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tonight we gather
to mark a
commencement day

four decades on
from a late June
afternoon

exchanging
embraces and
bon voyage wishes

departing a grand
chandeliered Rivoli
embarcadero

bound
to glorious
destinations

our bold sails
welling with
youthful
exuberance
in pursuit of
dreams
and intrepid
endeavors

our life
journeys
are blessed
with rich
abundance,
the grace of
challenge and
the gift of days

this evening
as we reconnect
to share the joys
and wisdom gleaned
from well lived lives
we will also celebrate
in multicolored splendor
the lives of classmates
who have commenced
journeys to other
destinations

though their
earthly sojourn
is complete
passed friends
remain alive
in our memory

surely the spirits
of the beloved
will walk this
room tonight

forever young
their quiet presence
will gently touch
tender hearts

they’ll appear
as they once looked
on their finest day

and as we relive
the bits of our lives
we shared with
one another

we may feel
the grasp of a
warm hand
as we once did
during that
snowy evening
west end walk

we’ll dance with them again
around Tamblyn Field bonfires
gyrating in a shared
ecstatic ebullience

we’ll applaud most likely
to succeed lives
most beautiful smiles
and crack up
to the hilarity of
class clown jokes

we’ll taste the kiss
of an after dark
Lincoln Park
rendezvous

groove to the
rock steady
beat of a
bad company tune  

we’ll submerge again
in a Yellow Submarine
to embark on an epic
Greenwich Village
journey

we’ll roll down
the shore on old
Thunder Road
windows open
hair blowin
radio blastin

we’ll taste the sweet sip
of Cherry Cokes
and Root Beer floats
at Roadrunners

chasing lost love salty tears
spilled over ***** upperclass home boys
and the soft blush sentiment of a
first French kiss

wouldn't it be nice
to swoon to the
fantasy and
winsome yearnings
of favorite
summer songs

filling our head’s
with mind
blowing collages
starring
team mates
drama club
second takes
heady chess club
checkmates

we’ll marvel at the disruption of
premillennial breakthrough science projects
created by pocket protected slide ruling
entrepreneurial math wizards

we'll recall droll gossip
by drab hall lockers
dim gym showers
awkward dances
Yippie people power

patriotic assemblies
cool sharp dressers
right on brother
Que Pasa lil sista

rock and roll album covers
Simon and Garfunkel poetics
Go Go Boots kickin
FM radio psychedelics

Midnight Confessions
emphatically blared
from the cafeteria jukebox
Civil Rights, Earth Day
and righteous
anti war activism

tribes of hoods, Ra’s,
jocks, artistes and tie dye hippies
everything is groovy
lets get a sandwich at Ernie’s

first carnal explorations
Moody Blue Tuesday trysts
man could she speak German
boy do I dig her dress

we did hard time together
at split session detention centers
ate chocolate chip cookies
cracked up to Mr. Thomas’s
Ides of March tragedy

took first tokes and
sips of Boones Farm
we partied hard
and did no harm

admired academic brainiacs
and the civic commitment
of student govie reps
shut down the gubmint
was never a threat 

basketball rumbles
Bulldog football
**** Ludwig soccer teams
nimble cheerleaders

leggy majorettes
kick *** marching band fanfares
compelling masquer presentments
Park Avenue wayfarers

they were
crew mates
on The Soul Boat
rode shotgun
to Midnight Rambler
Doobie Concerts

cruised hard in
the Root Hog
Rat Raced Louie
in tiny white Pintos

we booked
many a mile
with our lost
friends

on the road to
this evening

authoring
volumes of
fabled odysseys
and fantastic
recollections

their stories
are our stories
telling our stories
keeps them alive

some may say
gone too soon
but the measure of
a well lived life
is not counted
in days, nor
accomplishments

but how one has loved
and how much one was loved

quietly there
always with us
forever to be
a wholesome
part of us

as the brothers
from Cooley High
would say

lets tip a sip
for the brothers
and sisters who
ain’t here….

