Sometime before then when boys were not men
and ladies were still girls with real curls in their hair,
I was there.
After the age of eight it became a little too late to stop growing up,
and so I started throwing up and being sick,
time being too quick for me,
I saw the oil slick of years slip by me
and all of a sudden I woke up to be,
someone who was not
'my cup of tea'

Sometime after that and before the end of it
when I was old and could remember only a little bit,
I'd forgotten that I was once eight,
forgotten that once
I couldn't wait to be nine,
forgotten that time passed so quick for me.

My footnote in the pages of history,
will read,
'who the flaming hell was he,
what did he see so differently?

And the grip of time pulled me onto age nine
and it all
fell away,
a child but for a day when the whole universe stops to play
and time in time puts a halt to it,
a fault of mine?
a fault of time?
in some time I may remember.

Beginning in 1963,
My Favorite Martian on vintage TVs
Instamatic 50s, capturing instant faces.
Elizabeth Taylor, and James D Hardy
JFK, and Magic Bullet Theory.
Go Away Little Girl,
Our Day Will Come,
Easier Said Than Done.
Surf City.

Remember that day in
St. Joseph, Missouri?
Sitting on the front porch
A boy with his guitar?
Music igniting his fire.
Lincoln Nebraska, to Minneapolis,
Where his story truly begins.

University and Limited Warranty,
Fatherhood, a family man.
Sun Shot Halo
Signal to Noise
Olivine.
Rising with caffeine.
Crispix and Bobby’s World
Little red television set
New Hope kitchenette.
Bedtime routines
Beverley Hillbillies Theme
And of course, The Hobbit!

This is the life he chose,
Chasing those music notes
Daydreaming for daylight.
This is the life he chose
Brew Pubs and Rock N Roll
Well you know, it’s just how it goes.

His hands are calloused,
Weathered, and grown.
Saving vibrations and inspirations
An hour glass inside his bones.
Steady on the Timeline
Moving Things in the right direction
From Coast to Coast.
Columbia coat and winters freeze
One last drag on a Malboro.
Surly-Furious triggering the spark
Sing it loud and let the world hear,
Like a match lighting up the dark.

Coming down to earth now,
There is a little girl
Who he inspired to be all that she could be.
Remember King Olaf?
Thumb controlled airplane rides?
Bedtime PB&J;’s, Don’t forget the crust!
Boy Bands and car rides across the map
Backyard jams and the punk scene
Kids of the black hole, those patched pants!
Mosaic window panes illuminating her soul
Like the Phoenix of Legends
She Said She Could Save the World.

Silhouettes of who she ought to be  
All Along Screaming Save Me.
So many names and faces,
For a moment the chains fell away
Fighting for control,
But he would never let go.
She’s coming back from the hits
Escaping the jail cell that once held,
Her confidence.
Passion ignites from within her bones
Waldorf mind set
Willingness to be selfless.
Social Worker,
Photographer,
Warrior;
His Daughter.

Saturday morning bike rides
Father and Daughter.
The best moments in life
Kept inside picture frames.
Northeast artist scene,
The Matchbox, 331, Dusty’s, and the Slacker
Only in Old Minneapolis.

Throwing stones into the fire,
She knew she had won because
She inherited his heart;
So step out of the blue,
I want you to know
I Love You.

This is the life we chose
Chasing those music notes
Daydreaming for daylight.
This is the life we chose
Brew Pubs and Rock N Roll
Well, you know, it’s just how it goes.

© Jo Tomso

Live in the moment*, we exhort ourselves as well as others,
But such a mandate is a fool’s errand, nothing more,
For all which we endeavor, all we savor and regret,
Are transitory things, snatches of synapse,
Fireflies gone a-gleaming before we can fasten the cap,
All Chinese-checkerboarded with air holes, onto the jar.
So forgive me, then, for not extolling the virtues
Of your laugh, your smile, a certain set of jaw or wrinkle of nose,
For those are fleeting morsels of time,
Mere snapshots, flat and obsolete at the click of the shutter,
Like the crimson-iris inducing Instamatic images of long ago.
Rather let me, then, dwell
Upon the aftermath of these glimmers in time, in your eyes
Those crevices of memory and apprehension
Where the momentary acquires its shading and gradation,
Its context and concreteness, its niche in ones cosmology
Of those things which flutter the surface
Of somnambulant ponds of sleep,
Roiling the stuff of our dreams for better or for worse.

