Words may not break bones,
but they sure enough can break
souls

I failed all my poetry
by belching words
that isn't me
I bob and weave and stitch the
seams
adverting mental catastrophe
with one eye flush and one eye
shut
I spew the jargon that lights me up
I post it here I post it there
and hope it sticks and fills
the air

I'm walking the tight rope,
holding on to the stick
like it was hope.
That is how we get through life,
walking all alone
with just that one person
constantly giving us hope.

He takes up his walking stick,
looks up as if surprised to see me there and smiles,
and together we take the baskets, and walk the stairs,
sharing a well-worn joke and a laugh
and we count, we stack, we tally
and we bag the coins, the notes,
all meticulously accounted for,
- another echo of Sundays past with taller stacks
and notes that knew how to behave better
and then after two signatures he takes his stick,
looking to wrestle Cath from her chat,
and go to get some dinner.

He takes up his drum sticks,
doing the count by instinct and,
with a coordination I can only dream of,
provides a dependable back beat, off beat or up beat,
all in a groove you just have to love,
from a throne that’s all his and his alone
behind his well-worn drums,
- all an echo of Saturdays past
with stage lights, later nights,
and delighted crowds,

leaving me to thank God
for servant hearts and patient servers,
for lives lived well and long,
and for John, whose beat goes on,
whether with two sticks and his kit in the sun,
skin deep and soul deep in the same beat,
or holding one stick, with a fresh joke to test run
(or perhaps on repeat), but always laughing
comfortably keeping time, 90 years young,
walking with his King.

None but he who calls me, me,
thinks of me
as doer of

the deeds we see were done, or
must have been done,
ere I was error there of, as

beauties, if such do yet make
plans for chances I can take
as hope, sent deep to meet me,

as has been done, hoped over
plans, in me, object I point
at you. See, we are they who do

say you see the banner wave,
o'er the legendary home, aye,
of free and brave, learn-

ed and led by the learned away,
to find the me who started
thinking things we say are prayer,

this, nada mas, this we have
as we think, we have, this we,
I, me and you. Please be real. Amen.

The out of body designation,
after life, after ever once begun,
rounds the bend in time to find you.

That is mine, you said to he-
he who calls me, me, he may be
too dense to pass through, solid state.

Activated Intelligence,
see the odds, gads, scads of
notta chances remain to test,

may good enough to try, get by,
as among the best, for umph,
at the last wish in any set of three

kinds of minds full of found
ways this could occur or happen
to seem felt right, enough for now.

- the binge, a novel passtime,
- focus, intent, on hero stories fit
- slicker than snot to viral ideas…

We sneeze, sometimes in threes,
all the breathers who think in me terms,
studies show we mostly sneeze in threes;
------------------------
we get vaccines in threes, and we live on
Between April 26 and July 10, 1954,
volunteers distributed Salk's series of three polio shots….

From <https://www.google.com/search?q=first+polio+vaccine+roll+out&oq=first+polio+vaccine+roll+out&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i22i29i30.9668j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8>

Sadly , most of the kibitzers are the houseflies sticking randomly to anyone unlike a few who genuinely drown in the worries of others.