Me and Mirrors

My mirror reflects mostly me
and some friend or loves at my side;
it does not decipher our minds
nor give a whit about love nor fear.
It is not an effective radio of glee.

When I hold hands out to a friend
it does not reflect merely what I see
but is often an offer of some magnitude
a breath of an enclosed world into space,
a life that is resolved and wide-open.
I always hope that someone finds me.

Der Schmetterling

Angular,
yet grace so unexpected
I wince at the raw,
randy beauty of such symmetry:

Her dance, an invasion of sorts
like an assault on Guadalacanal,
the total commitment
but there is no loss here.
Quark to quark,
she slices to the quick.

There is not so much surrender
to such an assault
as a dawning -
a primordial sun
bursting upon a new day
filled with colors
as subtle as a gauguin landscape.
The sky filling
with a rainbow of moons
waxing
strutting -
a pungent
earthy air,
the mixed metaphors
of horny bare feet
and the lusty lemony nectars of venus.

The skinny world,
now fat with promise,
is in a golden whirl,
a bit of hope, shared touching,
explosions of forgotten shyness
in the face of such rapture.

Deciding the Scope of a Life

We mostly know how to paint a wall or some complex door;
and we can damn-well draw a round or squared circle;
and ofttimes we cross bridges if we know where they are.
Some of those bridges fade just before we see where to cross.
I do not surrender nor give up, when I am mostly lost.
I love to hold hands and touch even without the damn bridges.
I know how to float, imagining a larger innertube,
not always on water nor air but often the merest smile.
Like any worldly homo sapien, or honestly practiced goat,
we've learned to stand on the edge of cliffs and doubts,
looking across or up, smiling at a world we don't yet know:
our grins are without sound; I am so happy I almost float.
Your face relaxed against mine, happy, full of silent shouts.

Old Auto Woes

Park me in some forgotten parking lot
somewhere between morning and dark
but check the damn air in the limpy tires
sometime after breakfast in a few years.

Run me to the ground, off a seaside cliff,
but sing me a song of love, some gentle riff
and I'll purr and cuddle, take you anywhere
so long as you use the clutch and check the oil.

To a Treasured Friend

I suspect that you are seeing a real world.
But who can count or account for such worlds?
Much of what we say needs some editing
to meet the rigors you and I imagine for ourselves.
We are not as cohesive as we once imagined,
exploding across the universe in bits of this and that,
peppers, salt, nutmeg and sugared spices
baffling bits of life approaching such horizons.
We are full of songs and dances of bewilderment,
tripping through news, lessons and steps to learn,
the world of bunches of us: you, me, she and him,
traipsing across the sky, ignoring love, learning to fly
some of us whistling, but me, with strummy voice,
along for the ride, singing hallelujah to the moon.
I sometimes sit in the dark and share my thoughts
echoing back and forth from here to the moon to you.

Trying to Say Good-bye

We are already yesterday's asterisk
and mostly tomorrow's obituary.
If you own a tighter, faster disc
we may already be in mortuary.

Back-step if you can and I am able,
we can glide to shore together
somehow mounted on the same fable,
lythe and sweet as any bird's feather.

We may slow if I ever truly learn to dance,
waiting until we chance to kiss and smile.
Then let the twirls and scissor steps prance!
We'll kiss and step outside the world awhile.

I will truly miss you when you are gone
but I have already written you into a song.

The Minutiae of Dreams

I chase my cousin about the kitchen table,
running and dodging as best we are able,
jumping chords and pushing back chairs,
the coffee floats beyond the table into air
suddenly, totally dark and scalding hot,
a bitter bit of this or that, but never cream,
just moments of tasting beyond our dreams.

The scraps of my life are not your scraps;
we depend on reading different maps.
I sleep at night and mostly dream.
My days are coffee, black, no cream;
I do not wake at day and dream.
Awake, in sun, I know a total world.
In sleep, I am often lost in endless whirls
of yes and no and Grandma's coffeepot.
I sleep and dream; I wake to stand apart.

May I sit with you tonight

May we sit touching hands tonight
to talk to the moon and starlight?
Please wrap yourself against the cold
sometimes our stories are long to tell;
we may become lost in the sounds of words.
We are not so old, but blessed and bold
and know to ignore the rusty tinkle of time.
Our hearts know the movements of the moon.
I am warmed if you are home before noon;
Please bring the blanket of pink flowers.

Even lost we knew our knot

If you search for a full-life lived
avoid making it mostly about you.
(Live outside yourself; live inside a house.)
My father logged the woods and planted seeds;
my mother toiled the world and grew flowers,
not once or twice, but three times:
Billy Karl, Gloria Lee and Harold Art.
We were a knot that became untied
but we mostly always knew our knot.
I don't always know what I am tinkering toward
But I am a tinkerer of words, nails and bailing wire.
I fashion the world that I have known,
mostly in my brain, but always in my heart.
I will always be centered in the knot.

Odessa, Texas 1966

We drove a crooked road
flat, empty, no landscape,
hot with smells beyond our world.
We are dozing, riding and off to work.
One side some few cows with heads
to the ground behind taut wire.
My lonely soldiers suspended in time.

The other side cotton fields
in memory only and barely alive,
blown now by wild hot winds,
disappearing as we drive
into turbulent dust in the air.
The atmosphere swirls into the air
and aims at noses, our mouths.
The air is crunchy and bitter.
Odessa, 50 years ago.

I worked derricks, high in the air
able to see the moon without dust
the moon was round and fairy fair;
I was barely able to sight the earth below.
Sometimes the world is mostly rust
The wind whistling songs no one knows.

Within the wind, dry bitter whirls,
something in my head clatters
and breaks away into huge black birds
drinking their black gold,
endlessly in slow repetition -
a continuous hungry motion
heads dipping into the stinky ground.

There are no more cows, no cotton.
There is no smell beyond black gold.
I cannot touch my hand to your hair
after such a night:
I cannot endure caressing
someone I care so much about
within the bounds of such illusions.
Odessa, Texas 50 years ago

Circles in Twilight

We all age and that ain't so bad (if we're not in a damn cage) in most of our worlds. It is expected. It is respected. Another of life's countless swirls from dew on every leaf to ripened fruit. Pluck me from the tree and grin. Or maybe just smile. This is mere prelude: we are off for another mile.

