From this island
water and more tiny islands
heavily treed with Douglas fir
landing ground for ocean otters
while orca whales glide by
spout and spray
the beach, broken shelled
puddled wells of tide pools
filling, spilling over again
brown bauble seaweed mingles
round algae rocks, barnacle shingled
here where the air breathes salt scented
water running wild with salmon.

There Are Those Who Love To Get *******

There are those who love to get *****
and fix things.
They drink coffee at dawn,
beer after work,

And those who stay clean,
just appreciate things,
At breakfast they have milk
and juice at night.

There are those who do both,
they drink tea.

Thanks again America.
Long ago, you sent me to war
prepared to shed my blood.
I was lucky, mine was spared.
But some hitchhikers came home with me:
tiny, wriggling, tropical parasites.
They love my aging body.
They are true like ******.
They cannot leave me till I die.
Occasionally, they decide to dance.
No doubt, they enjoy themselves.
All they cost me is fever
and appetite,
sleep and peace of mind.
After all these decades,
you still want my blood,
but now you are content
to trouble it inside my veins.
Thanks Again America.

it's suffocating
my eyes aren't exposed to new sights
my mind isn't exposed to new thoughts
no new people
everything the same
every day so similar to the day before and
the day before that and
the day before that
i could do it in my sleep
my mind has no boundaries, it roams free from ocean to ocean,
galaxy to galaxy,
but my feet are stuck tracing the same steps i've seen a thousand times before
when i step out and explore new territory, it isn't long before gravity does its work and i am forced back into the same
routine

im trapped by the comforter on my bed
by the closed car windows
by the classroom walls
by the limitations that seem to push in tighter and tighter until i have nowhere to go but away

away to where the beds don't have comforters because the grass is comfortable enough
where the cars don't have windows because we walk everywhere we go
where my education does not derive from a textbook, but from my adventures
where i have no limitations
where the chains that kept my feet on the ground have released me
and my feet run as freely as my mind does

When you were born,
I was 25 and had
already been a hippie,
a soldier, a husband.

If I had known
your birthdate,
I would have sent
you a card saying:

Happy Birthday!
I'll meet you
in a few decades.
Can't wait.  Mike

It's a little late,
but here it is.

Turned my headphones up so loud
I can't even hear the disapproval in your voice...
You are barely a breathe,
Merely a whisper of inconvenience,
Playing in the background of the soundtrack to my life...
Let Eddie Vedor have my attention...
He cares.
I know...
because all of his songs are about me too...
Why does it feel like strangers in the air waves have a deeper sense of me than you do?
Is it that you just don't care?
Or perhaps, I'm not your type?
I didn't know it was so easy to abandon those you love...
This society is crumbling.
We have no true concern for our brother.
Our greatest concern lies with the state of our pride,
Of our pocketbooks...
Of our swollen genitalia...
Feelings are causualties
to the almighty throne of the ego.
Worship him! Bow down in his greatness!
Lest he remember...
For only a moment...
That the cosmos turn in delicate rotation for only One.
The light. The Sun. The great spark that feeds
and heats
and sustains ALL life on earth...
All life in our galaxy...
So sorry, little green envious men of ego...
You are but a drop of water rocking on a wave
in a vast and unfathomable sea.
But each drop has to work together...
Or else the purest, sweetest drops will silently
drift
into the dark abyss below...
Never knowing how beautiful it would have been to be released by a noonday shower
Somewhere just south of Madrid
And coming to rest
On the gentle leaves in a vineyard...
A glistening dew drop
Sun kissed
and warming on the vine.