Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Of Life

 “Of life”, said the woman, “How lucky can you be?”  There are rivers, mountains, border wars, and sun to blister skin together with the turmoil of making money be.  You also have the sea and leaves on every tree in motion entwined with a breeze you cannot see.  You have the moon at night and shadows of your fright, the stars in the sky like goals out of reach, and lungs to keep inhaling both the good and the bad elements of luck.  

Ah, yes, you have your vehicles and speed that always kills on highways to your destiny as well as backs to scratch, palms to grease, and the other cheek. You have doctors, dentists, lawyers, and, of course, the poor.  You have domesticated animals who always want to roam, children born to leave, lovers you can’t see, and mothers like their mothers though they vowed they’d never be.

You have me, the one and only, who can say you have it all when you speak of loving peace and of hating war so don’t ask for more in jungles of concrete that suffocate the weak.

You have the magic of your work, a home you never see, a need to explore the mystery of ego, and a body once beautiful now tattooed with dragons and butterflies and supposedly adorned with studs in ears, eyelids, lips, and rings in belly buttons. 

You have a heart like a magician’s hat that brings forth funny things and a soul you cannot know no matter what degrees trail behind your name but what’s in a name when only a mind remains to tell the tale.  And your mind belongs to you.  I can’t intrude or dare to guess its form and design unless, of course, you pay me to.

And if you wish for many things one day they’ll all come true but scattered in between all the things you do not need, you may not be aware that they are even there.  If you pray – well, it’s the same and still bears your name as if you wrote a letter and dispatched it in the mail.

You can wait by the garden gate for a lifetime more-or-less or search amongst the millions for the one who’s meant for you but never will he/she be delivered by the trees unless you believe there are fairies in the glen.
  
You have the alphabet for life plans of a, b, c, etcetera, and too you have your numbers that balance for the few. You’ve got books to read but no time, things to do still un-done, and a thousand opportunities that never come to call.

You’ve got me to tell you how we feel and poets who write poetry, two faces (maybe more), a stare that says it all, idle hands (sometimes), and body aches to tell you how many years you’ve lived.

Oh, yes, you also have sex and the ones who get lucky may sometimes think it’s love. You have dreams and fantasies that never come true and nightmares that do. You’ve got hopes and you’ve got wishes like fish in oceans deep that always without fail mangle your lifeline.

You’ve got me to show you how to cry, friends you want to be, and always and forever those bills you have to pay.  You have your yesterdays in which you never age and your tomorrows that like a birthday gift land in your lap for better or for worse.

One day we’ll all be free but I’m not too sure, you see, so until we all go walking down mystic avenues, you still, of course, have … me!  How lucky can you be?  

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Now ...

She wishes the moving would lead somewhere
but it doesn’t, not ever, no, not ere
but she trundles along like gypsies do
to simply end up where she’s been before.

Now this gypsy not clever to count the cost
of having to do everything twice
but bound as she is by some strange decree
she surrenders up unto her plight.

Now her wagon must hold more than before
because baggage mounts up each passing year
but her wagon grown old can’t cope with the load
and so she must enter “select memory” mode.

Now she shifts and sorts; what not to keep
to enable the love to remain undisturbed
and caught in this stage she’s a gypsy in red
as if the discarding has bled on her dress.

Now gypsies would choose to follow the river
but a drought has o’er laid the land
so off she goes in her red dress
knowing that soon the river will flow. 

And then she’ll dive in dressed as she is
and wash off the stain of unhappiness
and appear like a woman born anew
into a world not known before.

And in that world she won’t do again
what she has done before
and yet there are tears threatening to fall
for the one thing she didn’t repeat.

Now that gypsy knows well that now’s not then
and nothing will be the same again
so dance with her please under the stars
and tell her she’s lovely when free of the past!