Everyone a Sailor

Sept. 2010

Everyone a sailor,
everyone a waiter,
everyone a planner,
everyone an executive chef,
charting courses for grownuphood,
planning meals, banquets.

foolishness, selecting the ingredients for
an award winning recipe of life ,
marking stars,
sextant in hand,
make meetings,
scheduling a conference call,
practice risk taking,
serving, while multitasking

serendipity is mine to
make and behold

marry this one,
add a little cumin,
travel seven seas and
have seven sons,
the eighth I'll discover and
name it after me,
Son of Mine Own Stolen Days

Lighting or storm,
illness and thunder,
ne'er will be disturbances,
on my voyages

But we forget,
we err,
the danger of being becalmed is the one we ignore,
the slowest leakage,
drowned by seepage,
the small risk that transforms us from
sailors to one who
waits,
alone on a lost isle,
with nothing of substance on which to survive,
we slow starve to death on a
diet of our own
mixed metaphors

There was a time,
when I did not value time,
discarded days like seeds
random scattered in garden,
more curious than hopeful
what might appear, and uncaring if
they were all winded away

Who spent days like cash,
thinking I had plenty and
more to make,
gave away in haste
what had no redeemable value,
thinking time was refuse and waste

Becalmed,
what need for chances,
daily escapades,
gave twenty years of mine
away to the undeserving, punished by God, cancer stricken
*****, who made me so miserable for so long,
in one grand gesture,
signed it away,
and asked the devil
for nothing in return

Did not drink,
Did not take pills,
Did not smoke,
But life disdained,
I try to **** myself
By eating TV dinners
six times daily

Do not laugh,
it nearly worked
and my obit
would have been the lead
side splitting ar-tickle in the
New York Times
Science Section!

But here I am
a survivor,
and I have formed
an association of one;
The Society of Explorers, Planners and Plotters
And Those Who Serve By Waiting

We meet once every day
for the rest of my life,
call the meeting to order,
Consult Robert's Rules,
Quorum of one present?
No new business?
Meeting adjourned!

Meeting Summary:
You may plan with good
intent
You may buy or you may
rent
You may be bereft or
content
You may plan or just
wait
**but if you let a day pass
without recording one
poetical truth
in your own manner,
of your own choosing,
then you have failed
yourself,
do not wait,
set sail!