THE 3 O’CLOCK NEWS

It’s not your back
they said.
The problem’s
in your head.

The lump,
they said,
is unreachable
untreatable.

There’s nothing we can do
they said
under the knife
to save your life.


GUINEA PIGS

When hope seems gone
And days seem dark
I drop to one knee
And think of 23.

Fifteen and me,
the untreatables,
agreed
to experimental surgery.

One by one,
we dropped,
to 10, then 6, then 3
then only me.

Sometimes I question why  
I was the one to survive
But mostly I thank God
I am one alive.

The worst battle you will ever start
will be between your head and heart,
when one tells you it’s time to go
and the other cries out NO!

The best we have
dress in olive drab
or blue or white
and go fight
and die forgotten
by those dressed
in politician suits,
who get statues built
honoring them
for sending the best
to die and lie
beneath forgotten crosses.

At the corner of
Justice Way and MLK Drive
he set up a booth
under a light
and a sign that read
Right of Way

He put up a banner
over his booth –
Media Must Always
Tell The Truth.

The press rallied ‘round
and tore the booth down
and shot out the light –
no one could tell them
the Way of Right.

Don’t blame life for passing you by,
just because you didn’t jump on
when the bus came along.

One day an old and worn-out train
   will come along and call my name,
   and I will know to climb inside.

   There will be no need to run.
   I’ll have no shadow in the sun
   and know there is no need to hide.

   And then the man I tried to be
   will look out the glass and see
   fields of dreams and a cloudless sky.

   And I will have no fears or tears
   and will not pray for one more day.

   The train runs swiftly on silent tracks
   and my yesterdays will be flash backs,
   thousands in the blink of an eye.

   Wave to me, and do not cry
   as the whistle blows and I pass by
   on one last ride to see the sea.

   And then the man I tried to be
   will look out across that sea,
   and see horizons of goodbye.

   And I will have no fears or tears
   and will not pray for one more day.

One day an old and worn-out train
will come along and call my name,
and I will know to climb inside.

There will be no need to run.
I’ll have no shadow in the sun
and know there is no need to hide.

And then the man I tried to be
will look out the glass and see
fields of dreams and azure skies.

And I will have no fears or tears,
and will not pray for one more day

The train runs swiftly on silent tracks
Allowing yesterdays to flash back,
thousands in the blink of an eye.

Wave to me, and do not cry
As the whistle blows and I pass by
On one last ride to see the sea.

And then the man I tried to be
will look out across that sea,
and see horizons of goodbye.

And I will have no fears or tears
and will not pray for one more day,

I’ll walk down to the park
to The Glow In The Dark
Bar and Sidewalk Café,
to my space
away from you place.

I’ll think about
what we were
when we were
better than
what we are now,
and drink to try and understand
why we now are not.

I’ll look around at the
concrete skies and neon stars,
and I’ll get drunk enough
to let go of my dreams
again, for one more night.

I am not sure how it happened
I am not sure why
I thought she was saying good night
But she was saying good bye.

Love is an hourglass,
the slow trickle
of a relationship
building like flowing sand.

A couple grains of smile,
a few more grains of kiss,
a lot of grains of laugh,
some grains of holding hands.

Each grain of sand,
memories of another
“moments like this”
grain of together

The flowing pile grows
‘til one says I love you.
And one answers back
I love you too.

The silence is louder
than any cannon
in the moment
before battle begins.

I crouch, waiting,
scared, angry,
ready to ****
the man across the field
who is my enemy.

And in the moment
before battle begins,
I realize
that I am also
the man across the field.

I am millions
of men across the fields
in thousands of battles
through thousands of years,
waiting
in the moment
before battle begins.

I watched the moth flittering
around my light, frittering
time and life away.

And in the light of day,
below the light, he lay.
Dead and gone.

Like the words I meant to write
to say,
to make you stay.

Death will come -
no one will beat the odds.
So why live life so cautiously,
that when it comes,
you regret the path you’ve taken.

Our lives are meant
to challenge all the odds,
to love and laugh and live
a life so full that
death is just a punctuation mark.

Frail old woman,
***** hands, gray hair,
at the corner, sign in hand.
Eyes cast down, standing there.

And then I paused
and wondered why –
why was she standing there,
and why do we all drive by?

She has to be
somebody’s mother
or wife or sister.
Has she no one to love her?

Has she no place to go,
no place to be?
If Biden wins that surely
one day will be you and me.

