Once I was young and strong,
Consumed with compelling
desires of Horizon Lust,
traveling forth wide and far.

Time and age has intervened,
now I stand alone and wait
high above on the city gate,
Silent sentry to all of those young
lives that venture forth to explore
horizons of their own, and those
weather beat ones like me
returning to rest and remain.

Accepting as I must, that I shall
never again roam too far afield  
from my place upon the gate,
Content with a life well lived,
to languish now upon this place.

Horizon Lust is for the young.

My Grandson is now ten and
growing like the proverbial ****,
but still young and sweet enough
to yet sit upon my knee,
to share moments of joy
and reflection, or for me
to tell him a story.

He still giggles when I tickle him,
and thankfully he's not too old to
give and receive hugs and kisses.
Best of all he never fails to tell me he
loves me whenever he arrives or leaves.

Half sleep whispers in the night,
faint yet stubbornly persist.
Words fully formed of
encouragement and regret.
Always in concert with the
background pendulum beat
of a relentlessly ticking clock.
Our lives never as precious as
in those waning years when
time is no longer our friend.

I dream dreams of places
I have never been,
Of people I've yet to meet,
Of songs I've never sung,
Of horizons I've not yet crossed.
Every morning I awake with
a smile of hope upon my face.
As my dreams are an invitation
to all that awaits.

She was no saint, no wonder woman and yet
my mom possessed some of those qualities.
A strong sweet person, with a loving heart.

My father was no fool, but with mom's quite
strength and guidance he was a better, smarter
man and family leader. This fact never more
obvious than after she died at 54 and he had to
cope on his own without her. A grieving man
reduced to a child for a time. He never fully
recovered. Rational decisions eluded him.

No matter how well it's constructed,
Every ship needs a good compass and
strong rudder and my mother was ours.
My brother and I though grown and
aging men, still steer the course she charted.

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.

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.