Recently “minutes” or recently “hours”?
Recently, minutes were reasonably ours.
Like how I “recently” saw him at the grocery store,
And “recently” went back, hoping I might again.

Sure, we spoke…
Recently.

So I logged on, recently,
Just to see what’s up.
That’s how it always is,
And the status is always the same:
“Recently”

the minutes roll past her like tumbleweeds
as her eyes meet the melting, setting sun.
but in the blink of an eye, the night falls
and the hour wraps its arms around her,
keeping her warm and safe in time's embrace.

The seconds, minutes, hours pass by.
And yet, after all this time,
I can't help but sit back and wonder...
"Why?"

If a picture's worth a thousand words,
What's a life worth?
It's crazy to think that life can be lived
A million different ways when,
at most, we'll only see 36,500 days.
Especially these days, people worry
They don't have time to figure out
How to do, how to say something meaningful.
So think about it like this:
You may only have 36,500 days, 100 years. But it doesn't take days or years
To make a difference.
It only takes a minute.
And EVERY YEAR, you get 525,600 of them. 525,600 chances to change.

It's 7:17am
and I haven't slept
I've been playing chess
and watching videos about people
probably perceived as less fortunate
one man had a condition from birth
that left him without cheek bones
and his parents rejected him
after 36 hours in the hospital
when he was growing up he worried
"I thought I'd never be intimate with anyone."
he explained and went on to mention
that he hated being stared at
he recalled his first love
her name was Beth
she wore skinny jeans and liked the same music
and eventually left
I felt the pain he felt at reading his adoption notes
how his parents were horrified by his appearance
and felt no maternal or paternal connection to him
when he was just a little bundle of love
I almost shed a tear myself
when he told of the time he wrote to his parents
then in his 20's he felt it was time
they replied with a letter
that said they did not want to hear from him
and that any future attempts to make contact
will be ignored entirely

Virgo in the ascendant,
Saturn in decline,
A retrograding antidote,
A calculated rhyme;

Overtones of melancholy,
Undertones of mirth,
A surfeit of misfortune,
Of musery a dearth

Faithless Fortune taps her foot,
While plotting my demise,
A rhythm most unruly,
A metaphor unwise;

In minutes and in seconds,
She wreaks havoc on my pen,
A glib faux pas, no coup de grâce...
And so I start again.

§

My zodiacal tendencies,
Triumphant in their prime,
Fade to skepticism
As life spins on a dime.