A heart on the run
can’t be much fun.
Just good for a little
time in the sun.

So I’ll never be
THE ONE.

I’ll never be the
photo on your desk.

I’ll just be part
of a collection
In your iPhone
memory chest

We all live in the past
much too much I think.
Not history, but our own.
We define ourselves
by what we have already been
instead of what we yet may be.

Our past is not a life sentence.
It’s just a life lesson.

The path through the woods
Seems to entice the eye
The solitude is clamoring
Calling, screaming, that I
should follow it
to that quiet place
where I can dream
in solitary space

Falling in love isn’t a plan
Somehow, it happens ,
and somewhere
eyes just meet eyes
and both know
at last
I’ve found you.

She called and said,
Can I come and see you?
I need someone to talk to,
and you’re my only one
when I need like this.

Read me those poems again, she said,
the ones you wrote not long ago
about the guy who loved someone,
so much but never told her
how much he really cared.

Read me those poems again, she said,
about how she never knew
he dreamed of her,
imagined her touch,
and kisses from her soft lips.

Read me those poems again, she said,
make me believe there’s someone
somewhere out there, like that,
thinking about me.
A man who wants to love just me.

Reads me those poems again, she said.
about someone who loves like that.

I can’t believe, I said –
I can’t believe you never knew
these poems are all about you.

They’re all about you.

I am the Raucous Liberal.
It is my right to protest.
Ardently and violently.
Not only for my beliefs
but also against yours.

Freedom of Speech
is mine, and only mine.
If you want to voice
an opinion that differs
I WILL shout you down,
shame you to silence,
boycott your business
and call you racist or
any other derogatory
name I choose.

I will hide behind
worthwhile causes
to create disruption
and destruction.

Freedom of speech
is mine - and only mine.
You have no right
to disagree with me.
So shut the hell up.

We loved
therefore
I was.
And am
No more.

The shell of the gun
left the shell of a man.
Twice.
The one shot and killed and
the one who shot and killed.

The Silence
of a 3 AM walk alone,
and
The Silence
of blinking stars
and
The Silence
of a missing heartbeat

are not as quiet
as
The Silence
of nothing left to say
after goodbye.

There is a struggle
deep in my gut –
between the lie that
I don’t miss you
and reality

A battle between
believing that
I don’t really need you
and the fact
that I really do.

A war between
I will forget you
and the fear
I never will.

The March deadness
Blows down the beach.
I sit.  Without the nerve
to walk on, but with nerve enough
not to walk away.

Water at my feet.
Tired.
I will not run-walk away
The tide is slowly coming in.

Why are we never satisfied
with what we have,
always wanting, still,
what we do not yet have,
forgetting that on yesterdays,
what we now have
is what we wanted then.

I have this tool –
I don’t know what it is.
My dad gave it to me,
and his dad gave it to him.

8” long and 3/4 “thick,
3” across the head,
made of solid steel
weighs about a pound

I’ve used it as a hammer
And used it as a punch.
It works well as a lever
and also as a wedge.

One day I’ll give it to my son.
And like my dad did to me,
I’ll let him forever wonder
just what the hell it is.

Today
Was a lot like yesterday.
It rained, I sat
in a room alone
thinking of you
and what almost was
and now is not.

Tomorrow
I will sit in a room alone
thinking of you.
It could have been – but isn’t.
It might have been – but wasn’t.

Someday
I will get up
and leave this room
where I sit alone
and think of you.
I will forget Almost and Maybe.
But not today.

Today
Was a lot like yesterday.
It rained, I sat
in a room alone
thinking of you
and what almost was
and now is not.

Tomorrow
I will sit in a room alone
thinking of you.
It could have been – but isn’t.
It might have been – but wasn’t.

Someday
I will get up
and leave this room
where I sit alone
and think of you.
I will forget Almost and Maybe.
But not today.

Tomorrow is my song.
Always tomorrow
with its chance of change.

On tomorrow
perhaps somewhere else
perhaps someone else
will step from falling leaves
or falling snow
or falling rain
and I will be there to meet her
and no longer need tomorrow.

But tomorrow is my song today.
Always tomorrow.
But I need.
Today.

I’ve lived here all my life –
At least that’s how it seems.
I always thought I’d spend these years
Living out my dreams.

