I’m not sure but I think there was a time

 

From this week in November, 2013  (I was 68)

 

I’m not sure but I think there was a time

I should have downshifted and turned a corner

or maybe sped up in high to get somewhere fast

I could have sought advice or read some directions

I’m not even sure I didn’t do those things

 

There was a time the totality of life seemed easy

and only the insignificant particulars were difficult

The totality was in the hands and minds of others

adults who understood the situation I only perceived

a perception self-centered and foolish I knew

 

There was a time I could not give what I did not have

It was never correct to do that but it was a tradition

to tell the young to take care of the penny

and the dollars would take care of themselves

So now there’s a tarnished cent among the dirty dollars

 

I’ve never been anything if not presumptuous

thinking sooner or later to be of some worth

therefore worthy of tolerance until then

Now that I’ve not altered gear nor direction

everyday is too familiar to be somewhere else

The longer the story the less I believe

 

From this week in November, 2019   (I was 75)

 

The longer the story the less I believe

particularly if I’m telling it

The certainty we seek in detail

is obscured in patterned perception

related in rhetorical embellishment

Synonymousness is what we seek

to explain the inexplicable

What else was like what just happened

what other creature behaves as such

when was it we ever felt like this

In exacting a classification first

is found correspondence then distinction

Immediate constituents are purposefully adjacent

a functional significance in both

similarity and difference

the unfit

 

from this week in 2012  (I was 68)

 

       the unfit                

They’d like to fit in

not be misfits or bad fits

but sure fits

wearing the shoe that fits

making no one fit to be tied

moving smooth with no fits and starts

If not physically fit nor a perfect fit

at least a comfortable fit

Fatigued from the effort

they fitfully sleep

Everything I focus on

 

from this week in November 1971  (I was 26)

 

Everything I focus on

is only a fragment 

perceived by a fragment of attention

I flash

like a Picasso person

pure sense essence

without grotesque flesh

or reasonable circumstance

Considered before sleep

 

from this week in November, 2015   (I was 71)

 

        Considered before sleep

Avoided Nam being young and dumb

student deferment through ’66

Graduated married a teacher a father

classified exempt until the lottery

Then turned twenty-six too old to be taken

reached a militarily untrainable age

locked in my recalcitrant ways

Dumb luck the smartest thing I did

The DELETE is the great key to success

 

November 26, 2013  (I was 69)   

 

The DELETE is the great key to success

it sends the highlighted mess to cyberspace

Errant thought and sloppy construction

erased without scar or cover-up

Physical ineptitude of fingers keyboard

mistakes that multiply in the awshit of their discovery

Gone with a single stroke

A little light above the heavy curtain of the confessional

changed from red to green upon your exit

to indicate unoccupied but to me a symbolic message Go

Proceed With A Clean Slate

even though I never believed it true 

I believe the DELETE

An hour later in the street I don’t remember

the ill-conceived foolishness and there is no evidence

of damage nor inkling of wrong-doing

If in the life of bricks and blood

a touch of the REGRET upon mindful memories

could restore the mindless innocence

which preceded our momentary ignorance

I would be willing to recall and relate

every awfuck revelation that occurs to me

It all seemed so real at the time

 

from this week in November, 1972  (I was 28)

 

It all seemed so real at the time

and the reality froze the moments

accessible cold and clear and I burn

a sacrifice of this moment

to lie about a little of it

One ember upon the hearth is a lie

The hearth keeper won’t let it burn down the house

He snuffs it

I may not be able to get at it

It’s tricky telling a lie so as to reveal the truth

I admire people who can use the truth to lie

What could I having thus spoken say to follow it

 

All the storybook lives are not in storybooks

 

November 24, 2012  (I was 68)

 