God bless
Godspeed
enjoy the evening
vaya con dios mis amigos

Music Selection:
Pat Metheny
Mas Alla


RHS 74
Class Reunion
Elks Club
Rutherford
11/29/14
Drifton A Way Apr 2013
I pity you because you"ll never truly know the feelings you evoke
Searching for the perfect words and overcoming all my nerves
Finally mustered up the courage but to you I'm nothing but a joke
To you a few seconds worth of thought is all a man deserves

Invite me with your eyes until I finally make my move
Then you act surprised with your ego"s point to prove

Or else she's interested, engaged, polite, and very nice
But ladies please listen close to this next piece of advice

Instead of leading us all on and wasting both our valuable time
Would it be so hard to just say no, would that really be a crime

Tell me you have a boyfriend, I don't even care if its a lie
And give me credit for the courage that it even took to try

Take it as a complement and just for a second wear my shoes
All that we could be was dreamt and I woke up with the blues

You burned the blueprints, a beautiful skyscraper was to be built
I looked for clues and hints, now I pray you can deal with the guilt

I envy you, so lucky to be blessed with the ability to ignore
Sweep us under the filthy rug and strike us deep at our core
To be thrown into the junkyard that any man would abhor
You forgot we're also human beings, so I really must implore

Give us a fake number at least it will make us laugh
At least our glass will still be close to holding half

I understand your point of view, I know it must be hard
So many offers every day, always keeping up your guard
Deciding which ones to let in and which ones to discard
All while trying your best to not get emotionally scarred

But believe it or not we have feelings too and hope is like a drug
So stop our digging right away before we have our own grave dug

So I'll say a prayer for you if you truly lack the empathy to really care
Seconds of unnecessary negligence multiply into years of utter dispare
Quite an extensive list of backups just in case your heart begins to tear
The next life we'll all be roadrunners and you a coyote, karma's only fair
Zack Feb 2014
Some nights I spend sleeping
Other nights I’ll spend resting my head down on a keyboard
Drowning in updates and refreshing pages
Trying to find reasons for being up
so **** late
Lately, these nights that I worked a long eight hour shift
Waiting to escape retail in hopes
My friends aren’t busy, wanting to retell some stories
The nights my friends hop restaurant to restaurant

“We have no place to go"


We’ve been riding these desert streets for hours
Resurfacing our stories to heal our wounds
Or maybe our laughter only masks it
And we like to think it’s both

You can ride these streets as fast as you like, trying to forget,
but tonight,


we write
we ride
we eat
we share

tonight, the moon plays catch-up with us, it’s desert wonderers
the sun, tonight she’ll rest
tonight, the roadrunner
walked
crossed the street with a lizard in its mouth
looked me in the eye and swallowed it
The desert bird didn’t serve its name’s purpose
We’ve realized that sometimes, society, doesn’t serve it’s intentions


but when so
"we have no place to go"
We’ll turn parking lots into neighborhoods
Cars into homes, with kickbacks and house parties
Turn songs into poems
Become poetry ourselves
Become trilogies of our most battered loved lives
Find excuses for where the stars lie
And sometimes we’ll swear they lie in our ex’s eyes
And we’ll become what we don’t want to be in the dark

vulnerable


walking roadrunners


poets who don’t write

but in that moment, were just teenagers


"with no place to go"


We swear this summer is ours,
That growing up doesn’t have to be synonymous with change
That human beings aren’t equivalent to seasons
That poems actually can be never ending
if only we have the courage to
write the beginning

That Denny’s will always be a hotspot
Cafe’s are temporary
Dollar Menu’s are forever
We’re everything but hungry

Only starving
For inspiration in a wasteland
Unquenchable thirst for dreams of doing
something in empty parking lots
Trying to fill voids.

Tonight,
We replace our heartbreaks with these nights
The nights we walk across roads
Unknowing the other side, with lizards halfway down our throats

Tonight
We write, without looking both ways


~
Ken Pepiton May 2021
Here, re think the name that may not be spoken,
in light
of the curse brought
by knowing evil, and good, especially,
in this little light of mine, which I vowed, as a child
to not allow the accuser to quench,
AI nada gonna put it out.
My duty is to fight and **** to keep it bright.
I'll be a warrior under god.

But then the darkness of the pledge,
to the flag, {I am six-years old, *******, allegiance?} locked in,
duty bound... endure the contest, and laugh off the fear of dying.

- look out my window, watch that black lizard
- doing pushups, signaling in my peripheral vision
- listen, does it look like that lizard is showing off
- strutting its blue belly as hook-up bait?