Dreams

When I was naught but a catfish
swimming against the stream
I never imagined you swimming with me.

I never slowed my lunches of debris
nor ever thought to make such a plan
that you and I could meet in a dream.

I do not keep my secrets well

I keep my secrets mostly at the bottom of the old water well.

Every Spring, some of my secrets, on beautiful wing, flutter out like so many determined, yellow-black butterflies and float in the earliest of winds from hither and thither, to this or that bush seeking my family tree to settle and smile and taunt me with their lovely wings and gust for life . . .

They keep their secrets better than I!

Recalling dance steps

I am already yesterday's asterisk
and almost tomorrows obituary.
If you are on a faster, newer disc
you may already be in mortuary.

Back step if you can as I am able,
we can glide to shore together.
Somehow we are writ in fable,
lithe and sweet as any treasure.

I may jump once I know the dance.
I will not stop until we both grin,
our twirls and scissor steps prance,
with us outside the world in a spin.

Storm clouds, hail and rain, it is our ride:
we know where to meet on the other side.

Some nights are not meant to be remembered

Still awake at five a.m.
and still learning about each other,
something else perhaps in the silky night.
I fashioned some rant about lack of understanding
to soothe your tears talking about him.
We paused, reminding each other
that we were members of a special group,
friends who totally trusted
and could share without fear.

You brushed back tears more than once
but never lost your shy smile
and so we sat on separate ends of the sofa
with our crossed legs sharing middle space
only sometimes touching and your fluttering hand
like a butterfly, took my eyes from your face.
Each time, returning there were your eyes
nestled somehow with mine in the space
above our crossed legs.

When you finally slowed to full pause
and I somehow talked about her,
you became some surer self,
your hand stilled and lay at rest in your lap,
your legs still crossed, listening with full face,
I talked into a trance and back, tired,
saw you sleepy returned as a hostess
ready to offer me the sleeping bag.

One last exchange we shared at dawn:
"do you think we've reached some understanding?"
"yes."
but there we were yawning again,
two sleepy heads at dawn.
You with afternoon classes to teach,
me with afternoon classes to attend.

I do not keep my secrets well . . .

I keep my secrets mostly at the bottom of the old water well.

Every Spring, some of my secrets, on beautiful wing, flutter out like so many determined, yellow-black butterflies and float in the earliest of winds from hither and thither, to this or that bush seeking my family tree to settle and smile and taunt me with their lovely wings and gust for life . . . they keep their secrets better than I!

A rock in your pocket may be worth a moment of thought

I put rocks in my pocket when I am out and about and want to remember a moment or thought. It doesn't always work. But maybe your scribbles are efficient. Mine are not always. I end some trips with heavy pockets but some of these stones are rockets returning me to where I've been. Sometimes they are just rocks in overloaded pockets. I like to move rocks around the world.

A bike ride on a hot windy day

Sometimes I see best without a fat pen in hand:
just a bike ride through wetlands I've never visited.
Nothing much going in, pockets of world coming out.
Sometimes we have to go to know where we want to go.

My Memory, on being reminded of Hypatia

My friend, from some distance, Hypatia in name, not only built astrolabes and hydrometers, she could utilize them to measure distance to stars and density of liquid of friends. She was brilliant even as a pagan, and she agreed to tutor both Christians and Unitarians whatever their merit (or lack).

Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, or another silly city on the Phoenician coast, was victim. Ancient sources record that Hypatia was widely beloved by pagans and Unitarians alike and that she established great influence with the political elite in Berkeley and Houston. Trumpets tooted, drums rolled.

Just before her death, my Hypatia argued with Orestes, the least perfect Roman of Alexandria and in the midst of this ancient feud with Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, silly lies spread accusing her of inventing ice cream. This was her dismal end. She was murdered by a mob led by a lector named Peter.

Amen.

Sometimes, Wandering

Sometimes, wandering before dawn,
curtains drawn against the moon,
I have bumped into you
in the hall leading from my bedroom.
You stand, mostly huddled into the wall
scribbling at your yellow notebook
as though your life was at risk.
I wonder that you never warned me,
or was it so enormous.
that I in jerky male youthfulness never saw?
But Betty, my love, our poetry was crude -
like your death:
you were never Sylvia Plath -
But, when they found you - water-logged, nude -
that gaping hole through your head -
I was lost without tether.
Your parents were embarrassed
and prayed loudly for some poor lost soul.
I was not so bold. Oh I cried; I wept,
but at home, at night alone.
I slept some before and after,
and only sometimes, wandering,
am I totally aware of you at all.
Why have we not let go?
Why do you huddle and scribble
so many nights in my long empty hall?
Do you practice your verse? your rhyme?
Do they let you do that?
Some seldom times, on darker mornings, I hear you call
and try to go to you, but you are immersed,
busy, bent to some task, and ignore me.
Standing near you in the long grey hall
I am almost paternal, full of guilt. I wonder
that we never guessed
that such a fragile existence
must surely end abruptly.
I miss the cadence of a voice.
I miss the silly giggles you never mastered.

Looking for a ride

I am an emotional basket-case
lost in an ocean of accidents
searching for a back door
from somewhere on the 13th floor.

It is a mess of eternal fuck-ups
from sometime before last year
and totally worse than we feared.
But look for blue if the clouds clear.

I'll try to meet you at our old corner.
Just drive the hearse; I can be a mourner.

Bill K. Boydstun

A touch of dumb shit

Not mierda tonta; just a puzzle in the wind,
a twist or two on the old clock and we're back
at the beginning of the origins of apple harvests;
we return to yesterdays without many tomorrows
the days when we loved one another more than god.

Changing scripts in midstream

I completed my career as a lawyer
which was mostly yesterday.
and stretched backward to remember
but find I am mostly still alive today.

Don't jump, rhyme, pull your hair,
but yes, poets have corners to pray
Poets Corner with father Geoffrey Chaucer
where kneeling or no, we have our say.

I can scribble, warble and even flare
without totally knowing what I pray.

