dash?
Was it meaningful?
Was it loving, giving, humble?
Did this one get to do all that it wanted?
Did it finally arrive at where it had hoped it would be?

Or was it filled with regret and remorse,
or hatred, pain and sorrow?
The death room puts it all into perspective.

It was a life.....
It was a life lived.......that is all.
Nothing can be added or taken away.
Nothing was ever missing, broken, or damaged.

Who would dispute this in the death room with its finality?
Its silence,
its soul-less body that had never been perfectly still in over 98 years?  

This life that lived exactly the amount of time that it lived.
A leaf in Autumn, spiraling slowly to the ground,
with no parade, no fireworks, no angelic chorus,
just a husband of 79 years, a daughter, a son.......

Draw near and say your goodbyes now......
the death room is almost here....

It's all right Mom, it's alright to go now...... We'll be Okay.......
A stroke of the brow,
a last breath.......

Let go of a lifeless hand.......... and the death room is born.


*This poem is for all of you poets who have encouraged me to keep on writing. You know who you are.

She calls to say she's working late.
Won't make it home til after eight.
He takes the supper off the stove.
Dinner plans will have to wait.

He sits remembering back when
he'd call to say "I'll be late again".
She use to sit alone and cry.
Now he knows the reasons why.
It's a topsy turvy world.

Hugs her when she walks through the door.
Because that's what "good wives" are for.
Over done dinner by candle light,
like a "good husband" she asks for more.

She falls asleep in the easy chair,
like "good husbands" everywhere.
He does the dishes, sweeps the floor,
says "we don't talk much anymore
in our topsy turvy world".

Being good husbands and wives,
careing for each others lives.
Doing what needs to be done,
getting their loving on the run.
It's a topsy turvy world.

Dad is home
Dad is old
Old and living
Old and dying
Dying alone
Dying free
Free to be
Free at peace
Peace is work
Peace is hard
Hard to walk
Hard to hear
Hear the TV
Hear the groans
Groans of pain
Groans of time
Time won't stop
Time speeds up
Up at 6
Up and moving
Moving bowels
Moving chores
Chores don't stop
Chores keep strength
Strength to move
Strength to prove
Prove you can
Prove you're a man
Man must live
Man must die
Die someway
Die someday
Someday will come
Someday Sister calls
Calls about Dad
Calls on the phone
Phone calls me
Phone from Dad
Dad eats oatmeal
Dad plays poker
Poker is fun
Poker is life
Life is fleeting
Life is dying
Dying alone
Dying at home
Home....
Dying....

I may never know the reasons of the storm that passed my way.
Or the multitude of questions that lay at bay.
They await to pounce upon me like jungle cats at night,
while the din of distant drumming tests my might.

Ever now and then I get a glimpse of who I am,
and I feel myself evolving into man.
Amid the single bars and credit cards and reaching for the ring,
I close my eyes and realize I'm here to do one thing........ I'm here to sing.

I'm strung out on evaluation of what my life is worth,
and struggle with the narrow distance between death and birth.
They say love is never wasted, words so easily said,
so why is this empty feeling, still laying in my bed?

Hurry Darwin, hurry. I need a double dose of time.
To quickly re-arrange these chromosomes , to make me more the prime.
Selectors and Breeders are really all we are.
Evolvers;  Some will still be cheaters, and some will still set the bar.

I'll be drinkin' white lightning tonight,
alone with my guitar.
tryin' to remember all the words.


*For George Jones Born: September 12, 1931, Saratoga
Died: April 26, 2013

The Window Up Above  
Songwriter: George Jones

I've been living a new way
Of life that I love so
But I can see the clouds are gath'ring
And the storm will wreck our home
For last night he held you tightly
And you didn't even shove
This is true for I've been watching
From the window up above

You must have thought that I was sleeping
And I wish that I had been
But I guess it's best to know you
And the way your heart can sin

I thought we belonged together
And our hearts fit like a glove
I was wrong for I've been watching
From the window up above

From my eyes the teardrops started
As I listened on and on
I heard you whisper to him softly
That our marriage was all wrong

But I hope he makes you happy
And you will never lose his love
I was wrong, I was watching
From the window up above

How I wish I could be dreaming
And wake up to an honest love
I was wrong for I was watching
From the window up above...

There's a string of lonely telephone wires stretchin' for a hundred miles or so.
A hawk in a tree, looking down at me, he says that It's time to go.
And each little town that I'd pass through, fighting my way back home,
reminded me of what the cookie read, "Don't let your dreams turn to stone"

Now the waitress has a smile like she's from heaven, but it touches a devil in my soul.
There ain't nothin' you can do at thirty-seven, but keep singin' and hope you never grow old.
Time is a lie; you're here 'till you die. All you own is only on loan.
What else is there to do, but to get yourself through, and don't let your dreams turn to stone.