Not t'me.
I think he's singing in lizard pitch my ears notice,
but my senses lack the filters to sing along,

lizard songs, no fear, no roadrunners or cats near,
and it is a fine day to be cold blooded,
running on the rocks,
running on the sun.
Singing lizard loud,
All that's done been done is done,
all that ain't, ain't
ain't it wonderful,
what may be?
Yep,
that is that lizard's song
as he run along, stopping every few feet to dance,
I swear, for sheer lizard level joy.
So, it ain't mea culpa, things just don't stay miserable here any more...
Eliot Greene Jun 2013
You wonder why I never say anything
Just raise dust as if it were dreams
And burn miles in moments
Speed incarnate
Lapped Flash in a race round the equator
I am lightning
I am fire
I am the petal through the floor
Till your feet kick up sparks
And I wish he would stop trying to swallow me
Cause I know Coyotes and Roadrunners
Don’t make the best lovers
But for some reason I dream
Of running my beak through his fur
And sometimes when he sleeps
I stand over him like a mother
I don’t care what you think
We are both madmen
Both immortal both sadists
And sometimes I let him get so close
I can smell the lust in his breath
But I am bird and I am speed
And I won’t ever let him catch me
And I don’t dare say a word
Just beep as if it could translate into beauty
And burn the dust of a thousand roads
The chances of being
a regular chap in education
I have failed to avail,
I have missed I must say
But there was no sign
in my life of any success
Anything good
would have been happened...

Now a days, I am suffering
with super frustration
What really would
I do in my future,
All the potential
of my learning & gaining
To be a standalone fellow
is going to be reduced one by one!

No one is at my side
and nothing productive
happens around me...
It’s quite dark everywhere,
wall and wall so high
I’m almost finished
and it’s hard to capture
The gone wind but
I am trying my best to recover...

To rediscover the gap
I have created by myself
I am super lonely
in my way of life,
perhaps I am cynic...
And the people I am engaged with
are not so helpful and friendly
All the way they act
so competitively, thinking of their own only...

I am in vain my lord
and I know not what’s
in my store really...
I wish If I could get
any fair chance in my country!
But my lord, there are so many
unfair means in social or political dealings,
It’s quite ridiculous
and I realize it a way out system of our society...

One major thing
I feel inside that I must bring myself
Out from the darkness now
I am bearing with me
The most lashing thing
is the loneliness & friendless
environment all around
My parents are still alive
but they can’t help me as I need...

Then all I do have effectively
is me only, my dear roadrunners  
The growing myself in me
whom I did never try to find
I have no one for myself
except me,
I was blindfolded  
I start now depending on myself,
better late than never...

All the dreams and high hopes
will reduce to dust uselessly
If I leave myself
if I misunderstand myself,
if I underestimate myself
So many occasions
I did the mistakes feeling helpless ,
Oh me...!
But in the most next minute
I get the power of myself in me to live like a man

Critical reality has taught me
to speak to myself, it’s a chance
Like a human in the world
full chances to live with rice & respect
I am no more helpless
for I am now with myself and precisely
An invisible flutist is everywhere
with me as well watching me ...



© 2015 Mohammad Anwar Parvez Shishir
Butch Decatoria May 2016
Sacrilicious science :
dissecting frogs
legs deep fried
(tastes like chicken)
when we try to fly
by the "secret"

wishing and insultations up
denying the absolutes
our eyes to see

the selfish flesh is heavy
karma like bone
and worship now a gathering moan
chaotic hush

and a bruha broom can
only give dust
its flight
the mind in fear
wears death and night

darkling battlefields
have already won
our ignorance its tasty pawn
indifference the after-dung

Sacrilicious science of sleep walking
purgatory fog / thick & dense
(are you?)

they prey our souls to keep
so be mindful of what you believe
or ***** to read

nutritional value : 0% sense
electrolytes of air
and no good deed goes...
like coyotes and roadrunners

VEEP! VEEP!

vicious cycles
acme roadkill Texas heat
hope that God still loves his sheep

when stupid nukes us mushroom / meals

sacriliciously spun
fatalistic
devils' heels...

(Yehaw Yahoo spurs and guns!)

Guffaw !
Sarchasm.

— The End —