Early bird meeting a dove

I am an earlier bird than you
and dance along the sidewalk;
we pass with your coo coo coo
maybe prance a bit, smile and talk
your jargon is mostly way too much
I ain't used to strangers talking mush.

On the Commitment of a poet, 18 years old

for Barbera (revised 08/
03/2020)
If we had known the depths of your quiet
or looked at eyes as often as at words
we might have quelled the silent slow riot
behind your eyes' caged fallen birds.
We did not hear the keen of crumpled wing,
the sudden low departure. Only you
could feel the bird's last great try to cling
to air no longer there, nothing clear nor blue.
And now you grasp your song in muted stead,
in sterile space with tall blank walls of white
where no one comes or goes, but some are led.
You move if moved but cannot sing at night.
We sound your words, their razored edge is gone:
we sing some words, we cannot sing your song.

Looking for a ride

I am an emotional basket-case
lost in an ocean of accidents
searching for a back door
from somewhere on the 13th floor.

It is a mess of eternal fuck-ups
from sometime before last year
and totally worse than we feared.
But look for blue if the clouds clear.

I'll try to meet you at our old corner.
Just drive the hearse; I can be a mourner.

How some birds take wing

I was not who I am.
I am not who I was.
I am freed. I give a damn.
And I can sing; so, I sing.

July, Nikos, crows, and Theodore

July is not as hot in Eugene as in Houston
but the rains of winter and spring are long gone.
Our primary chorus continues to be the geese
but the crows are abundant, cheerful, and loud.
I seem to enjoy the geese arguing overhead
and the crows arguing in our yard. They are our bards.
I have not thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in some hours.
We like our red geraniums and miss Theodore Roethke.

I recognize sometimes that I am a lost ant on a large leaf
drifting through turmoils of crappy conditions
and that I float north on the Willamette
going in the opposite direction of much of the world.
I am okay with alternate directions and can smile
without quoting lines of poems from Theodore Roethke
as we do our daily walk through the Delta Ponds.
I do sometimes repeat bits of Nikos Kazantzakis on the trail.

My Poem July 2020

My poem, like some others,
is mostly a gentle searching for words
that give my morning coffee taste
and pull my supper from the blues.
I intentionally always dance with you
I mostly sing at the top of my lungs.
I don't yet scribe in tongues

nor sing my words in thought.
I am but the fish you caught.

My songs are mostly smiles
searching out some rounder, prouder world.
We may wear mostly scarfed bandanas
against the whirls of terrible yesterdays
but sometimes it is also tomorrow.
Our masks are not meant to hide
but merely guard our love and abide.

We do not need to borrow from hope;
a step in time is all it takes to cope.

Fractal Horizon

We may start out smiling, walking some fractal path
maybe admiring the abundant buds of new flowers
and as we encounter more paths and change our aim
we do not fault our discretion nor calculate our math
until we see that there is no intersection of worth.
We scan the horizon and complete our final curve.

Rejoicing Well

Euterpe dances in pellucid dress
against the sea. She is the ocean stone
that toils toward the shore - her tears caress
her riven cheeks. She clicks, bone against bone,
a fictive note, her long toes zither fast
among the breakers as she sways the wind
against the sea. Her singing cannot last
a printed page, recognition is the end.
No painted face reflected in the long
morning's moon, just a clack of spent coin
in an empty glass; a formal song
that stirs no wind - each song is sung but once.
We float to shore singing from her sea
searching inland, repeating from memory.

Yesterday, and now Today

It's tough times.
We ain't stepping down.
Not sure where to step?
just avoid the shit if you can,
but keep your head up and smile on
and treat people like people.

When you can, offer a helping hand,
and know times have been tougher . . .
times have been way fuckin' tougher
and people did not always step up
but just waded through shit like it was normal.
Wading through shit is not normal.

Avoid the shit by stepping to the front
say hello offer your hand or shoulder to lean on.
Don't tread through shit if you can avoid it.
Help friends who feel threatened or pushed.
There's no rush, just do it now.
Reach out. There is our total world around us.

Early Days

I admit very little. I do admit some few homes and each, different. Many voices calling me toward home.
I am never homeless, nor ever, maybe, quite at home . . . I am most at home when I slow to stop and sup on local cuisine.
I eat, from post-war 1943 bananas in Klamath Falls, Oregon to crawfish from ditches in Archer County, Texas.
I scrap and scrape the perch from Archer City Lake to mingle with the backyard corn and scrawny tomatoes.
I was a child of some plenty, with no electricity nor flush; a puppy among mad dogs feeding their pups.
It seemed to be always them or us.

II.
I remember turnips, carrots, potatoes and even varieties of other fragile greens
with bullfrog or catfish, washed, scrubbed and chopped into something worth eating
and trading bites at the table to see who grabbed the more delicious bites
riding the school bus back from Antelope, Texas and Barbara Allen cutting strips of my hair while I pretended to sleep but dreamed, totally awake, of her fingers clipping my salted hair
I was not hungry, angry, ignored nor aware that many people spent their lives mostly afraid and without food
I was mostly poor but sitting on the top side of a world tilted on its side.

We may sit a while longer

We may sit, yet a little while,
together, beneath spring and all
or walk against the cold air,
smiling, culling similar stones.

Let love continue dormant then,
we can move and smile another day,
I, through blackened caves, you,
sweet you, from above some treeline.

Last Autumn again

In autumn darkness
a warmless wind edged
with exploratory fingers
of ice touches our leaves
to the quick; but the tree lives
(it is important to remember
that some of us live)
to leave again.

Grandfather, do you remember
how you said satan had his fingers
curled softly
around the crest of your heart?
how our hands fluttered
like lost butterflies
before settling cold and solid
among the fingers of our hands?

Dry, brittle with color as any autumn,
your leaves are now stacked
and burned with some ceremony;
Your shadow casts long among our trees
and we stand to tend the slowing flame
beside the tree without leaves.

Strains of Life

Proprietors of "the"
have little truck with me;
hawkers of "a" and "an"
furnish better measuring sand.

A bird sang in a tree,
far off. My name repeated
on a tongue of the wind.
I dosed in a drowsing wood;
who invented should?

