I can deal with aging
don’t mind how it slows you down
Even as if
Every step could be your last.

As an aside, while driving
How many truths are revealed
In the mind field concealed
As your driving

Passing an old man with a cane
Who stopped to spit on the sidewalk
Don’t judge, I tell myself,
Sometimes, if I’m being truthful
I hate aging and the aged
Present company included

And that is why Jane Fonda is my hero

Who really knows what goes on in anyone’s mind
I think while I’m driving.

My friend has early Alzheimer’s
Can’t even spell the word
So I think I’ll text her a joke today
I think better of it
My joke goes like this
Maybe you’ve heard it.
Betty White said it.
“My mother always said.
You don’t get older.
You just get better.
Unless, of course, you’re a banana”
Ha, ha
Yeah, then I think
Is it possible she’ll think
I’m calling her a banana.
Makes me wonder
Would I ever call anyone a banana
I don’t know
Maybe, if it fits
Could I be accused of yellow journalism
By some banana loving lunatic
Who thinks I’m sick, sick, sick

I had an ex-mother-in-law
Who passed over a while ago
While she was here
The very epitome of decorum
If it were a different age
She wouldn’t have married
She’d be home at nine
Do what your told, behave
See where I’m going
So proper, so refined
So tell me why
At the end of her life
She spewed the most egregious slurs
To make the most prudent
Sunday school teacher blush.
Maybe she was a secret lush.

What pretty dirt
Is swept under that
Pretty Persian rug
What silk coat does righteousness wear
I swear
What does purity dismiss

And that’s why Jane Fonda is my hero
Will somebody please turn up the heat
It’s like subzero
In here.

Never mind
Never mind
You’ve been a friend of mine
And I’ve listened to you
Since I was two
And all you ever do is tell me what to do
Don’t you think it’s time
I made up my own Mind
My god, how could I have been so mindless
It would have been a huge kindness
If someone would have severed the connection
Instead of making a collection
Of every niggly thing I ever did
I would have been just as happy to be a pig
Nevermind
Nevermind
You’ve been more than kind
But I’m falling back
Into my higher mind
So shut the **** up
I know you have something to say
I listen to you every day
And all you do is tell me what to do
There I think I’ve said that before
So there’s nothing left to do
But shut the door


If you say this
Someone gets ******
You say that
You’re a hard hat
Fat cat
Brasshat
Doormat
So ******* brat.
Save your judgments for judgment day
I did the best I could do
If it wasn’t good enough for you
I don’t know what to say
Maybe we’re through.
Oh you can still have your say
But it won’t always be your way.
Save it for a rainy day.

You know you can’t please everyone
And that’s what you’ve been trying to do
How did that work out for you
Quite an undertaking
If not impossible to do

Boo hoo
Boo hoo
That’s all I ever hear from you
So cry me a river
River rat
You’re not always up to bat.

Although God is the reputedly the great, I Am
Now here’s my thinking on the subject
If I can, keep reading
If God wanted you to be just like her
Why did he create you
Maybe, just maybe, consider ok maybe
It’s not true
He wanted you to be just like you
She wanted to create something new
Then he’d have something to do
And company too.
Confusing  
Not really
Consider I’m God
Hard to, I know
But humor me
Consider I clone me
And every one of my honeyclones
Looks just like me
Too bee said to me
thinks just like me
walks just like me
talks just like me
loves and hates just like me
(must be a duck, what)
but mostly stings
just like me
You’d get bored very easily-
We all like the very same everything
We all had the very same good and bad day
We all wore our hair in the very same
Good and bad way  
Part to the left
Stay to the right-
You get the analogy.
We all ate the same thing for breakfast
How was your breakfast of champions dear
Same as yours, I fear.
We’re all incredible bores
And on that we all agreed
So she created diversity.

And that’s why I am something
To be the thing that God is not,
And that he can never bee.
And that can never bee
I am, also included in something that I am
And the something that I am not.
Now I think I’m going around in circles
like a mad logistion.
Not really a twirl
But something like that
More like a swirl
More like a girl
And you are not
And exactly like you
And I do
Because
(break cadence)
When
All the honeyclones crossed the bridge together
The bridge collapsed.
Oops

Let us put a few pages between us
Unread, unsaid, unshed
Unsoiled if it could be said
Likened as if they would stay
Empty as the newborn day
Unruffled as a Sunday afternoon

Too many flavors have spoiled the cook
Shape-shifting constituents of exactitude
Aplomb with certitude
Straight as an arrow
Smooth as certainty
Singular as perfect pursuit
Agaze are you, blue hue
Cobalt true and blue
Cerulean sometimes soft
and clouding
Metallic pallet surrounding
Hard as steel,
Warm as a cold day in May

Where analysis paralysis
Has you curious
Doubting and dubious
Calculous and carefulness
Left you immaculately scandleless