And again the guillotine comes down, another head lost to another bucket of oblivion
Staring into the void that is your wasted lapse of time on this unchartered course, the last sound you hear the gilt edge of freedom cutting the toxic air,
No sooner had you got used to being here then someone deems your involvement unnecessary, your efforts and contributions, see them judged as pointless pathetic diseased and dispossessed
You have no way to eradicate emotions , no way to retrieve the ambitions you sought, hands have been shaken and signatures signed, no bribes will be tolerated and your time will come
Its not your life that flashes past your watering eyes, but visions of what you once thought your life could be, an instamatic cheap photo of a destiny of diluted dreams
You can curse yourself, your childish complacency, you can blame your over rated ego and its desires for leadership power and profit , it was you who disembarked at the station named , Excessive Greed,
Who is to blame who is the ref in your game
There is no hand of fate just you and all that you dictate
Life is a choice , it is yours you can fly with the angels or sleep with ***** ******

She's probably making music in the Amazon
by plucking her eyebrows on the underground
it takes all sorts and I suspect all sports to make an Olympic site.

In front of me, she,
holds the Daily Telegraph
I'm looking for Beadle
this must be
'Game for a laugh'

Next to me reading text I see
a lady with a book, ' The lady of the lake'
(The title of the book, not the lady sitting next to me)
she's engrossed, the most engrossed one can be, perhaps sitting next to me has focused her attention.

And a Kojak lookalike complete with a lollipop and a fold up bike.

It's buzzin' away on the Central today.

One more drone heading off into one more Zone ( zone one to be precise )
because it's nice to be precise.

She looks like Kate Bush but in the rush hour?
I don't think so
but
then I don't think
no
it's automatic
like an instamatic
eyes right
and write
eyes left
and write
I write and you might read

Two more stops
until the curtain drops

I'll finish at nine tonight
that's alright
they thought I was finished
years ago.

we bought our tickets
and now take our place
on the flying ship of fools
denying rules...
and rising into clouded skies

four days in the big smoked
town with grit and dust
in every breath
going to turn cement beige
into dappled rainbow red

see some shows...
get over or underfed ....
sleep in ...1000 other peoples bed...
aquarium, Lunatic Park and zoo...
museum a  must, halls of old things,
covered in aged dust
but only interested
to see  thebreally old dino poo

ride on a train....go insane
in peak hour traffic...
buy extra stuff on
credit-instamatic.
watch buskers be
musical and dramatic.

swim in the harbour
not thinking of sharks
in the dark deep water

flap our wings,  see what the waiter
feed the ducks in the big city pond.
see old aunts of which we are fond

fly on home....
and take a two day
recuperation holiday...
before singing
the workday blues...

"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)
"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)
"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)

1970s photography.

Fingers fumble for
Another four more–

“TIk” it’s out;
“Chik” another in.

Icy-blue light cube
Ready for more:

“PROSCH!” kerrchik.

Instamatic imagery,
Flash cube fun.

Sculpted faces,
aging drama queens,

all the world's stages, this
is after those, these depths
of despair, where no pieces fit,

Kintsugi, fractured flash bulb scene,

an instamatic moment, a Kodak memory.

I'm going to rise soon, said
the doughboy to the cowboy
oh boy, said the tall-boy, woodenly,
but he would, wouldn't he.

sorry 'bout that, I was
just oiling the typewriter keys and
those words slipped out from the ribbon.

I took her picture,
should have used a Nikon but all I had
was an old Box Brownie and a new Instamatic
alternatives give but sometimes the quality is taken.

I was ten weeks
And a day
You were two years eleven weeks
And a day

My mother said
"Just shove the spoon in her mouth!"

"Safety first!"
Wasn't really a mantra for
Our moms

Our lives are a Venn diagram
Like an eclipse

Of plastic play ice cubes
Bobbled from hand to hand
To stave off imaginary frostbite
And tap shoes tied with elastic
To aid in afterschool
In-the-car quick-changes

Of consonant digraphs and isolated syllables
Freed from the missalette
And our expelation
Expelled with elation
From the pew
To the loo
For giggling during the sermon

Of listening to the phone ring
Ten times
Twenty times
Two hundred times
Waiting for an answer
Or the invention
And acquisition
Of an answering machine

And they are Euler circles

Of mothers swapping strollers
Like Garanimal parenting
Matching blue elephants to abandonment and estrangement

Of a career plan spanning decades and
Of decades of unplanned careers
Careening into a pile-up of
"This one time, at this one job . . . ."

Of husbands and babies on one side
And solitude and seeking on the other

But we have always had
Our intersection

Through my scholastic continental pinball of a life
And your need for small spaces
Like a guru on a mountain top
Sought but secure
Our Reuleaux triangle
Is a magnet pulling us
To overlapping searches
For intelligent life and enlightenment
Our radical center
A pile of curling Instamatic photographs
Grainy and greening
Awesomeness and awkwardness and 80's hairstyles
Attempted in spite of our curls

Our intersection where
224-3628 and 226-6202
Meshed and became a difference of two

The sameness of experience
The polarization of exploration
And the return to

Ravioli
Malfatti
French bread
And family we build on a foundation of

Fifty-one years four months two weeks
And a day