A strain of needy seeds
swaying beneath me;
who knows such need
better than you, me
and our flowering weeds?

walk and saunter

I can walk; I can saunter.
I can go somewhere or wander.
At my age just moving is my goal,
additional benefits are pure gold.

Guaranteed Together Again

I am almost puzzled
finding circles
around my head
and so many freckles
where I once wore a beard.

The silly willies of my dog licking my face
and laughing as she licks at freckles
searching for where I once wore a beard.

It's the silliest thing I've heard
and the damn dog still licking my face.
It keeps us all together.

Rewrites are important in love poems

Her womanly anatomy is something more
than mere presence in this present world.
She is an epidermal graveyard of memory,
blemished with life and accidental sharpness,
by rubber bands, pencil lead, angry hands
and hands that share a roughness
of horseplay that gentled to foreplay.
Her spinal curvature is itself historical:
childish pranks and Jersey roller skates,
late night lamp reading through long waits
and longer curiosities.
Forgotten animosities sit mostly hidden in her eyes,
forgotten fear almost spills from her mouth,
even her ears were pierced to prove some adult status.

She lies reading, curled across my back
and over and under my legs.
She does not fully realize that I see secrets
beyond old lovers' thighs.
I see beyond, I see into her mother's want
and see the walls of the womb
from which she has come.
She is the jewel of my life,
the bit of string tied to my heart.

toll roads and goal roads

I can walk; I can saunter.
I can go somewhere or wander.
At my age just moving is my goal,
additional benefits are pure gold.

Walking down a Street

I am mostly unaware:
stumbling, tripping, getting up to walk some more.

You are mostly badge:
chasing, hitting, laughing with a band of uniformed friends.

We went to school together:
hanging out, banging about, eating lunch from home.

We may end on the same hearse:
stretched out, no heartbeats, unaware of who's walking where.

Bumped Into

I am as full of me as you are of you.
It may not be important; it is just what we do.

I was never bumped into in Prague nor in Paris.
Indeed, I have not been bumped into even in Eugene.
Mostly we were strangers who smiled without meeting;
we were not always judging some party or side of a street.
We moved, asked direction, and gossiped some meme;
we were bumped, ignored, glared at, or winked at as at home.
I am filled enough of you and you are filled enough of me
that we touch and decide to travel to Paris and Prague
but we never expected to make it all the way to Eugene.

Please keep the home fires burning

I know where I'm headed. I'm solid enough.
But I am not certain that you understand:
I am circling out beyond our universe,
perhaps an atom or two at a time
and will circle more worlds than now exist
to find some alternate points of rest.
I may not return in time for Easter.

early growing up

I was never a kid of the streets (well sort of not, and certainly not in any conventional sense). . . I did grow up, but not in a city; I grew up in the country and a couple of small towns, Windthorst and Archer City, Texas. We had some moments, but we missed the expresses, buses, and trains whispering and whistling by on toward somewhere important and of meanings beyond our comprehension. We barely knew our surroundings, but they were grand enough, and we did not fully grant additional grandeur to other places. They were just mostly over there.

A Zapteo toward love

I dance my heart away
I cannot yet come home.

I stomp and clog for love
I jump toward you and sway away.

I am not always me, but sometimes you.
We dance our hearts away
and cannot yet remain home.

So, we stomp and clog our love
and jump toward whom we love.
You are always you, but sometimes me.

More scribbles

Be true to love and to yourself;
expect nothing more from others
and we will always have companions
on the trails we choose to explore.

Sometimes I ride my trike

My day rockets if I sit astride a riderless fence
or plummets into hormone hell if I fall off a bike.
Some days are treasures, some are endless hell,
I move with the shadow of the moon and a rising sun
or keep my ass on the ground and don't move at all.
Sometimes it is a hard call.
Sometimes I just ride my trike.

Whispers from Lucretius

Neither gods, their angels nor minions
have sky-hooks positioned about our world.
We are not catfish nor their minnows
dodging the press of floating hooks in a swirl.

The twisting water is life reaching out
as naturally as the growth of quartz crystal.
It is something real, eternal, without thought
not booked in dog-eared cave-found epistles.

Expectations and Realities

I expected to become a cantankerous old man,
and was looking forward to sharing some vile.
It's a dilemma, part of me would enjoy the party
but then along came bodily ills to remind my reality.

I did not know much about patience, but I am learning.
This is not a poem. Wait! Shit, the biscuits are burning.

It's Simple Enough

I scribble because I love life and am alive.
If I stop and no longer scribble, I am not alive.

It may be a sad day somewhere
but I will not juke you here
it will not be a sad day everywhere.

Someone will rejoice and sing hallelujah
or toot what a wonderful world on their tuba.

I am not sure where I have been

Sometimes,
choices that we assume we have made
have such direct, consequent results
that divergent paths from today to next year
appear with a clarity that seldom happens
when we intend to plan our futures.

These decisions are such that we have never
entertained them at all -- but if we had
there would not be the clarity that suddenly exists.

We suddenly can respond definitely "yes" or "no."
Two roads in the middle of nowhere both logical,
maybe possible, and we nod and think we think
and choose some wandering path of wonder
and know without a doubt it is the road to heaven.

Probably Trobably colored again.

In my life once or twice
I've realized a moment outside the norm
that was totally in a different course and form.
This kinda shit ain't always nice.

Who the hell are we to grin and smirk
at the universe and its endless quirks.
With my tripled eyes and purpled ears
I can count the darts and dodge the spears.

My brother Art and my friend John

My brother, John, and me smiling, listening
to strangers on a shore, sitting with love
and embarrassment in a bar trying to measure
our yesterdays and tomorrows to sweet music.

Art, a Navy vet, scheduled back to Viet Nam,
and my buddy John, and me, 4-year vets not going back
and all of us talking words, sipping booze, judging ourselves
and discussing our brother's options, Canada or Viet Nam.

We sat listening, talking, flipping cards and poker chips
without much meaning in a world turned topsy-turvy
and heard the strumming of the toughest strings of love
tied directly to all of our hopes for a very troubled world.

Road to Burnt Water, the year before our Marriage

My car is on the entrance ramp to the freeway heading west
that's back toward the direction you are coming from.

