I played hunter once
Sitting in the deer stand
Tall enough to reach God
If we wanted to, and enough
Assurance to play God
As we were in the heart
Of a land whose creatures
Did not belong to us whose
Meat was not for our mouths
And as I aimed the rifle
Taking in the delicate
Posture of a white tailed
Beauty full gleaming muscle
Fur wet with dew and antlers
Reaching to heaven
I saw in the eyes of the buck
A shame that caused my finger
To coil back from the trigger
The understanding that I too
Have the wounded wickedness
Of a prey animal with a
Little heart full of disease
And I sacrificed my rite of
***** in my face and baptism
In blood to spare my own
Theft of a life not meant for me

a doe wandered into the clear path of the starry forest. three shots had rung out.
a buck lay flat on the clovers and tall grass.
a fawn beside him pawing the ground.
three frogs hopping in the trees.
down down down.
the doe lay beside the fawn as it denied the inevitable, inescapable truth.
he was gone.
she was here.
and the frogs sang a sappy tune.
"ohhh cry out sweet sorrow, the dragonflies skitter away! the cats are out and the mice are at play. whistle sour melodies and harmonious truth, the deer have crossed over, behind stayed their youth."
the young doe shooed away the silly frogs before the hunters heard.
poor fawn.
no mama in sight.

My roommates and I
always have something to say.
We talk incessantly, like chirping birds.

We’re all reading the same large print here, and It suggests that college is almost over.
We’re bleeding time and there are dreams in need of scheming.
It’s time to stack our chips with transactional relationships and hoard the things that matter most.

I have to admire the sheer attitude and bravado of these girls—their defiant strides,
as they face the invisible indignities and constant obstacles of job hunting.
(Where they’re required to behave while they’re observed and evaluated).

They have their resumes and they’re complaisantly ready to flex their appealing gregariousness.
All of the major playas are passing through—from established giants like (Amgen, Bayer and Genentech)
to biotech startups and research Institutes—to cull through the herd of Yale biomedical graduates.

I don’t get to play (interview) this time and it’s rough just watching the signs and plays from the sidelines.
I can’t help the feeling that I’m underperforming—even though my ‘Master of Public Health (MPH)’ program starts 10 days after we graduate. ‘Baby, I was born to run’— to steal a line from Bruce Springsteen.

Despite our separate paths—we’re like cats getting ready to jump in all directions—a bouillabaisse of intoxicating and terrifying excitement for the future is brewing, and we still have the constrictions of our current curriculum to deal with—like a snake, it still wraps around every aspect of our lives.
.
.
Songs for this:
born to run by Bruce Springstein
Time by Tom Waits
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_03.mp3

aware of some
things, aware
HERE am I
there you are

near and far and nothing
in between, why
should I care, beware…

It's me,
in this world, it's me,
making up my mind, to live on,
to live on
to leave behind me, for you -

a way to go,
if you really wish to follow, if
you truly hold the hope of ever
being better than right
now,
now. Right, not wrong, right now.
You know.
You think you know, right now,

with no miracles, no little things
to see, with no joy felt shared,
with no sorrow shown in tears,
with no feet a dancin'

up on tippy toes, just a spinnin'
in time,
like a planet or a star, loopin' life
in time,
from somewhere inside, center
of heavy
of hard
of dark and cold… dark and cold…

singer… singer singing wordlessly,
la las and mmmhmmms, so so so

lighten up,
lighten up my will to be worthy,
lighten up my will to be care free,

lighten up my will to be loved, by

strangers who imagine I have
loosed some good in some shape,
loosed some good held out of sight,

strange as not cognized, coknown,
to me and you, the other end of these

lines left to prove, a second
thought… if you make joy, peace remains
enjoyable,
no mass converts to energy,
my taken peace, my inspiration never
expires, each time I miss, I miss nothing
I hit
on another decision
to make.

I laugh, and let out long rambles, through
brambles familiar
to creatures built low
to the ground
at the human
being being being more than…

Partaker of the programming.
Snipping
Re-ligamental knots, religious at-here-
ence sense so common to all here,
re-
filtered feeling manufactured, here
in living words translatable, peaceable,

easy
to use while defusing the confusion,
and allowing angelic angst ambitious umph,

committed, chance fret naught,
take the shot, think thirty aught six, BANG

Big,
nothing like the game, recoil
that's what's missing… recoil,
kick,
to remind you what Newton knew.

Not Issac, Fred Newton, from Weedpatch, Ca,
a few miles this side of Bakersfield…

He, comes up around Thanksgiving,
in the spirit now, since he's dead,

he looks at me and grins, so big.

For me to live, that  turkey must die.
old fisher of men, he knew, he'd say
a man's remembered, for the shot,

no turkey ever is,
that's something
to be thankful for.

Your eyes so sharp; hint at a piercing yellow in the air-
beyond measure beyond what we lose reasons to care for.
Therefore, you shall find me down a path to the honeyed
days, when all we try to hold on to, tilts and drifts away.
While my feelings for you left me all sun-washed and
golden, now downsizing myself, inches into days.

Forever being the promise of a storm; a cause of havoc in my
heart- we meet, we fall in, fall out of love and finally depart.
Still, I’ll remain searching for the sweetness of your yellow
nectar- the tenderness we both shared. Still steeped in your
honey comb lips; as every kiss was a promise, dripping with
sweet promises, and its amber glow.

                I… remain as the one still chasing after you
                                                   -an eternal hunter bee.

A sporting life—
For the bloodsport.
We enjoyed sharpening our knives and loading our guns on the languid savannah plains.

For the thrill of the hunt—
The bloodsport—
Our sweat would drip onto the carcass,
Mixing with the open veins.

We enjoyed the ****,
Displaying the beast's head as we covered ourselves in its blood,
Congregating for the love of the open veins.

******* preserved the bones,
And these hunts lived long in our memory as symbols of our glory;
Symbols of the beast's pain.

Even if you don't sleep, this night will pass,
It will pass, and
The morning will come, and the sun will rise,
With its rays bright, silky, bushy, without mercy,
Without consolation, it will tear the clouds apart,
Split the sky in two, like a woman in labor,
The day will be born, perfect child,
Perfect reincarnation, without the need to find
The closest point to Earth, the most distant,
It will pass as if it was not, and never will be, again,
It will, slowly, rotate in the way of the Hunting Moon