This is just a brief commentary that these next six poems I post are from taking an online corresponding poetry lesson with a poet named Dawn Leas.  She's a poet of the times and has contemporary empathy for the writers of this millennium.  I mention this as well as these poems are based on her edits as well.  Enjoy.

...A city here
That now bears ruins.
...A renowned ship
That has fallen asunder.
...Creatures so ginormous
And dominant
Not even today's technology
Could de-populate such wonders.
...A slave plantation
Along this grass,
Romping the dirt,
Doing much of the work for historically
Acclaimed inventor names of the time.
Where blood spurt and rationality
Could not be found across persons
Because of the rods and cones
That see different hues
Instead of similar traits.
...A person who walked here
That made a beneficial change,
Forwarding freedom, living and brotherhood.
Now where I sit and write
Will soon be a place
Where there was once
A home.

I wonder how people
Would get along
(Myself too)
If religious icons and statues
Didn't exist
And were never made
(Like thinking if technology shut down suddenly, to reference a friend).

Would that challenge minds
To dig up more imagination?
Or panic
About an afterlife being no life
Without post-apocalyptic relief
Through pictorial prognostication?

There's no cost to death,
Only a cost for living.
Death is an open-door,
Anytime and anywhere
Policy.
No charge.
No refund.

Does hope die
Out from a dying person?

I know a little about solely
Learning a job on the spot
Or opening a college textbook
Right before an assignment is due,
But conversion at death?
Doing anything for another breath
Is like wanting more water
When no longer parched.

This is the thought
That many I knew couldn't solve for me
Or that kept me wondering
About when I would grow
Taller:
How I should know better
(Take from every person who has reprimanded me to now),
How there are things I should be doing
At a certain age.

You know what this means?
Fear doesn't die.
People like those family members and friends
I knew, know, maybe will know
Keep fear alive each time I should have done something,
Said something,
Thought something
At a given instant.

I've always had other fears though:
I would always like the bedroom lights turned on at night
To be able to see and notice movement;
During the years my brother and I shared a bedroom,
He liked immediate darkness at night so he could fall asleep.
When it's dark in a given space,
Not only is it hard for me to sense
If my eyes are open or closed,
But it 'twas hard and still is a question
Whether the moving particles pupils take from darkness
Are just optical matter construed in the air
Or ghosts and other dimension-flopping figures
That I can't make go away.

Other fears over the years:
I never liked being stung or bit by any insect,
But the ones I feared the most were the ones people told me not to worry about,
Like wasps or yellow jackets
Or spiders.
I can feel stung before even feeling a sting sometimes.

I was always afraid of balloons popping.
They look so innocent, but forcefully stabbing the air out of a full one
Chokes me on the inside and makes me jump
As if taking that sound as a bullet,
Felt yet unfelt.

Afraid of rooms with indentations or corners.
I may have had an illusory vision or two in my sleep
Of friends leaving me behind for whatever reason
To face a ferocious being alone,
Two fears right there.
The thing about corners for me
And not having a birds-eye view of geography
Is I don't know what's around them
Until I bring myself to approach and find out.

Fear of silent places.
Being home alone
Was an exciting thing for me
The first time my mom allowed it to happen with intent.
Little did I know the fear of a new scene
Would make me so nervous,
Whether home with one of my siblings or not.
Just like the one day after a piano lesson I had at Ruth's house
When my mom was running late picking me up
And it was raining,
So being at home for the first or second time one night years back
Had me wondering if my mom would return home at all.
Some days my mom can't get a hold of me on my cell phone
While other days I can't reach her.
How have people through the years
Remained faithfully confident that, whether some one they love
Would only be gone a few minutes...hours...days...years,
Another time being together would ever come around?
Be it the time before cars,
Before horse and buggy.

There's the fear I have had and still have
Of being lost.
Socially lost, not understanding society
Or the language of social interaction.
Not knowing how to score a date with a young woman,
Not knowing the right extent to keep her interested in me
And to let her know I care
Without taking up all her time,
But yet there's the fear within a fear
Of another guy like me preying in and leaving
With a person I chose not to chase after or fight for
As they say.

As far as being lost,
How do I know what I did and what I am doing now
Is right for my person to do?
Some days, even though my mother would put this thought to rest,
I feel like I should fill every pair of laboring shoes out there.
Few interests capture my attention
To last a career's length anyway to me.
And, even though I react as angry
When trying to find my way on streets,
Walking or driving, in a town or city that I should be familiar with
Or a new view,
I get scared thinking that others will think I'm stupid,
I will think I'm stupid
When I actually appear lost
Turning around embarrassingly.
I almost think that every car going by
Has its drivers going "Hmmmm...must be a newbie."