Another exit is between Burnt Water (Tó Díílidí in Navajo)
and the Sanders Indian Store.
Go past the exit to the Indian Store
and the Shell station (on your left)
and it's one mile to Burnt Water exit.

Get off the highway and drive as if you were going to go back
the way you've just come -- my car is on that on-ramp.

Some simple directions:

I am 30 miles west of Gallup,
64 miles east of Holbrook,
between Sanders and Houck.
Remember it has been snowing here.

Just to be totally clear if you have questions:

37 miles east of the painted desert
6 miles east of Sanders
3 miles west of Houck.
I hope the weather is okay in Berkeley.

Seeking affinity with Keats

At night when I smell some breath of fear
stalking lobbed-legged as my mounting years,
I seek John Keats to spell again his fears
and then, on even earth, I respect my old age.
Hungered, I breathe the air that was his breath
and I chew the moon sea stars that are his food.
With diet and wan smile, we break a brittle cage.
We keep an open door, but not to ease in death
but smiling welcome such life as passes there.
And once filled with fear, we smile our peace.
Expectations grow, not less, but always more.
Yes, surely death will someday stop to smile.

Clue to my Age

These are some ongoing chores I used to be assigned from about 5 years old to about 14/15 years old (intermittent and emergency chores would take pages):

let the milking cows (1 or 2 depending on the year) out in the morning at dawn and make sure they were back in the barn before nightfall

sometimes milk the cows but that was seldom and easy and usually done by an adult

feed and water the chickens and make sure to try and find all the eggs from yesterday and the bantam eggs were smaller and hard to find (we didn't have box nests until later)

carry out the slop for the hogs (never more than 2-3) and make sure they were fed and had plenty of CLEAN water

go down to the well and draw a couple of buckets of water for the kitchen (and after school repeat the process)

chop the already gathered and sorted logs of wood into kindling for the kitchen stove (mostly after school)

dip the chickens (usually 2-3) whose necks were wrung into heated scalding water and pull all the feathers for kitchen and later eating

after rains to tour up and down our farm road ditches looking for crawfish to grab put in a bucket and bring home for supper

gigging frogs at night in a couple of very small local lakes (we called them tanks) at certain times of the year when the weather allowed

spring gardening was a whole set of chores in itself

canning season after the garden was harvested was a whole new set of chores but it meant we had a cellar full of food for winter into spring

My Total Circus

You are my total circus; the elephants, the giraffes, the penguins in their button-down dress

You are my mostly where what and my total why

Most of the bluest of my blue-black sky

But also the darkest of thunder clouds and hail

A total circus needs the sun and a darkening moon,

A way to see possible tomorrows and to catalogue every day's too certain sorrows.

But always with yourself to touch and to hold my heart to your heart in the biggest of tents.

You are my total circus. Yes, ma'am.

Little noises in the world

Something about the black holes and collisions of stars that we think we see in the form of various light but never (okay, almost never) hear as sound to our living ears . . . I am partly deaf but live with intent to hear . . .

My Grand Mama and her sons: 1918 Pandemic

They weren't mama's boys; mama died before they walked.
Karl and Ralph were shipped to Oklahoma before they talked.
They saw their old dog Ben chasing the train
before he finally disappeared in the downpour rain.
But Karl and Ralph were tough as hail in a storm
and learned to dig, plant and chop on a cousin's farm
before they grew to 5 & 6 and jumped the midnight train
in pouring rain to search and find a way back to Ben.

Tossed from the train and cussed in hail and rain
they walked, slept and begged their way back again
to find the old farmstead and their dog named Ben.
They slept at night in cursed cold with a simple jacket
until they woke one morning to a hell of a racket
as the old dog licked and turned, barked and growled
and roused them from their sleep with a lonesome cry.
These were mama's boys who walked and learned to howl.

My Younger Brothers

I cannot really cope with my world. It is more than I think.
Mostly, I continue in a fog but fortunately, people love me.

At least as long as I smile, my brothers, both dead, still live.
I am as much of them as anyone and know some things better.

Our jobs, our lives, our entrepreneurship intermingled sometimes
but never touched the heart of our trust or hope for each other.

We were close, almost close, we sometimes worked and played,
sometimes drank a bit, we relied, denied and finally will die.

We were often stubborn, hopeful, drunk, loving and even wise.
We exchanged advice, sometimes requested and sometimes not.

Still, we listened to each other with half ear and total trust.
Sometimes, despite gods, the world is too much for some of us.

in progress

I am no loner nor a packer; I move with friends.
Except for dumb jokes, all I intend to say is credible.
I am looking after children and then survival
like any other sane animal, my goals are toward my ends.

Whacko Leadership

We suffer from a lack of leadership. That's true.
More, we suffer for continuing whacko leadership.
And trump is too dumb to be a traditional Whacko!
He has no sense of any reality but his imagined shit.
And that shit is real, he contemplates on his pot
and dumps his thoughts like turds among his staff.

Yesterdays and Rain

I miss different people on different days;
I miss my friends in so many twinkly ways.
I miss my brothers tomorrow and yesterday.
I smile more than cry, because my brothers did.
I hang on every word I remember that they said.
I can almost talk to them live on days of rain.

Friends of all Sorts

Sometimes I see best without a fat pen in hand.
Maybe a bike ride through wetlands never visited before
not knowing what I might see or who I could meet
sometimes collecting favorite rocks from other bikers
mostly folks sleeping along the railroad tracks
not asking, mostly wanting to share what they had
certain of gold in stone or magic in blessed rocks
and glad for a chance to teach and talk their saving lore.
I am blessed to have met and listened to such folks,
I am double blessed to see them again and wave hello.

Spring in Lane County

Willamette valley begins our wonderful Springs
clumsily and slowly, pretending bluest of skies
while bitty spots of yellow and dripping grey skies
merely sport a flowery smile pretending Spring.

Elegy (without number)

She circled round, back and forth,
a virtuoso of hope, caged by memory,
rearranging her ancient rocks
in simple patterns on an endless path.

She hummed at songs of birth,
rainbows hugged into an apron
of an always busy, swaying lap:
distaccare tempo announcing death.

