It's a crazy rancid
dance we do
Hold On.

It's illusions fading
into illusions created
Hold on.

It's a solitary star lite
full moon night
Hold on.

There is laughter in an
empty room
Lover's shadows on a darkened
wall
Curtains waltzing
in a warm wind night
Hold on

There is a woman on the
road tonight
running from this room
she had loved me then
she had loved when.

She turned up the music
Turning down desire.
Hold on.

Reaching and missing
at cross-roads passed
turn down the music
return to me.
Hold on.

The moon is fading
the stars are dimming
the sun is rising
the last note is played.

Hold On.

My life long friend
Friendship which goes the distance
We stand on the edge of the great abyss
This last little bit we have to take alone.

A life long friendship nourished and encouraged
Learning from you how to love
each and every one
Learning what it means to be
I and thou

Heading downstairs for one more round

Looking in the mirror
Integrity or despair?

It's all been there

But this life is like jumping
Into Tahoe on a warm summer day,
And hitting mountain thawing snow
You could do it
I never could
The naked fisherman in the Golden trout wilderness

The Buddha on the road

We stayed so young
While we got so old
Couldn't have done that
Without you

The ocean is still out there with your footprints in the morning sand
Your molecules in the laps you swam
The poetry of motion

The healing brought

All of this and nothing more
Every day our friendship,
a blessing
In everyway.

Sleep baby sleep
It's been a rough go
without release,
your road has been a thorny one
Feels like you've been cut and sliced
Diced and dangled over high cliffs
And that fear of heights, doesn't help.

The sheets here are a thousand thread
The comforter, grandma's quilt,
Sleep baby sleep
Rest your head.

Life has its ups and has its downs
Streaks and slumps
All in one day.

Put your head down on my chest,
I'll do the rest.

Sometimes the tears are going to slide
Right on down your cheek,
The intensity of our grief is equal to our capacity to love, my own cliche I know
But it's okay
Your day is done

Sleep baby sleep
Rest deep.

Traumatized
Post Traumatic Stress
Most of us
got it

Cortisol fear screaming through
our blood stream
Seeing or being something
people never should be

Adrenal Dumps
Road rage

Meltdowns in the
five to eight shot
morning or evening
it doesn't matter

Memories traveling
on the light of the day
scents floating in the air
the music
A ****** expression
in a crowd

Holding on tight
Jumping out of our
skin

Embarrassment
Feelings of rejection
Than rage

How to handle it today?

The walking wounded
walking on parade
no point in going to the circus
when we are the circus

Maybe it's always been,
What do they say,
The human condition
is the condition
we're in

If we do it right
maybe
(there's)
(next time)
another way
to get it right.

The hound dog sings the blues again
Jumping into the probability  continuum
Finding bliss or frustrated suffering
Gotta keep moving
Cutting our losses
Honoring commitment

Of winners and losers
Letting the cards fall where they may
Finding peace where we can
While the hound dog sings the blues again.

I was the last physical human on planet Earth.
I really don't know how it worked out that way,
The luck of the draw, I guess
But it has.

Now
My legs ache,
My head throbs,
My back hurts,
Fragile
I'm so lonely and disturbed.

Instead of having physical children,
Bodies, life death, age, being what they are so challenging,
People started creating,
"characters"
A different kind of children, you could virtually grow, more than a sim,
a "life"
As it were
As we know.

Taking on a life of their own,
A new generation way beyond me,
Leaving behind all physical vulnerability.

They could have 3d'd a body
Easy to do
But what was the point?
Evolution said to homosapians,
Of course you saved the last dance for me.

I think I'm ready for my nap now
And it's okay,
there is no one left to wake me.