All the storybook lives are not in storybooks

The ones that are will fit into movies

whose conventional length has shrunk in my lifetime

from two hours to ninety minutes or less

a reduction of twenty-five percent

while life span has increased considerably

and we think more complexly so

there ought to be material for more involved

story-book lives in multifaceted detail

but we think we’ve seen it all

know how it should end

don’t like it when it doesn’t

like in our own lives

where heroes are as ambiguous as the side they’re on

Common local villainy is inconspicuous

lost among our blatant international piracies

in explosive color and surround sound

a cover-up on an epic scale

Someone before me decided rain on my roof

 

from this week in November, 2012  (I was 68)

 

Someone before me decided rain on my roof

should not drain directly off the slant

but caught in gutters to downspouts funneling

to corners of expedient convenience and past logic

This delivery system is quite efficient

as long as there are no trees nearby

It was devised when the neighborhood was new

trunks still held by stakes below the roofline

We live among foliate monsters now

whose sheddings fill the aqueducts in every season

to decompose into mushy verdant gardens

At an inconvenient time they must be cleaned

accessed by slippery ladder moved station to station

shoveled out by hand then flushed by hose and still

there are storms each year that overwhelm the system

pour off the roof in the most direct manner possible

I consider appropriate truisms of our existence

a zen acceptance of a waterfall in the window

Thankful for a roof overhead

A half century is a blink of an eye

 

from this week in November, 2017  (I was 73)

 

A half century is a blink of an eye

same old catcher in the same old rye

shots still fired in downtown Dallas

same old hatred same old malice

Took a road less traveled and forsaken

wish it had been the one not taken

the one called Hope to a land called Promised

to lay by still waters where breezes are warmest

but we rode the bullets down the cross-haired sight

to end somewhere else than we thought we might

So often with partial mind

 

from November, 2019  (I was 75)

 

So often with partial mind

thinking seems inept

yet one-eyed sight is not blind 

common sense and image kept

 

Inspiration needs a spark

deep thought seeks the dark

Most time we avoid the glare

to see our dappled shadow there

 

When rid of that shade inside

comes a task in view

Art and focus must decide

what half a mind can do

Is it the command over another’s decline

 

November 20, 2007  (I was 63)

 

Is it the command over another’s decline

that makes one age?  It seems so.

Deciding what is to be discarded,

what was written that will never be read,

what in the closet will never be worn;

it makes one more than the specter of death.

I have discarded wardrobes of the soul,

eliminated expressions to a savable few.

The Grim Reaper is a heartless editor,   

humility a byproduct of playing that role.

Where is the repository of life?

How careless of any Grand Design

to leave it to those left behind,

to one who may have read Sound and Sense

but survived only through expedience.

Robert Zimmerman and Me

 

November 19, 2017   (I was 73)

 

         Robert Zimmerman and Me

I was in a brick school building seven miles

from the brick school building he was in 

and that was further away than Hollywood

He was closer to NYC than anywhere near me

From our common geographic start

we grew up a few years and a country apart 

Somehow he knew he had something to sell

while I thought maybe I could learn how to spell

Poi Boy

 

November 18, 2015  (I was 71)

 

                  Poi Boy

Morgan Toledo farms kalo in Waipio Valley

he and his family crew (it’s taro to you)

In watery fields they plant the shoots

nurture the leaves that broaden in the sun

as the roots swell in the sodden soil

They harvest bulbs bigger than grapefruits

From each they trim five new buds

then scrub and chop the dense tubers

They’ve mechanized to a mechanical crusher

eliminating the tedious pounding

Brother Henry tends to the mashing straining

mushing bagging and labeling by hand

manhandles maintenance of the new machine

Lavender paste with almost no waste

The demand is far greater than

five thousand pounds produced each week

Morgan Toledo has plans to expand

five times the plants next season

from newly cleared fields to nourish the industry

Locals complain fresh poi is five dollars a pound

When they think about it they pay it

Everyday that man wandered in the woods

 

from this week in November, 1971  (I was 27)

 

Everyday that man wandered in the woods

and he watched all that happened there

but especially the leaves which fell in time

and broke brown upon the ground

He did not know what to think of this

Some leaves drifted others dove

That man watched while seated on a rock

Reasons are alien to my comprehension

he said to himself as he watched the fall

And each day that man wandered from the woods

with bare limbs and leaves left still behind

If it was a test

 

from this week in November, 2010  (I was 66)