Her perfect celestial math
curved her summons of love
to the unequal cruelty of the pretty April
flowers planted around her porch.

She might have seen her worth
someday beyond the woven bars
of her personal garden, a shrinking jail;
but she never looked nor altered course.

We are in Charge

The last time we spoke
I may have seemed out of focus;
maybe due to a swarm of locusts
appearing from the northeast.

The little devils want to feast
on everything in the forest.
(I've ended singing a half-tone higher
from muddy-pies to sky-eye pies.)

There needs no excuse, nothing is obscure;
we are already almost past having a cure.
We are always simply smart and focused
on such flights as these luckless locusts.

We are in charge.

Mr. Prine 04/07/2020

We still expect love and happiness over sorrow;
most of us mature beyond ripe grapes toward wine.
Death does not overwhelm our goals for tomorrow;
we are pleased to have danced to the beat of Mr. Prine!

Sit mindfully on the outside

Sit mindfully on the outside and watch the endless cycling of the world.

Sit mindfully on the outside and know the cycling of the world is not endless.

Inevitable Fall

. I am a joe named bill . . .
I know when I am at top of a hill
because every which way looks down.

Some friends say, "look up, look up!"
but vertigo spins me into looking down
and I stumble like a twice-practiced clown.

Except, I have no practice at all
I am just a baby brother joe named bill
and I am starting to tumble and fall,
not quite deciphering up from down.
I know when I am at top of a hill
because every which way looks down.

With my brother in Vegas

I ain't behind nobody . . .
So there. I ain't behind you.

I know how to add 2+2 to 4
& sometimes I can triple it
and wait for the score.

It depends who's sits the table.
My lead is certain; this ain't no banking game.

If you're looking for some way out,
don't look to me. I know my way.
Some teach some learn; some march all day.

Mesquite, no Elm

I'll do my best to help save the planet no matter where;
just don't plow me under an elm tree in West Texas.
Mesquite could be okay, that might be fair,
but not in a hole fracked, oily and infectious!

lock-down fatigue

I do not recognize lock-down fatigue. Some days have always been harder than other days. I have treasures (pictures and mementos in my home that need dusting and study and perhaps further understanding). But I look forward to the sunset and a resulting sunrise and a chance to walk outside (alone or in tandem with my mate). Shit happens. Roses bloom. Trees leaf and shade. We march with the drummer we have and always have. Slow or fast ain't the shit . . . smiles are more to the taste.

Spatial Memory

Remember what I say . . .
Some importance may dawn after awhile:
maybe in early morning rain, or a moving horizon.
It can happen in multiple ways.
Be ready, help others, but always
look west at nightfall and, if possible, smile.
Mostly wake facing East to raise a true dawn.

Ignore the rest I say until my last utterance.
The early verse is rehearsal . . .
the latest . . . or finally some last stanza
describes in total the state of the universe.
It's where I am when I am no longer here
unless I am finally lost in everywhere.

Awakening

I am more us than me
but I am totally me at dawn
when I'm not sure what I see
until nuzzled. I know my lady fawn.

Squirrels on a Wheel

Yesterday and tomorrow are rough enough
and tomorrow and tomorrow will be rougher.
It is sometimes the way of my world
that straight or curved paths whirl
into a new reality of varieties of nonsense
sometimes coalescing into pretend sense
mostly to the left and twice to the right
for a hundred years or so
and then, again, around we go.
You can't keep the same pair of dice all night.
We mostly dance in patterns of hope
from minus to "maybe we can cope."
In my favorite world
it is not best to be a squirrel.

Time to Sound-Off

(sperm whales or snapping shrimp)

It is growing difficult to remain silent
toward leadership intentionally disquieting
without explanation nor thoughtful intent.
I am fueling myself toward quitting the quiet.

Today or Tomorrow

I will dance and play
mostly today, and maybe pray.

We do not know tomorrow,
we cannot know tomorrow,
and the difference is immense.

What we do and what we may,
these opposite ends of a chasm of tense
could sink the world we know.

Last Year Today and Beyond

yesterday was never tomorrow
except in minds twisted in knots,
living again moments of some sorrow
of knowing yestermorning and now. . .

some of us will be strolling along
singing a bunch of very silly songs
without a single nod toward tomorrow
except in minds twisted in knots

A Resurrection of Sorts

I. Do I know You?

Most humans are a mystery.
Even close friends brim indecipherably.
Who are these people?

II. Forget What I Said

I've actually been contemplating a different direction . . .
Not on a compass
But still, inland toward the mountains and snow.
Possibly a trek of some days,
and a way to save some resemblance of tomorrow's Spring.
Not a picnic exactly
but more a resurrection without holiday,
and no known coronavirus.

We can all go together.

Street in Daylight

I.
It exists for the automobile:
a droll rainbow of cars
as brittle as any eggs in a nest,

as noisy as complaining chicks.
The only people
sit yolk hard within the cars

going.somewhere. They pass
with linear certainty
from here to there and back.

The street is silver, inanimate,
its chartreuse brown border
a bit of manicured pretension.

II.
The street moves
("Turn right on M
Ave and it'll take ya
to where yer goin.")

as it is moved upon.
The street moves
as words move
from margin to margin.

III.
Finally, it is the animator
who decides the reality,
who chooses the color and place.

The street can be seen
from any angle, but it is not
a Venetian canal.

Love does not change the street
from chunky asphalt to liquid,
from blood alley to romance.

The animator is limited
by the street, even though
an omnivorous viewer of the street.

Moments

As lovely as Paris
coming lightly from Helen's tent,
salt on his tongue and brow,
these two stallions,
solid as Clydesdales,
in the river sending water
ten feet into the air,
clattering on shallow river rock,
one down river,
on up,
part the waters --
like Moses --
and emerge through reedy mud
reborn.

Trails

All those trails through all
those mountain passes
must lead somewhere.
I've been there,
looking for you.

The edelweiss, silvery-white,
define some trails,
blooming ahead of us.
It could be a good place
for you to stop and rest.

I never stop walking.

I knew who you were once;
now I am not so sure.

I despair
that we may have passed
in a meadow in Spring.
You, with your dark
straight hair
and I with my curling yellow-grey beard.