I have a moderate fear of heights.
I say that now,
But I could easily go back to fearing heights
As I may have years back.
Even the Mount Washington lookout from Pittsburgh
Had me holding my breath some times
Hoping that the top of the mount wouldn't start slanting
And my feet wouldn't slide toward feet down into concrete streets
And buildings.

I have a fear of friending young men.
I don't have a lot of the same interests as guys my age nowadays,
And a lot don't seem to find my humor inviting.
Every random word I have said,
Every attempt at light-hearted talk
Has left a scar on my previous self
Giving my present self the burden of explaining these scars
To those who notice them.
I also found it hard when a guy like me and around me
Would get all of the attention
Even though I wasn't much of an attention getter myself
And even now not really that much.
I was afraid, like the cartoon movie Home On the Range,
That another young guy would be that Slim,
That guy who would flip out his guitar,
Hypnotize all the "lady cows" to come to his ranch.
I find a lot of guys (I shouldn't even call them friends really)
Like to challenge me and question me
All the live-long day.
Challenge me to things I can't do
To see me fall.
Challenge me to the things I am good at
To watch me crumble in on-the-spot nervousness.

I fear church ***** instruments.
I never liked them growing up,
They were always loud especially in larger atmospheres.
I felt like hearing the ***** was like hearing the rhythm
Of music to words sung and directed at exposing my faults.
Although I think its safe for me to say
That I have sinned not in my natural way of life,
But also for other people so they wouldn't have to sin,
Like eating meat for someone too holy and devoted
But also not one to waste either.
When the God of the Israelites told Adam and Eve not to eat from One tree,
I don't believe he gave them a reason why,
He didn't say a serpent will then tempt you not to listen to Command and you will go to Hell.
Suppose just being afraid of such a Deity in the Christian world
Is plenty of reason not to rebel against limitations of food.

I fear public speaking.
I love it, but when I do it
I hate it.
It's so odd to have words
And then have people-stares just eat them and leave you with Nothing.
I cried over public speaking
Because I thought I had developed this flawless reputation
(Yes, in freshman year of high school, I thought this).
I in no way am a Mozart-child prodigy,
But some adults and people pressured me to learn fast,
Which made me feel like nothing if I didn't learn as fast as a dial-up Computer.

FDR said that fear is the scariest thing to exist.
I don't disagree,
I just fear I'll never fully know that.

Someone asked me recently
What drives me to write in a journal,
Just a page or two each day.
I have been waiting to answer this question myself
And was amazed that an outside social-media voice
Prompted my response.
Here's what I had to say:

"I want to remember the person I actually turned out to be at this point in time and not let poor memory resort to stereotypes to describe my 20s. I made a mistake I think not writing earlier because there’s a lot I don’t remember from the previous decade.  I want to remember the ordinary moments and to record where I showed my humanness and where I failed. I want to remind myself that, as swelled of a head as I can have most times, that I am human too and I’d like to be that person who has stories and moments that can relate to what people consider embarrassing or wrong so not to shame themselves for actions and words stumbled across by people left and right. It’s one thing to feel guilty about something; it’s another thing to feel like the world ended because of one moment, like how I have treated a lot of my own life moments."

I don't journal for myself entirely,
Yet I do take pleasure in that time of concentration.
To live in the present is the goal,
To live in the future is understandable,
But to remember how I lived in the past
Reminds me I have been human all the way up to now.

A breeze
that disappears.
Just like
The uniformed
Army
Guarding a wreath
Of remembrance:
Flight 93,
9...1...1...
The bus kept going,
Passengers guessing
What the army officers
Could possibly be out
In the dragging sun for,
Motionless and focused,
Like the queen's guards.

Good deeds are worthwhile,
But it can take an eternity
To say "mission accomplished."
Walking to a flower shop,
Buying a rose,
Walking tens of steps
Of never-ending sidewalk,
Actually feeling lost.

I never found these people
And the memorial wreath.
I felt I had wasted my time.
Don't tell me to remember
If I know I thought about it.
Maybe frustration
Is the only way I'll learn,
But from here to the grave,
Remember those unsaved.

They wear big-*** antlers
That make you say "Oh deer!"
They got an attitude
That jolts them to fully charge...
But they don't get LODGED in your throat.

The international fraternity
Of the Moose Lodge,
Unfolding a new chapter each day!
A fraternity that works together,
A family that comes together.

A night of karaoke
At the Moose Lodge
Will make you forget
Your rough week ever happened

Charity of Moose, Moose Haven,
Conventions,
Many ways to be involved,
But only one moose to choose!