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Stephen E Yocum Jul 2017
I dwell alone here,
a prisoner within
my own mind and life,
encumbered in burdensome
shackles of my own invention,
locked restraints of self-delusion
to which solely I possess the keys.
To all of us who sell ourselves
short, who give up too soon,
who hide in self imposed prisons
of the mind.
Life is what we make of it and
thus perhaps what we deserve,
unless we endeavor to change it.
For a friend, he knows I mean well.
Stephen E Yocum Jul 2017
I rolled out of bed
to start my day,
but the power was off
my all electric home,
as still as a grave.
No coffee, or toast.
The refrigerator not cold,
the freezer started dripping
the contents soon to spoil.

No computer, no cell phone service!
I began sweating profusely,
no air conditioning to cool me.
Not even a TV Emergency Broadcast Alert,
to release this uneasy feeling of topsy-turvy .

I drove into town seeking a pay phone,
with not a single one to be found,
gone the way of the dinosaurs,
extinct now too I assumed.

My old truck had no computer chips,
most cars did and were dead in their tracks.
I needed gas but the gas station pumps
electric computer driven, all DOA to boot.

The Nations electric grid had crashed,
blacked out, stone cold dead everywhere.
All heavenly satellites blacked out, expired.
Everything computer related (and
that is about everything), had ceased
to function as had the electronic reliant
world we had created.  

The street throngs of dazed people walked
around like zombies, clutching blacked out
dead computer devices, knowing not what to do.
Not even talking, forgotten I guess how to do that too.
As dependently defectively programmed as the useless
devices in their hands.

In a panic I did awake finding that
this scary dream world was indeed all fake,
a nightmare of fearful unconscious thinking.
My electric clock was still churning,
It's music alarm blaring,
birds outside still singing,
my cell phone started ringing,
it was merely another Robot call,
Welcoming me back to the 21 century.
Imagine if you can some man made device or solar flare
knocking out all the satellites in space and computers on
earth, then this nightmare is not so far-fetched.
I actually did have this unsettling dream. The possibility
of this reality does indeed exist.
Stephen E Yocum Jul 2017
Upon awakening I almost never,
jump right out of bed, as I once did.
Slowly I rise to sit awhile on the edge
of  my days desired intentions.
Stiffly I stand and tentatively step away
towards the bathroom to relieve my
most pressing bladder urges.

Those parts of me that do still work,
do now mostly hurt and that's for certain.
Like any other machine, my body's warranty
has long ago mostly expired.

When we old friends now gather,
rather than palavering about our kids,
our golf game, or our ******* Boss at work,
the collective commiserating talk always turns
to our individual deteriorating health matters.

How things once were and no longer are.
Our new hurts and concerns laid out in
vivid detail, what the latest tests revealed
and what the Doctor said or concluded.  
These shared aging complaints you see,
seem almost limitless and all consuming.

We become a little like a hapless clergyman,
preaching wishful consoling rhetoric to his choir.
Not one of us knows, or has the answers
to any of life's BIG questions and actually
never did.

Misery you see, does indeed love company,
talking and sharing seems to help I guess,
being the only real tonic offered or taken,
no prescription required or need be written.
For all of us, limping along through the
aging process. Nothing to do for it but
to laugh and accept it.
Stephen E Yocum Jul 2017
Pull in the sheets,
trim the tiller,
shifting to the other rail,
light airs prevail, the
sails they luff.

Seeking the wind,
Cat's paws to Starboard
Hard-a-lee tacking to Port,
the breeze she comes,
boom shifts, helm heels
over, sails crack and fill.
Reef in the Jib, slack off the main.
She digs in, laying her rail
into the water, riding on the
seas thin knifes edge again,
the keel rises, steadies her passage.
We fly!

Ah, fair winds, sailors delight,
pleasant sailing, safe harbor ahead.
No greater joy than to sail and muck
about in boats on blue water.

Freedom achieved, intensely felt.
Stephen E Yocum Jul 2017
Wing clipped at birth, domestic birds they were.
Farm and spacious pen bound together six years.
She a prodigious egg layer, Don her attentive,
aggressive defender.

Daisy one day predator killed,
old Don outwardly mourning her loss
became a very different bird. All alone
for the first time in his Duck life.

We opened his gate and let him free roam.
A lonely flightless fowl only earth bound.
All aggression subsided with no mate to protect,
he became more social, needing a friend.

Crossing the yard from the barn,
when ever he may see us there.
He hunkers down in the shade
while I tend to the garden,
him like a supervisor, chortling occasional
reprimands or encouragements, I can never
tell which. All just to be close to some living thing.

He will chase after wild doves that land near by,
sadly mistaking them as perhaps a new mate, they
fly quickly away, him wondering what social Duck
blunder he might have made.

When finished in the garden, Don and I to the
barn retire, I ladle out a cup of corn for his pleasure.
Then it's back to his always open pen where his
bathtub sits, I turn on the hose and his excitement
ramps up. Excitedly he squawks and ***** his wings,
jumps into the tub, dives below the surface, reveling
in the cool spray of man made current in his artificial lake,
and with our few moments of companionship shared.
Him doing what ducks do, for a while loneliness abated.
It's almost as if I can see a smile on his pleasant Duck face.

Most days he sits close to the chickens pen, watching
the laying hens, scratching and moving within,
perhaps wishing he was in there with them.
I fear that if I open that wire door and let him go in,
that those ladies would peck him bald or even dead.

No matter how much a lonely Duck wishes he were
a chicken, they remain birds of a very different feather,
and a Duck can remain but a Duck forever.

A thing we might all remember....
Unless you think this a tale just for children,
this real life lesson example, is actually universal.
Stephen E Yocum Jun 2017
I've never betrayed my dreams,
           I've lived them.
Luck plays a part in
achieving our dreams,
the ignorance of unfailing
persistence also helps.
Stephen E Yocum Jun 2017
Sincere reassuring hugs,
Touching and
being touched,
Caresses shared,
Easy laughter exuded,
Intimate whispers
of affection exchanged,
A fellowship of souls,
Sweet Companionship
spread, like frosting on a cake.
As comfortable and reassuring
as your favorite old wool sweater
on a chilly night's weather.
****** passions undeniably
wonderful, yet often those
heated flames cool and wane.
The chemistry of loving
companionships can last
a lifetime and perhaps beyond.

For CJ with great affection
and love.
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