 

If it was a test

I tried to do my best

just like all the rest

but if I had to guess of it

I’d say I made a mess of it

 

I always saw the jest

that gave tears their zest

When the bird left the nest

I took flight and headed west with it

where I guess I made a mess of it

 

Indistinct dreams are lost

when the pair of dice is tossed

Got symbols and signals crossed

and slogged through the cess of it

after I made a mess of it

This dumb duck would take off

 

November 15, 2012  (I was 68)

 

This dumb duck would take off

fly in a circle then splash down in the same place

swim in and out of the reeds

duck his head preen the plumes and take off

for another lap  He seems to have forgotten

what other ducks know when they take flight

to wit which way to go  He missed the flock

north in the spring fall in the south

In his tightening orbits over the pond

the dumb duck quacks after every take off

apparently surprised he knows how to fly

Dumb Ducks

 

from this week in November, 1977  (I was 32)

 

                  Dumb Ducks

The thing is, it seems ducks will live anywhere.

They are quite indiscriminate;

more than a few find their way out of the woods.

They populate roadside drainage ditches and swamps;

they live with pigeons and gulls in city park lakes

floating among the paper scraps,

feeding on a diet of popcorn and white bread

and lead bb’s to aid digestion.

Dogs and kids break their legs.

They swim in circles.

These are not old ducks;

they did not know to think and became unable to fly out.

Those boxes in the garage

 

November 13, 2010  (I was 66)

 

Those boxes in the garage

packed and labeled and stacked

from an other part of life

we never intended to abandon

when we renovated

A pyramid of cardboard stones

where a car should be

a monument instead of a movement

Somethings create their own past

somethings entombed we never meant to bury

One learns the rules of the games

 

from this week in November, 2019  (I was 74)

 

One learns the rules of the games

most common to the region

fields arenas or stadia

casino tables and race tracks

Games about winning require deception

How much can I get away with

It takes more skills than game skills

subterfuge something under the table

city council and Chamber of Commerce

subtle maneuvers and crass power grabs

psychological chicanery extortion

Stock market or bowling

It’s all about the roll over

How big are your balls

The Perfect Fifth & If a story be told in verse

 

from this week in November, 2019  (I was 74)

 

         The Perfect Fifth

 

Not the life within but the inner life

the two are not the same

The life within is of heart and lung

the vehicle we strive to maintain

The inner life floats parallel

but may drift ahead or drop behind

Llife within feels its mortality

Inner life invents eternity

riding on a cloud

 

                  *

If a story be told in verse

make sure the story may be sung

If the tale should languish on the tongue

attempting to tell more than it knows

all that language becomes a curse

and probably better laid out in prose

When I used to be Catholic

 

November 10, 1980  (I was 35)

 

When I used to be Catholic

prayers earned indulgences

Years ago people saved S&H Green Stamps

On the west coast people saved Blue Chip Stamps

Maybe some people still do that

but I don’t know where the hell you get the stamps anymore

I haven’t seen a premium catalog in years

As you received them one for every dime spent

you’d paste them thirty to a page into thirty-paged redemption books

Sometimes you’d buy an electric fry pan and get pages at a time

More often you got a few buying a buck’s worth of gas

I remember a crazy car dealer once on TV

He offered stamps on the down payment for new cars

You had to go to a redemption center to redeem the books

You could get redeemed for anything

a TV or another electric fry pan or a dozen golf balls

The redeemers wore aprons and rubber fingers

They flipped through your pages

handled the spit and wages of your accomplishment

They gave you the reward you saved for

a little bit of heaven with every visit

Fog morning mist

 

November 9, 1968 (I was 23)

 

Fog morning mist

most delicate of webs

of the astounding variety only seen holding together the green

in loose shrubbery when the sun is right

or when traced against gray in shattered glass dew

Your creator walks upon eyelashes

seeing all things forming and un-forming

in its strict infinity of patterns