I do not Dance Alone

If you see me strutting with no one insight it is because I see friends gone in the night. We mostly meet out of doors along roads that do not always lead to anywhere just neutral spaces of peace and quiet with room to dump our love and care where it belongs, in the arms of everyone. The strut is just an awkward dance of love.

Gee Whiz

O by golly, by geeze, by gosh
I hope it all comes out in the wash
my trousers are a mess
the bed sheet innsulated with trash

No Sonnet This

I am not only a bubble in the sky . . .
and neither are you . . .
we are trouble on the wing,
a world where we may belong.

We are people grown old
and know the syllables of youth and love.
We hear secrets that none of us knew
before we learned to skip and sing,
We cannot move down river
preferring one side or the other
nor float the cool of the Willamette
lost in the rocks along the way . . .

You will know who I am
crashing and singing;
I am no outcast except by choice
I sit alone studying Joyce . . .
more like an alley cat
than an honest polygot . . .

I strive, I strive
I am still alive.

Hills in Berkeley

If you're going to be in Berkeley
please visit our old friends . . .
don't say that I sent you,
just check if she's okay.
She needs no message from me;
I am home where the Oregon rolls.

Promise me a taste of tomorrow
and I'll sing you a ballad of today.
Yes, yesterday is probably gone
but we sing the simplest of songs,
shouting out as much love as we know.
I am home where the Oregon rolls.

We will sing, dance, cry and play
The Little Red Hen was our friend.

I have Brothers and Sisters

I ain't fast enough typing to know what I meant yesterday. Eight-balls careen from every corner before my polka stick strikes a tonic chord. I am mostly a swirling idiot of motion with too much emotion attempting to learn tomorrow's trick. I have marched in step and I have paused after refreshment without learning shtick about the mumbling bumbling moment of brethren smiling and waving from passing flagged ships. The distance of their salutes and smiles was not surprising; sun to starboard and their salutes to port was prize enough.

From an old Conversation with an older Friend

A: Life is holding your guts in your hands. Dripping a little. Life is an undoing of yourself, a letting go with both hands. Otherwise, you exist. Nothing else. Like a rock exists. Perhaps someone will come along and go chip chip. Maybe you'll sparkle and become a ring setting, but beauty is not what life is about. Beauty is incidental, Living creates beauty - not the reverse.

B: You make it sound mad. Absurd. Maybe even almost life perverted.

A. Yes! Yes! Madness is part of life. And absurdity is part of the madness. Perversion? It's an artificial word. A moral word. But within its made-up context, okay, maybe. You decide.

Another Word for Age

Maturing has some benefits . . .
we are not governed by clocks.

We watch the moon as it sets
sometimes seeming a sullen ox
aware of the sniffing of a smaller fox,
but mostly we have no true regret,

eyes closed listening to Bach . . .
Bach, not always our favorite . . .
damn, so what? we savor it!

Old Geese on a Pond

I float easy enough, but not always with a breathing tube above water, but what the hell . . . I have a nose and I can float, and with some direction. Oh, I may follow a stream for some way, but please do not expect me to stay too long . . . some of us plan ahead and then see somewhere else to go . . . I hope to keep travelin' without too much thought of mind . . . there are two of us, like old geese on a pond, we move. Do not always expect to keep us within your knowledge of us. What a fuss . .

Not meant to be a Boast

I'm loose on the coastal range
sometimes just too far offshore
tossing in waves I didn't remember
swimming toward shores as if I don't care . . .
I remain aware of the moon and stars
and the loose moon kissing the stairs
and shout out to see Jupiter and Uranus
before Mercury brightens the skies
with questions of propriety
that who the hell can answer . . .
It is not just apparent older age
nor youthfulness out of a cage
it is damn well beyond cancer
and fellows worried about privacy,
it is just a swim on the Oregon coast.

Hallelujahs on a Primary Chorus

I sing like a frog in a creek
just checking where I'm at
some notes sharp some flat
some things seem totally godsent
and then echoes remind me
I've read my biology front to zen
I realize the costs of buying and rent
and the joys of knowing how to bend
and guess that I'm just a bit of geology . . .
Keeper teach me the roads to heaven
all of my bread is toasted unleavened
and I sing the joys of just beginning
without considering the seismology
isn't someone else just as curious
and know that I am damn well serious
about where to go and where we've been?

Bits & Pieces

I have been a new recruit changed to soldier
and someone with a weep-upon shoulder
I have even been younger but never yet older
I do not remember the luxury of a stroller
but I know the smell and peace of a barstool
when some of them thought I was in school
but in sister's lounge waiting for my turn at pool
I never put a dime on the table, I am no fool
I know my worth and my thirsts
and know that I was never cursed

See you on the Trail

I am not as young as our moon
but with drink and medicine
I may be there very soon.
I ain't in any goddamn race
but with the power of my Edison
and if driving talents keep pace.
I always have thoughts of tomorrow
and may decide to scale Kilimanjaro.