I've climbed up and sometimes down
looking for you.

Some trails disappear among fallen rocks.
The empty arms of winter trees
allow some passage.
I will explore these trails
before the next snow . . .

Birthday Sonnet

I gift a notion rather than a thing:
May those whose lives depend beyond themselves
Soon learn enough of love to know to sing
Some silly songs of Giants and Bears and Elves:
May kids and cats and pups of every stripe
Learn full enough of love to take them through
Dark barren hours of artificial night
That they fall in and give beyond all due.
I'll save the larger wish: that they but know
Such learning pains as falls and scrapes and bumps
Until we learn to teach adults to grow
Beyond their lie: the world belongs to grownups.
Your birthday wish: what might be, can be --
Awareness of dreams builds reality.

Stars and Painted Floors

I ain't going nowhere necessarily,
but that's okay. I don't have much of a map
and I don't have solid plans on being back.

I expect to go dumb as an ignorant rocket
looking for life beyond the stars we see.
But, if I see a spot to stop
and sip a glass of Willamette Valley pinot noir
I'll be smart enough to park the length of meter time.
And I will damn well save my last dime.
Probably need it for toll at some pearly gate.
Someone might be waiting for me there.

I will not curl up in a wad in some corner
of this gorgeous, cruel, wonderful, terrible world.
That is not where you will find me. But,
I will not take to the dance floor alone.
I expect company, and more Yes than No.

Oh, and please, the better malt this time around.

No need to stampede toward unexpected bliss
just a stately bit of hugging and glowing,
a smile or more, an extra hug and fingers touching
and then we dance the damn paint from the floor.

Today's Walk 18 Feb 2020

Just listen and see.
Our Delta Pond trails are whispering Spring!
The gusty breezes still bite with last night's freeze
but our shorter trees are speckled white and pink
and our taller, older trees display swells of pea pod green.
We will have our shade before we enjoy our summer heat.

Imperfect Knowledge

I think I know myself . . .
imperfectly, but better than mom or dad.
I am an invention of an imagination
recharged with recurring stories and images.
I may be started somewhere near "The Little
Red Hen" but I have evolved well beyond
the Heinlein Space Cadets, from twinkle,
twinkle star to beyond the studied cadences
of Bach to the blistering incadences of
"music" beyond my musical vocabulary.

I hear my footsteps from yesterday echoing
among the foot-clapping sound of tomorrow's
half-hour funs. I remain who I was to a degree
not always recognizable even to you or me.
I think I don't know who I am.

There is a Poem

There is a poem somewhere
(or perhaps a bit of prose,
a speech, a still, a motion picture,
or just a wonderful gesture)
but almost certainly a poem
that expresses it with certainty.

Someone is aware, someone knows
but his/her conception
of the stance of a particular day
is weird,
not my own
and her/his satisfaction
(let me repeat
myself a thousand times)
is not nearly mine
though I know or almost understand
that he/she has reason to be satisfied.

A catfish dinner is not ready until it is properly fried
by the person standing at the stove.
That is a true heart poem.

Without Direction

Yes, this is a large picture in a museum.
but I am not stopping; I am stepping in:
a breezy, carefree walk along the Hudson.

There are many aromas to the breeze,
best a wafting, moving scent of coffee,
some hint of cinnamon, toasted sourdough.

I am alone but totally surrounded, eyes on me,
within the comfort and fortitude of Spring
with no worry for lunch nor bed for the night.

I can easily end my day as I started it,
a simple figure in the distance, faint to many eyes,
I am stroked into the background along the Hudson.

In case it is accidentally erased

Let's slow down on the happy birthdays and congratulatory wedding anniversaries for just a bit . . . let's acknowledge the crap pit we're in that our government has not yet defined nor given us direction in any way as how to go forward . . . let's not play their clown game, that everybody's sane . . . if the present folks in charge can't go forward, we need to know and make decisions about tomorrow . . .

Come By Here

I may count my blessings more than most . . .
I've had my plenty . . .
I am aware of those around us
who have much less than plenty . . .
While I am an architect of much of my life,
I am also an inheritor of my family
who prepared fields for my gardens.
They are a block . . .
I am a chip.

I must remind myself to look toward those
without a field of family.
Kumbaya.

A Distant Drummer

Conversations continue through interludes of talking;
Who can always answer a specific question?
Life and love continue sometimes in silence.

West Texas Dancing Ghost

I've danced enough to have gone around in a circle or two;
I ain't whispering Jack of Diamonds because of you.

Last night's moon across the creek touching your face
was more than I required to stay in this silly all-out race.

I ain't running for fun,
and never was
I am totally under the gun
and always was

It there's a way out and we go back, have Charley show me.
If there ain't no way out for sure, just have Charley shoot me.

I'm up against it again;
somehow further than then.
Don't peer back at nothing over your shoulder
If I ain't beside you, it's the end of your trouble.

Coronavirus Update Feb 26, 2020

When the masks go away, I'll try to hug you again.
I continue to love you without touching, but you scare me.

And, of course, I scare you. But we should soon have rain.
Maybe it will wash away the silly sins between you and me.

1918 genes

My genes remember 1918:
my teenage grandmother succumbed to the virus of that year.
She never reached her mid-twenties.

That was then and that may be our now . . .
Love everyone, but do not touch anyone . . .
Wait for the Spring rains and additional information.

We cannot accept what our current government says;
they are totally full of patronage and shit.
Guard yourself. Look to everyone around you.

It may be short and of little consequence. Pray yes!
But know of another side.
We are all on the same slide . . .

Be cautious. Be cautious.
Do not shake hands.
Do not hug your precious neighbors.

Sapiens

nightly scribbles are mostly rambles
of some uncontrolled mind
-less-ness of bits and scraps of worry
about tomorrow's settled mind.

if there is no gospel haunting us,
we may imaginatively decide as we learn
and never quite imagine cursing
a world that is new and beginning . . .

I am this; This I am

I think Carlos Fuentes said similar first:
It is neither the best nor the worst,
Just some sudden unquenchable thirst.