And if the errors of the past are all that you see when you close your eyes at night,
then hopeless and empty will another day be when you open your eyes come daylight.
And if you look around, and contentment is found amid the seeds you have sown,
then soon you'll find that come harvest time.......... your dreams have turned to stone.

Well, I'm followin' my heart down this long highway,  of gettin' off; I don't stand a chance.
Even if you don't want to face the music, you still gotta learn to dance.
My heart has the power. My soul has the wheel. It's takin' this body back home.
There's a sign up ahead and the words that it read were,  don't let your dreams turn to stone.

*Keokuk, IA   1986

She was thin and svelte,
And when I held her, a perfect fit.
I’d caressed her face,
and she knew me.
My fingers found her every button…..and I could turn her on.

But alas,
she is like a fragile flower behind glass.
I have locked her in a dungeon,
safe from harm.

She wears armor like a medieval knight.
and has become an urban soldier.
Though still steadfastly by my side,
she has grown cold,
uniform,
vanilla…..
a number.

But sometimes late at night,
when they are not watching,
while the cruel and shattering world sleeps,
I slowly undress her,
take of her skirt of mail,
and in the fully charged glow of togetherness,
we are once again,
one.

*Uninspired after enclosing my new Galaxy s5 in an Otterbox.

The caves of childhood dank and gray,
hickory musk linger on their walls.
I hid there..... from words.

Words of a worn out relationship,
too tired to leave,
they wore each other down to a nib of a human.

What hell it must have been
to squeeze out a drop of peace from each day,
knowing there would be more words,
and another attritive tomorrow.

Meaningless rantings echo still,
stinging and bighting at my heart.
Words,  petrified me.

I do not want to follow them.
I want to seal the caves,
dynamite the portholes,
never to return to the words.
How so, these many years,
I find my solace in words?
But my words, are my words.
They do not berate, or demean,
for I watch them like children
crossing a busy road.
I place them on the page
with care and respect,
yet I know not from where they came.
These words that save me,
words that raise me,
words that knead me, into me.

I am not Jesus.
I am not Krishna
I am not Allah
I am not Abraham
I am not Buddha
I am me.

I can try to fit it all into their neat little box,
but try is all I can do.
The words I was told to worship,
twisted to fit the day,
misconstrued to fit all time,
have lost their meaning,
turned to myth.
Archaic ideals hold only some truth in this moment.
For do we not judge our present with the eyes of the past?
And so who am I now if not made up from the tattered cloth of time?
I am not dogma.
I am not that.
I am me.
I am now.
I am this very sacred moment.
Filled up, spilling over and pouring down into my shoes.

I have no words,
but words are all I have.
I have tears,
but they are not enough.
I have wisdom,
but my timing would be off.
I have a heaviness inside,
and know that others do also.
I don't pray anymore,
but I'll try to tonight.

*Whoever you are that did this, you don't impress me.
Impress me with peace.

Summer bicycle
so unaware of the earth
spinning neath it's wheels.

I will not bend, my heart is true
and I will not kowtow to you
I do not fear your will on me
I am the might of one you see

I'm not alone nor have I been
truth holds us fast from your dark sin
and so wave not your flag at thee
I am the might of one you see

So turn your words around and 'round
till down is up and up is down
mine eye will not its gaze be free
I am the might of one you see

a day will come our voice will roar
your thrown will fall, your voice no more
unmasked and all alone you'll be
I am the might of one you see

Come, take my hand.
I know you think this is the end.
My sad, but wiser friend,
love will find you once again..........

You will have heartache, you will have pain.
And think the sun won't rise again.
But flowers bloom from Winter's sting.........There will be Spring.

The sleepless nights, the hazy days.
The emptiness that stays and stays.
One magic moment, your heart will sing.......There will be Spring.

I know these things to be true
for I've lost love much like you.
That is why you can rely on what I say.

There'll come a day when skies are blue,
no longer lost, love will find you.
One magic moment your heart will sing.........There will be Spring.

And when the tulips, are in bloom,
heartaches turn memories, and none too soon.
Maybe there'll be, someone like me.........There will be Spring.

These are my eyes
they see only what I see.
My red is my red, blue, blue
My vision of God, my feelings of love.
My thoughts, atypical, unique.
It is not that I wished it this way,
it is as it always has been.
There has never been anyone like me,
and there never will be.
I can't help being me,
I don't do it on purpose.
If you asked me “Do you believe in God?”
I would have to reply, “In order to answer that question honestly,
I would have to know what your rendition of God was, completely, and I don't think that is possible. ”
And so it goes,
one person looking through their own tiny little holes
at their own world, thinking that others see it the same way they do.  
Though we think it is the same, it can not be.
It is in that thought that I find Power.
In the uniqueness of being.
Together we make up a whole.
Some parts at peace and healthy,
some ridden with the cancer of hate and revenge, misled by ancient beliefs,
and yet it is there that I find my purpose for being here.
In the power of just being here.
To witness myself in this fleshy body, and in the collective body as well.