But I’m not what I thought I’d be
When I started down this road
Thirty years of busted dreams
Is a real **** heavy load

I’m going home, find my favorite chair
I’m finished with this fight
My heart is tired, my soul is sore
Tonight might be the night

Sometimes I stay up too late
and I start to think
and then I think too much.

And when I think too much
I start to remember,
And then I remember too much.

And when I remember too much,
I start to drink
and then I drink too much.

And then I go to bed
and stare at the ceiling
and I stare and think too much.

And when I go to sleep
I dream of losing you
and then I dream too much.

And then I wake up
from my dream of losing you.
And then I scream too much.

Be kind to me
with soft words and looks
and I promise to be
not man enough to love,
and hurt.

I will be kind to you,
with words enough, and looks
to make you glad to have me stay
a little while,
with no regrets that I am finally gone.

Watch for me.
I slip by easily,
a breath of wind
on April nights.

Watch for signs of me
in the road
to know that I have been –
dust, disturbed
by feet shuffled restlessly
in places I have pauses too long.

And if you look to find me,
do not look where I have been,
for I do not return.

They were kindred spirits,
so very much alike.
One man leads a company.
Writes business plans.

The other man writes poetry.

The one, what I pretend to be.
The other, me.

I have an incredibly
severe case of
ugophobia.

The fear that
you go away.

Seems to me, if God
wanted us to be vegetarians,
he would have had Noah
build a smaller Arc
and just take 2 of every seed.

When we are in pain,
why do we remain
in the very place
causing the pain?

We are like vultures,
able to fly away
but choosing to stay
and watch the carrion decay.

She said, as she walked out
and slammed the door –
I don’t know why I wasted
all these years with you!

I guess she doesn’t realize
I wasted those years too.

Another grain of sand
on a summer beach
waiting on a midnight tide.

Another leaf
on an autumn tree
waiting on a winter wind.

Another flake of snow
in a winter storm
waiting on a warmer sun.

Another drop of rain
in a spring shower
waiting to evaporate

We are all just waiting
for whatever takes us
forever away.

Why do people feel the need
to pull you back
when you want to fly?

To check off boxes
that define what you
must be and try?

To create a list of what you
cannot be and draw boundaries
that try to limit you more?

To tell you all the dangers
if you fail, instead of  
the glory if you soar?

We’d been at church all Friday night,
drinking the holy water.
And on the way to somewhere else
We stopped to buy more blessed stuff

A case of beer, I said,
and I will ride my bike
from here to there
across the railing of this bridge.

A dark steel flowing arch,
at least 10 inches wide
would take me on my midnight ride
over the river to the other side.

My headlight pierced the moonless night
As up the rail I rode.  I yell
You will all owe me –
And then -- OH HELL!

On the down side of that steel belt
The light shone out into only darkness,
And not onto my narrow path.
The tire slipped off the edge – and FELL

Hanging on the bridge, I watched
that 40 foot slow motion trip
and cried out #&%!#@&%$
when I heard it hit.

My bike in pieces
on the rocks below,
the remains a remainder
of a drunken ego.

It seems such a shame
to be a man collecting dust.
The windmill turns no more.
I am becoming rust.

Two loves diverged in the words, and I
I was the one that said goodbye.

And now, for countless nights
Long since gone by
I sit and wonder why.

Without you I’d just be a falling star
with no tail lighting the sky,
a tiny dot in black heavens

Without you I’d be a southbound train
with no smokestack trail
rising in the sky behind me


Without you I’d have no music,
be still-dancing all alone
to no favorite song.

Without you I’d have no rememberies
filling cracks and crevices in my mind
and holes in my heart.

Without you, I’d be no me.

I put Wits End
in my GPS,
to help me find my way.
It said I was already there.

This can’t be right,
I thought, and
drove to another
side of town.

And when I tried again,
plugging in Wits End –
It said it’s where I am
and also where I’ve been.

Women are the #1
cause of drinking.

When you find the right one
and times are fun,
you drink to celebrate.

When the right one
becomes the wrong one,
you drink to forget

And when there isn’t one,
and you are hoping for one,
you drink to pass the time.

Sometimes writing
is my only link
to sanity,
my last-grasp handle
between this crazy
every day world
and the world
I want to see
and want to
believe can be.

Ok, it’s 2 AM and
I am sitting in a
dim-light room
staring at a computer
writing prose
about living life.

What a contradiction!

Before you,
all my yesterdays
were hopeless hours
of grey skies and
starless nights.

You came
and changed
everything.

Now you are gone and
yesterdays are here again.