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Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
Smart-*** sixteen and lost in Syracuse
I scrounged a quarter
To call home
For an eighty-five mile ride
And Dad answered and said
"God gave you two thumbs, boy.
One to get there, and one to get back."
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
When I was wee my feets was small.
They found no grip, I'd trip and fall.
I'd stumble bumble left and right
From morning sun to bed-time night.
But as I grew my feets did too.
They grew out of both sock and shoe!
And when I slept they grew some more.
They grew right out my bedroom door!
They grew right out onto the lawn
And when I woke my feets was gone!
I sat there scared within my bed
Just wondering where my feets had fled.
Did my feets go out on a trip
Along the Mighty Mississip?
Were they stomping Kansas corn,
Or hanging ten in Californ?
Hiking in Saskatchewan
Or Yucatan or cold Yukon?
All day long and into night
I worried of my Feets's plight.
Worried that they'd never phone
To tell me they was coming home,
Worried that I'd be bereft
Of both my feets, the right and left!
And so I pictured my two feets
Just wandering dark Parisian streets,
Or alleys in the south of Spain,
Or freezing in the Russian rain,
Or separated in Des Moins
Without the calf, the knee, the *****!
But wait! Hold on!  What's this I see?
I'm such a goof, oh silly me!
I did not lose my big old feets!
They were just sleeping 'neath my sheets!
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
A bit of joy has come to me.
Some happy in a small disguise.
These students with their hopeful eyes
And brush and palette ...
I'll seize the day and let them play
With colors wet and rules begone!
We'll paint and splash on papered lawn!
A bit of Joy has come to me.
I am better for it.
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
Pay attention to the dirt!
Make the effort to Jump when the Big Fingers snap!

     I see you walking with your head in the clouds, looking up
     when you should be looking down,
     your hopeful imagination miles and miles away from your
     Here And Now.

Pay attention to the dirt!

     You!  With your eyes rolling 'round in youthful indignation
     playing in your happy little Tomorrow-Never-Land
     with those greedy little fingers on those greedy little hands
     talking your talk while walking blindly through a land filled
     with obstacles which have been moved around beneath you,
     by Big fingers, while you ignorantly slept!

Mind your step!
Pay attention to the dirt!

Do the math which you think you believe in,
while the gods you don't believe in
laugh at your stumble.
Go ahead...  Hold your head high in false pride
listening only to your own mumble
of self awareness as you go fumbling
through your pockets
jingling your worthless
change.
Best you dig deeper to secure the coins you'll need
when you come to YOUR final crossing.

Pay attention to the dirt!

"Life is short",  you often say.
But you're wrong.  Life is long,
And so very very wide.
    
     And yet you ride your time on one little narrow strip,
     always looking behind you as you stomp backwards
     in a foolish attempt to delay the arrival of your own
     inevitable.

     But even when that fateful day comes, you won't see it.
     You'll be too busy looking up.  Looking behind you.
     Tripping myopically along, blissful and unaware of
     Why.  Or Where.

Pay attention to the dirt!

Turn around, bend down.
Dig into that loam of home
with those greedy little fingers...

Linger awhile there, study the sift,
let it drift through and around your
knuckles...
And Feel the Real!
Look ahead, not behind.

     Observe the curve and swerve of the Glory Road
     stretched out before you and never-you-mind
     what fades behind!

     The Past at last has passed on and Tomorrow's Now
     awaits your feeble crawl towards the Wide.
     Into the Long.
     Beneath a sky which does not forgive,
     or even promise a firm footing.

Pay attention to the dirt!
  
     let me ask you...
     what is the price for dignity?
     the cost of respect?
     There is no lay-away plan.
     No six-month-same-as-cash agreement
     on a bargain basement consignment
     thrift shop deal-of-the-day.
    
     No red-tag blue-light special
     on a slightly used one-owner
     runs-well, cleans up OK Life.

     You can Not wheel and cajole a sneaky deal
     for a piece of pride on this ride into your
     particular continuum.
    
     There are no coupons.

     There is only Not Yet
     and Self, one day/per/day,
     as you plan and execute your
     next mistake.

     As you buckle your OWN boots and walk your OWN walk
     smiling,
     into the wind of contention.

So, Pay attention to the dirt!

Pay attention to the dirt!

And you mind your step.
You mind your step.
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
Though sonnets often wail of love, or loss,
This sonnet calls to all the Joy of Life!
Just got the papers from my (now) ex-wife.
She signed them. All those years a simple toss.

I fell in love with her at one hat-drop
(I love her still. I always will.  It's true.)
She set the bar for all the women who
Might try to catch my eye, from start to stop.

The way her tress cascaded, and her kiss...
The bliss I oft succumbed to in her smile...
The miles we walked together, she and I.

Though sonnets often rail at Love, or Life,
I'm happy that she's finally let me go.
These tears will pass tomorrow... (sonnets lie.)
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
You breathed.
The Sun wiggled a little.
You moved.
There was a wobble
In the path of the Moon.
You smiled.
My gravity shifted.
You looked at me.
Einstein held his breath...
The Spheres paused, waiting...
Eternity went to lunch...
Waiting...
Until you breathed and smiled at me again.
I took in a small moment of air.
Life.
Timothy Mooney Jan 2011
You breathed.
The Sun wiggled a little.
You moved.
There was a wobble
In the path of the Moon.
You smiled.
My gravity shifted.
You looked at me.
Einstein held his breath...
The Spheres paused, waiting...
Eternity went to lunch...
Waiting...
Until you breathed and smiled at me again.
I took in a small moment of air.
Life.
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