To journal is a present of the past to your future self.
wordplay
Selves-realization
i am so many people
it’s impossible to be myself
but i can almost always
be at least one of myselves
End of the race
drivers of “progress”
steering us toward a cliff
at capital velocity
Classics declassified
Grass of Walt
[D!@%] of Moby
Boz gets Lit
Bard’s the [$h¡t]
Inner self
G R i E F —
i feel so tiny inside
Emily’s dash
Say what! You mean
That’s not why they call it an
Em dash? — those Dickinson
Hyphens between?
SOCial anxIETY
You can’t spell social anxiety without society.
Endings & beginnings
The last faded autumn leaflet hangs from a frozen branch, just a short fall from the tree to winter.
O! ¿queso what?
What are flowers without the bees,
What of grasses without the breeze?
Nothing the wind if not for the trees,
Nada la quesadilla sin el cheese.
Stone-faced
Wailing, bearing flowers
and collapsing to her knees,
her hot tears fall upon me—
But I remain unmoved,
stone-faced, above it all—
her face etched with grief
and mine with the years,
weathered with past life—
Gently she touches my face
and presents me the flowers—
I’ve seen her cry many times
but it is in my nature to be
rough and cold, grounded
in reality I know nothing else—
Still she keeps coming back to me
and though I cannot give her love
I will always guard hers.
Counting up
First four decades time’s a hero
Then stops suddenly all the fun
Forty arrives a stranger new
But life is like a grand old tree
Strong yet flexible at the core
Roots ever deepen to stay alive
At this age there’s no real fix
Just patches is all, ’til heaven
Although it still be not too late
So let the autumn soul shine
Breathe and let thy life go zen
Phases of morning
sky becomes full dawn
towhees call out to half moon
at quarter till sun
Starlings
European starlings
multiply like weeds
they are avian Borg
assimilating resistlessly
they are teenage girls
who will always travel
to the restroom together —
from yellow beaks
oddly alien noises
and so much chatter —
one or two are cute
but the whole crowd
is so flocking loud!