Does it sometimes get so lonely
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
Have you ever not looked before you leap
Do you ever gurgle goo goo’s
Before you go go
Running in place
Going nowhere
Never too close
Never too base

Was it ever not intentional
Wrought by incompleteness
Messy this neatness
Red hot chili sweetness
Intense with meetness
Hurt and heat compete
Will you ever admit defeat

This can’t go on
I’m ending it here now
This is the end
My pretend friend
I tore up the recipe
I’m going to make you over again
A pinch of friendly less pretense
A dash of vulnerabilities
Stir to understanding consistency
Deep well cooker piquancy
Boil until bubbles break
Give and take
Friend
Skewer to hold shape
Then lift with a circular motion
More kneading
Less bias
Low and slow
Until tender
More me
Less you
This I can do
And so can you

I’ve made you anew

Yes, I think I did it
Didn’t I do it
I mean, you saw me do it
Yes, you did
You saw me do
What I’ve never been able to do
Which was to say
Love you
Love me
It was nothing
Nothing at all
Nothing to do
Was it even true

I stare into space
Implacable clockface
Worn-out bookcase
All the knowing I stuffed
Shelved, just in case
Ornamental armament
Bounded & staged
Dialectical argument

I did nothing
Who did nothing
You did
No, I didn’t
Who are you talking to
Who’s asking
Don’t answer a question with a question
Don’t tell me what to do
Relax we’re only talking
Don’t patronize
Don’t criticize  
Well that’s what I mean
Was I doing Nothing,  
Or Something?
What did I do?

I mean
Was it Nothing
Or
Was it Something
Tell me
Was Nothing Something
or
Was Something the Nothing I did
or
Nothing the Something I did
I’m an Escher painting
One hand painting the other
Thing is
I don’t know
But that is the very thing I know

Talking to a friend today
She says
I got to go
My daughters calling me
Thing is
She doesn’t have a daughter
Or does she

Thing is
I know
She wanted to talk about her thing
And I wanted to talk about my thing

I know
How this looks to you
But here’s what you need to know
I’ve listened and listened and listened
I’ve been a listening machine
So shut the **** up
I’m not your therapist
This I’ll only do for my daughter
You mean our daughter.
Whatever

But, here’s the real thing
A think thing
You don’t have to say anything  
But’ it’s better if you do  
Because I need you to
But not like this
So maybe it’s better if you don’t
But, that’s not the real thing
Maybe It’s better if you do
Or don’t
Then Don’t
Then Do
Don’t
Do
Don’t
Do
Then Don’t
Then Do
Please Do
I think I’m thru with you!
But wait
I have to think this through
Where have I heard that before
Not from me.

The other day
They made me part of the coffee crowd
For once, I didn’t object
Choosing sides was never my thing
Sitting on fences was my usual go to
The single dad by my side
Whose children are all grown
The proctologist who thinks too much
I must have broken the ice when I said
He works from both ends
He watches CNN in the morning
And Fox at night
So he has a balanced point of view, hmm
Guess he’s sitting on fences too
Who knows maybe the joke was on me

The other day
What was it I was thinking
That you could possibly be my friend
When you thought I was so unkind
You would respond so quickly then
You were comfortable in that role
But I didn’t want to be that person
I didn’t want to critique you
I didn’t want to be arrogant
Sanctimonious, pretentious
I didn’t feel comfortable in that role
I wanted to drop all the pretenses
You wouldn’t let me
You wouldn’t let me get that close
It was all arranged so well
Nothing was out of place
Nothing to embrace
Displace,
Deface
Everything so neatly aligned
Everything accounted for
Every dollar, nickel, and dime
But someone left the cake out in the rain
I can’t remember who sang it
Time to hang it
Out to cry

The Other Day
Waiting for a message that never came
The phone a *** that never boils
But is that true
Isn’t silence your answer
It’s true
Messages come through
We just refuse to see them
No problem
They’ll be no hissing sound
Of the *** that never comes around
I’m a shipwreck
That’s run around
A digital dingbat
For a screen that screams
Wakeup
It’s time to wake up
Dingbat

The other day

Until Now

You have taken the words from my own
You are the pedals in my poem
A riddle wrapped in a rose
Cherry pie a la mode
A garden of poppy prose
Poppy I have waited for so long
Followed the primrose path
Running along to your song
Swung from the branches of your stanzas
Hidden in honeysuckle extravaganza
Picadillos and innuendos
Abound
Words sprung from fertile ground
Budding images messing  
A delicate balance
A lover’s dalliance
A vineyard
Of the triggered and the inward
Thickets of thorny morning glories
Questing bouquets of lily days
Where daffodils
Are dressed to ****
And a single rose grows
Inviolate
Yet
Stem to stern
I have felt the male fern
And the grass burn
And the willow cry
And the dragonfly fly by
In the blink of an eye
But I have never ever felt you.
Until now.