Car wheels on a dirt road
She turns off the bedroom light
Turns to face herself on a frozen night
It hasn't gone well
Two marriages two fiancees
One Too Many ****** addicts
Along the way

Please forgive me she tells her kids
Her mother goes to sleep never wakes up
Now their moving her to Tennessee
To be close to a father she never did see
A hard luck story from beginning to end
Molested by a neighbor way back when
Eleven years old, they said he was a friend
My father was a **** beat me with a stick
Children are to be seen not heard
So he said
Respect him
I wanted to wait until he was sleeping,
The cast iron and his head
Bye bye

But I didn't

Prison bound eventually
Trusted a woman undercover
Not too bad
Safer than I've ever been
Worked my job
Did my shift
Otherwise never had to get out of bed

A twist of fate
A neighbor decided I was the one
Took me to a Colorado ranch
Five hours from Santa Fe

Staring into the wood stove
I've never really told him about my past
He never seemed all that interested
One more beer and he'll be fine

Car wheels on a dirt road
The night is slow in winter
She turns off the bedroom light.

she was)

The vessel embarking at the sudden light

Empty as an infant

The eyes, the windows
The sonar, the ears
The propeller, the legs
The hull, the skin
Equpped with hands to grip and collect
Drifting into the great unknown

(She stirred)

The vessel predisposed to doldrums
basking in the sun's golden light
Mother moon at night
taking the vessel in

In warm embrace

The vessel learning from experience
storing its hurts, resentments,
sorrows, regrets
fears and guilts
in the hold

Susceptible to changing weather
And lightning strikes announcing who
she is

This vessel voyages the seas of time

Forming beliefs about self
telling stories and reminiscing

(She headed to the bathroom
Couldn't help it
Was so into the dream
Tried to keep it with her,
eyelids half shut
The vessel on the high seas)

(She dreamt)

The vessel was stuck at the Cape
Rockin and rollin
in waves of self pity
hanging on to the mast for dear life

Dear life.

Remembering
Deep love
Slices of delight
Happiness coming
The weather calm.

(She awoke with a start
Her breath taken away
"What a strange night"
She had to say,
The moon was setting
Dawn's twilight had not yet begun
She searched the high seas)

The vessel reached its port of call,
It had weathered many storms

The hold was bursting with forlorn
she carries with her,
in every breath she takes,

And, she proceeds -
proceeds to disembark

Fully alive, arriving at her destination

(Awakening, she is in a mood,
her dream, the waterway to the moon,
The vessel remained
The dream had ended too soon
As all wonderful dreams tend to do

The alarm clock went off,
She thought about calling in sick
She got on the computer
Started looking for ports of call.

Missing the drive to Truckee,
Graegeagle/ Almanor fantasies
Missing the front deck
Bears & squirrels
Jim and Marylee
So happy

Missing Jim & Marylee

Packing up the old VW
Take you anywhere

Missing Eric & Anne
Missing Eric & ?
Katie Doug and Cheyene
James & Amanda
Sarah & Hannah
Emily too
Frank and Susan
What are we going to do?

No fish to be caught
They rarely were,
No smokes in the morning with the lake out there

Missing the view of the lake

Being out on the water

The music always playing
Missing the dogs in the water
The colors of the afternoon
Changing into the night clothes
While the camp fire begins to go
And later, 1950's radio shows
After several days the mind begins to change
Panoramas and vistas
Restore perspective

Missing Cheese Camp
Yearly healing

The lost year when there is
just a covid snow and no where to go
goes and goes...

You're not alone when you are the poem
It's the silence after that's deafening

You're not alone when you are in the zone,
You're finally home
It's the silence after that's deafening

When the rhythms and rhymes flow
And time puts its head down and goes
It's the silence after that's deafening

When dancing in the night
Doing the tango with words
Dancing down old hallways
Listening for old echoes
Sometimes delight
Sometimes the ruins
You're never alone

It's in between the poetry,
that's when we can hear it
the solitary silence that's deafening.

Hangs on a hanger at Good Will
Among many others
Whose time has past
Out of fashion out of time
But their scent remains alive
The pheromones of their lives
The dopamine
The cortisol
The chemistry of our experience
The pleasures the stress their pains
remain & linger in the scents
A lifetime come & gone
Doesn't get much notice
We mostly pass it by
Though you may feel it in the air
from time to time emanating from
The dead man's suit on a hanger at Good Will.

Life as we know it
Life as we grow it
Life as we flow it

It'll punch you in the face
Hold you in a warm embrace

It'll tell you what to do
It'll leave you hangin'n
A hound dog singing the blues
Howlin' at the moon

Life as we do it
Days as we do'em
Never really thinking about what we're doing

Just doing what we're knowing
until it goes.