Eventually, as the crow flies
before everyone dies of boredom
we'll all get our skates on
and
take the lead
in someone or others
Facebook
feed.

I'm whistling Dixie
hoping
someone picks me.

It's not so bad being last in the queue,
there's no one behind you to
stab you in the back.

I see the bobbin threads of
a thousand heads
me, me, me,
but they don't all agree
on who the 'me' is.

And I move along
huffily,
I was comfortable in
my niche and
someone else
joins the queue,
stand in front of me
why don't you?
get a jump on the queue
why don't you?

I like my place here
in the rear
where I can peer
at
what's going on.

you stomp out the door
and go about your way,
huffily thinking, the world has not been kind to you today



though you would resent me if I said it,
                                                             ­ the world has been kinder to you than most
you have people in your life that love you,
a place to keep the butter for your toast

but perspective seems to be one of those things
that people who would think themselves wise
speak of loftily

"stop telling me about the kids in China,
let’s bring the focus back to me"


you’ve got so much
and I do too,

so calm back down,
and think it through

though it seems so big right now,
it’s just a little blip

a stain on your reel of memory,
a scene you’d rather skip

you face a choice now,
a decision that is critical in the end

will you let the poison leave your mind
or keep it as a friend

The memory is so clear, so here-and-now
That it most likely never really happened,
One of those scenes which lead you to insist, rather huffily,
That it indeed was just that way.
In my mind’s eye, it is a mid-November late afternoon,
The light, no longer tinged with October’s sepia softness,
Slanted, harsh—bitter and defeated, perhaps,
And, in a stand of denuded trees
Some distance beyond the barbed-wire fence
Sitting just past the pavement’s end,
Placed there to enclose a scruffy herd of cows
(Fence and bovines equally shabby and time-worn,
Thus ensuring peace between animal and sub-division lawn)
A mad surfeit of crows shriek and scream and babble
Like the end of days, and I feel—no, I know—
The birds are trying to say something to me,
Impart some secret normally revealed
Only to those ancients skilled in the arts of diving truths
Found in their entrails, but I am unable to glean anything
From their frenzied clacking and jawing.
Soon, it is time to go in
(The day, not unlike my dinner, is getting cold)
And presently it will be time to receive
Those gently stated but unassailable verities
From the evening’s designated wise man
(Rotarian glad-handing Mickey,
The madly winking, almost leering Scrooge McDuck,
Perhaps even the good Walt himself)
Words requiring no pre-washing,
No parsing, no translation.

A sum total of immediate family gathered
at a seaside Italian cafe
half loving getting time together
half dreading the weight of the urn

taking turns to tickle flippancy
in an honoured tradition of laughing
in the face of the massive horrors of life,
scales on the crusty familial armadillo

It’s time

Each step beyond the coffee steam
feels further into foreign territory
where defences weaken
even though the climb is sweet

we walk up a hill to reveal a familiar vista
that youth ignored huffily, heartily
and adulthood yearns for,
where memories pepper current steps

The humour shield holds until the ash is cast
when my throat clutches to swallow
knowing that my reasoning can’t break this,
even though you’d wipe it away

You aren’t allowed to soothe these tears,
they serve for the years and years,
pay pennies into arcade machines
and buy novelty rock never eaten

The bedrock and foundation of us
stands on this sometimes sunny head
holding hard to the ropes and lines
until the next handover