So who is knowing (something is or could be)?
I can see: I am this eye; this eye I am.
Sometimes blind, I don't give a glory damn.

I have no nose except a moment, a sorta hell;
I have no memory nor even dream of smell.
I may be following the wrong incense into hell.

Except that is much more than I accept:
I am a lost wriggling worm crossing concrete.
It is no chosen path, nor measurement based on math.

Tomorrow is just a swirl of sky we do not see.
Who cares? I care. It is always you and me.
I will find tomorrow at the fair: watch me.

Let us not look toward, nor tempt the cards.
Let us coast yesterday toward a morrow.
If we do our daily chores and whistle
and wake again and again in joy
we can finish the beginning of Fuentes' epistles.

You and I can find a direction forward.

Awakening

Black coffee before the yellow sun arises,
muddying my view with its variant colors.

Even with the yellow sun almost in my eye
I am defiant and glance toward the darker sky.

Black coffee allows a truer reality of the day
without wind tossing about nets of stray colors.

Oh, I love the ritual of the rising of the sun
but I am myself more totally without such swirls.

Let suns control their worlds;
so far they do not control me.
I drink black coffee.

A year ago, a moment, and just now

Sometimes it seems that choice
includes a bit of alternate stronger voice
beyond our recognized youthful pale.
Some new friend showing another trail?

Expect a choice of results from multiple paths,
yesterday, tomorrow, next week or just now.
The sun always rises with an appearance of solid truth,
a permanence, but maybe not thought thru.

Who can guess where we may decide to go
with the sun in splendor and the moon aglow?
So sigh, roll over, wink at the sky:
remember some tricks to try.

Let's just settle back into the yellow hammock,
wrap ourselves in our arms and count our luck.

I am this; This I am

I think Carlos Fuentes said similar first:
It is neither the best nor the worst,
Just some sudden unquenchable thirst.

So who is knowing (something is or could be)?
I can see: I am this eye; this eye I am.
Sometimes blind, I don't give a glory damn.

I have no nose except a moment, a sorta hell;
I have no memory nor even dream of smell.
I may be following the wrong incense into hell.

Except that is much more than I accept:
I am a lost wriggling worm crossing concrete.
It is no chosen path, nor measurement based on math.

Tomorrow is just a swirl of sky we do not see.
Who cares? I care. It is always you and me.
I will find tomorrow at the fair: watch me.

Let us not look toward, nor tempt the cards.
Let us coast yesterday toward a morrow.
If we do our daily chores and whistle
and wake again and again in joy
we can finish the beginning of Fuentes' epistles.

You and I can find a direction forward.

A Triumph

I ran the duck pond trails today:
the cold wind to my face and
rainbows from my eyes . . .

Parents

I often have long talks with my Dad in my head.
He seems to have left lovely gobs and bits about.

But I never get to talk to my Mom. Maybe she died too young.
My thoughts and prayers for her are always blind.

I've tried to talk to both, but it seems that only Dad can respond.

Bill K Boydstun

living among friends

I'm sometimes jumping upward
and sometimes tumbling downward,
even sometimes rolling curveward,
but I have no stubborn standward.

I set and twitch the switches of my goals
always hoping for some bit of control
in case the world turns upside down.
I may then tumble to end my role as Clown.

My tenuous ongoing, endless cope
is not to need to make amends
but always reach tenderly toward friends
sharing all our variety, smidgeons of hope.

Ultimate Problems

In the Aztec design God crowds
into the little pea that is rolling
out of the picture.
All the rest ex1tends bleaker
because God has gone away.

In the White Man design, though,
no pea is there.
God is everywhere
but hard to see.
The Aztecs frown at this.

How do you know He is everywhere?
And how did He get out of the pea?

Just thoughts before bedtime

Some of us are human; we are of different heights, shades and senses of humor; we have different genitalia and we speak a multitude of language variations and react to the sun and weather in a multitude of ways; we can and cannot drink milk without consequence or wine or other drink and we don't always realize our kinship and seldom recognize our variance from our sameness . . . we are sometimes stupid beyond belief, but we are also incredibly wise, and nice and full of grace, intelligence and expanding knowledge and, more often, even love and hopefully, full of continuous learning. . .

Leaning in toward the world

O' I've danced around,
and even pranced around,
but mostly just chanced around.

I've made my noise and barely learned
to whisper if it meant not getting burned.
I can squelch it in or smile it out by turn.

I live on a world as round as any sound,
I am always spinning, spinning around:
I don't quite keep both feet on the ground.

Bill K Boydstun

National Treasures

I am a national treasure of sorts
expecting we will shine with all our warts.

I comb my hair and sometimes trim my beard
and oft-times decide not to be insanely weird.

I drink my coffee black and sip my Pinot Noir,
mostly avoiding traffic at malls and such horror.

I did not vote for mussolini nor for trump;
I'd rather elect debris from the city dump.

Keep Smiling . . .

Honestly, it's gotta be the best route to go
from some point A to some further point B.

Smiles beget smiles like flowers invite bees
and the single thing we need to really know

is to ignore those crowds of C's & D's
and to decide we'll smile when we please.

It may be . . .

It may be that the jungle
and the voices of trees taught me to sing.

toward the coast

Where we go from here
may depend on the horizon we scan . . .
I'm glancing toward the coast.

David Hume again

David Hume would be a neighbor
to share our tea and scones
on blustery mornings without sun.

He would be sun enough for a day,
teacher enough to clear our clouds
and open a better view of the sky,
weaving shapes and shadows across the dell.

Almost Always Pillows

I've moved from pillows sewn into sleeping bags
to twin-bed pillows stacked to the ceiling
to pillows covering corners of double beds
before reaching a majesty of space in queen pillows.

But only living into my 70's did I approach silver gates,
the majesty of the K size, though still merely Q pillows.
Should I strike forth for a pillow that reaches beyond
this earth toward the horizons of exploding worlds?
This may better fit the size of my on-going modesty
and perhaps the containment scales of universal time.

Seeing you

I see you always, but best
when we stop and glance in
some other direction . . .

What Lifts Love

What lifts love to such a peak as this?
-not the impetuosity of youth:
we no longer remember our first kiss -
or, in remembering, trim at the truth.