Happy    

Someone ask me
Are you happy?
How do you answer
The undefinable ?
The journey from
Happiness to sadness and back
And all the living in-between
It's hard to describe the flow of life

Am I ?
Not all the time, sometimes
Being self absorbed, who knows
My children make me happy,
And anxious at the same time
Do they cancel each other out?
Does laughing at a joke count
Just who decides?

My past provides happy moments
As well as oh **** moments
And just living life moments

If Life is the night sky
All the stars are happiness
The rest is the fabric of life
Everyday life sprinkled with star light
Hidden by daylight but always there

Copyright 2016
Richard L.Ratliff

Father's Right Arm    
    

I've been a right arm seat belt
A set of training wheels
A floaty
A catchers mitt    
A steering wheel
A teacher, a scolder, a hugger
I am a father

Copyright 2019
Richard L Ratliff

Father

I saw my father in the mirror this morning
He hadn't shaved for the weekend
There was lots of gray stubble
And I realized he was old  

It was so gradual I didn't notice
Like it happened overnight
I should have paid more attention
Yet here I am staring in the mirror

Copyright 2017
Richard L Ratliff

Hug and a kiss

A hug and a kiss
Can be the language of love  
Please don’t bite your tongue

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Crossing contrails looking down
At the plains of Peru
A negative image of Nazca's lines

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Python

Python got tied in knots
Pulling Eve's leg about an apple

Adam tried to get a word in edgewise
All to no avail

Who got that apple
After the first bite
Ah that's a tail for later

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Mean

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I forgive you
It's really my fault
I saddled you with raising the kids
While I was off to work
I should have done more I know
It's ok when you mock me now
I understand it's my fault

Twenty-five years ago you drifted away
While I worked blissfully along
Go ahead push away, you should
I deserve all of it
It's really my fault

Push away my arms
They must be in your way
I'll draw back if that's ok
Never could truly comfort you

My health is my fault
Just rub it in I deserve it
It's fine to berate me now
I never have fought back
Why would I start

Every thing that breaks
I must be at fault
I'll accept the blame

Copyright 2015
Richard L Ratliff

Giraffe

This lumbering power forward    
with knots on his head    
from bumping the rim        
has a tongue like Michael Jordan’s    
              
You were recruited
to play on the team
with our passing pigmy point guard
not to date his little sister

And that's the long and short of it

Copyright  
Richard L Ratliff
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My journey      

The sun, a flashlight running through the wood  
As I drove to my far destination                    
Autumn removed the shade that shields my hood
From the blinding rays that cause frustration

Can last Summer's sun be so blinding cold  
I'm traveling in search of comfort lost
Time has me chasing distant rays of gold  
I must continue no matter the cost

Speed makes travel quicker than expected  
But the distance traveled remains the same      
No mater, the trip is unaffected  
It does not matter what I overcame

Reaching this place of warmth brings that feeling
Of comfort here that I find appealing


Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

A blank screen
Is this the way it ends?
Just a blank video
Ctrl+ Alt+Del, Esc, Esc
It doesn't matter
The end

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

There are days

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There are days I feel
Myself slipping away away
Like a watch running fast
I'm slowing down

A contradiction in time

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

A blank screen
Is this the way it ends?
Just a blank video
Ctrl+ Alt+Del, Esc, Esc
It doesn't matter
The end

Lemon drop  

That lemon drop is bearing down
So hot it wilts artificial flowers
And melts my plastic apples
Maybe I can draw some clouds
To soften that blistering orb
And tame that yellow candy drop
Before it melts the rocks
That line my path


Copyright 2018
Richard L Ratliff

Father's Right Arm    

I've been a right arm seat belt
A set of training wheels
A floaty
A catchers mitt    
A steering wheel
A teacher, a scolder, a hugger
I am a father

Copyright 2018
Richard L Ratliff

Got rejected        

Had some poems rejected today
Some 25 year old editor; with an MFA
Suggested getting rid of some chilies
They weren't cliches or common images
When I lived them 40 years ago
Life experience doesn't change much
But at 25 how do you know
That life is a series of cliches            
So acclaimed they are repeated again and again


Copyright 2018
Richard L Ratliff

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Summer Heat

I'm on the deck                          
Sticking my head into August's oven  
Only to see flowers hunched over
Gasping for air
Tree leaves clinched
Holding on to a last bit of moisture
It's as if something is ******* them dry      
I spit and it never reaches the ground
Perspiration doesn't happen but should
The sun like a laser blisters the sidewalk
And melts the souls of my sneakers

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Plans for Christmas ?
Expect me to seep into your dreams
When you are napping I’ll be there
While trimming the tree with thoughts of me
Or rapping presents I’ll be in your mind
This season is your reason to remember me
And all the time we have shared
Decorating each other’s lives

Copyright 12 - 9 - 18
Richard L Ratliff

Awake?

Some morning
I will not wake        
I will have learned
Hamlet's answer
Or not

To sleep, perchance to dream
But if I do not wake
How will I know Ive dreamed
It seems a question without answer

Wake up Wake up Wake up
Can I hear that?
Quit yelling not so loud
You'll wake......
Is that white light ice?

Not what I meant at all

Copyright 2017
Richard L Ratliff

Bunny ears

Bunny ears, bunny ear
Down the rabbit hole
How can I tie my shoe
If I can't remember the line
Over under a round an back
I'm just different but it works
Maybe because I'm left handed
Don't know but I'm doing fine
Just a little different, unique  

Flip, flop, tie a knot
Doesn't matter
I've got slip ons

Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff

Sand bag

Life is a sackcloth bag, helically stitched    
And filled with earth and sand

I've carried my self like that sackcloth bag            
Firm yet shifting subtly as it moves    
With small flaws at the bottom stitching  
Leaking a little here and there along this path
Unnoticed for years: mental incontinence

Parts of me here and there left behind
Carried  myself with seeming ease
Unconcerned of the trail I left                
Grains of sand that were hard to follow    
Nothing more than moral flatulence

Just a bag of sand
Slowly leaking as my life moves on
A trail for others to follow or avoid
Grains of wisdom and lunacy
Who am I to judge
Now just a bag of bones

Copyright 3/14/19
Richard L Ratliff

Ice man

O’Neil was right he did come
**** I’m old to remember when he came
We had a freezer, but he came to jimmy southgate’s house
In what looked like an old medic truck from WWII
Down the ruts in the unpaved alley to the back door
Those tongs for ice cubes as big as concrete blocks
Scary giant tweezers loading that wooden box

Nice man wearing a dark leather apron
told Jimmy’s mom (Who looked like Peggy Lee)
“Have a nice day”
I think she liked the milkman better
His delivery took a lot longer

Copyright  3/14/19
Richard L Ratliff

Cookies

Does it hurt? Is it painful
Or just a gnawing hunger
Something  misplaced or used up
Going to the cookie jar
And finding it empty
You can’t bake anymore because
The recipe is lost  

Enjoying snacks one by one      
Year after year tasting small bites
Returning to the jar
Always expecting a handful
Until there were none
And you wished you had baked more
Or somehow made them last longer
The recipe is lost

Copyright 6/6/19
Richard L Ratliff