I have wandered down this lonely path for 13,00 days,
searching 13,000 ways for something divine.
With one eye on the sunrise, the other on sunset,
hoping for the prize they said would be mine.

I have tried to be the singer, when I should have been the song.
I have tried to fight a river full of rage.
Looking for an island in a world I don't belong,
trying just to run the human race.

Running like a fool through fields of dreams,
I trip and fall upon the truth.
Posing as a player in some childish game
I learned of in my youth.

I have challenged Love and Passion, surrendered to It's sword,
while the blood of my soul poured to the ground.
Pledged allegiance to the Father Son and Holy Ghost,
awaiting for It's host to show me around.

I have tried to please the masses, when I should have pleased myself.
Feared a reaper though I'd never seen It's face.
And all the while a voice inside of me kept chanting on,
you must try to win the human race.

I have wandered down this lonely path, for 13,000 days,
searching 13,000 ways for something divine.
Believing that I know the way, I run the human race,
but no one truly knows what they will find.

Hungry for love
Starving for truth
Awaiting to be wanted
Searching for proof
Tossing the pebbles, watching the ripples run.

Open my heart
To someone's trust
Trying not to be dazzled
By a last chance for lust
Dispelling the myth that someone always ends up hurting someone.

Ain't it about time we learned how to live together?
Ain't it about time we carried each others heart?
I think that it's a crime not giving each other the gifts we were meant to give.
If love is all we need, ain't it about time we start?

Leaving old baggage
By the side of the road
Streamlining hearts
Lightening our load
Remembering to forget what we did not want to learn.

Looking for signs
Thinking we know
Planting the seeds
Hoping they'll grow
Blindly we watch, impatiently awaiting our turn.

She is leaving,
leaving things behind,
they are just things she says.

                  She is leaving,
                  had enough silence,
                  deafening silence she says.

                                    She is leaving,
                                    and he won't know it,
                                    he doesn't even know she's already gone.

                                                          ­          She is leaving,
                                                        ­             starting over anew,
                                                           ­          to sleep alone, but sleep she will.

                                                          ­                                        She is leaving,
                                                                ­                                  naked to the sun,
                                                                ­                                  to be what she wants to be.

                                                            ­                                                                 ­                       She is gone......

*.........for a friend.........

Hard rain's a fallin', chillin' me to my bones.
Heart dark and black as Kentucky coal.
And there's just one sip left, of life's bitter wine

Come up a steep grade, something's on the other side.
All I know is to keep on, all I know to do is ride.
And there's just one sip left, of life's bitter wine

And I've been tryin' to lose me on someone elses highway.
Sneak out the back door, hope to get away
from the chains and the fetters of their misguided world.
Ones that they left me......when Daddy was a boy,
and Momma was a girl.

Woke up a sad day, I was all the way down.
Raked the leaves from my eyes, took a good look around....
at that one sip left,
of life's better wine.

Green lights are burnin', burnin' for me now.
Gonna chew my own troubles with an unwrinkled brow.
and wash it down, down, down,
with life's bitter wine.

Chip away now
remove what need not be
reveal the vision
the shape
the form
the dream
the vision
my vision
my dream
Find what lay beneath “the mechanized hum of another world” (from Third World Man by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen)
this world
the one that I live in

Chip away and tell the tales
rime the rhymes
Hurrah, a poem, a prose, a tinkered set of words
While bombs go off, and shots **** the innocent
while the replacement hormones surge through my veins
I am finally finding a place in between the titrations.

I am alive again. I am here and now
Chipping away with my Andalus font size 18

I never though I would get this far,
on a dream and a bag of tricks.
A word whispered in my ear,
and some borrowed licks.

I searched and searched for some lasting peace,
when all the time it was here and now.
Hidden in plain sight,
for me to find somehow.

Then I let go of my tug of war,
no more push or pulling anymore.....

I’ve always been right here, right now.
I’ve always been right here, right now.
And I'll always be right here, right now.

My thoughts always got in the way,
incessant voices from the past,
till I heard the silence,
of peace at last.

"Someday-Oneday" would never come,
though I thought it always would,
so I'd rearrange and rearrange
the best I could.

Then I let go of my tug of war,
no more push or pulling anymore.....

I’ve always been right here, right now.
I’ve always been right here, right now.
And I'll always be right here, right now.

*Haven't been writing poetry much lately......kinda dry. I thought my followers would like these song lyrics.