Work or Life

Work is not all it is reputed to be.

Mostly it’s time away from living

with periods of accomplishment and pride

in exchange for paying bills mixed.

there’s security and the means for needs

all the while diverting me from richer time

with people and the ooh’s and ahh’s of the world.

A itchy shirt made from a big sack of money, stress,
rental cars, keyboards, cell phones, email, clocks and
airplanes all filled with more work and time staring through a small hole.

Take all that all, shaken with determination until in proper proportions,
spiced with gifted vacation days that we feed ourselves sparingly.

Sprinkled like it was salt. Like some was great and made life taste good                                         but too much might spoil the balance.

Go ahead, pour it down my throat till I am just grateful enough
to not throw up my resume.

But then could I take a big shot at living please?

Them

The rusted detritus of 163 different lives bleeds out

down the hills of Sullivan's Gulch, down to the train tracks,

ending in random slides of waste beside the rails. Down.

They’re barely alive. Skin-living under clouds and boxes, tarps

and weary sway-backed tents. Surrounded by legions of dismembered

bikes and long-orphaned wheels. Nothing left but their stuff.

Their wet everything: sleeping bags and shoes and orange needle caps,

empty cans, dead TV’s. Yesterday’s scrawled cardboard pleas

wilted floppy by the rain become today’s rug for muddy paths.

 

Sallowed and soured nylon caves with no welcome or a mat

Enslaved grocery carts spilling their treasures encircle

the refuse and the refused. Childless indentured strollers await.

Rain and more rain slides down blue-ish tarped camps guarded by brambles,

the dead and alive razor-wire that stands the lonely

tangled watch at night. Sipping blood from any careless slip.

 

The anarchy of their spiraled lives scares us;

they blame us, despise us, but take our crumbs, our shun, our change and wait.

Bodies, people, someone's girl or dad or uncle, sit numb and stand paused.

We say we try. We meet, we study, we throw coins and food and socks and scorn.

Cities and states and our nation gnash their teeth, say they try, and yet the years click on by

and all the    “we’s”      just     can’t     seem   to   pull   the right answer out of the hat.

 

We, the world so thankful to avoid the vague accusatory stares. We

there, in our cars, nearing the corner. What if the roulette wheel says,

“Hey you,” in the front row in the stop-light queue, kneel down, you’re next?

 

It’s time for you to hold the sign and fade from sight.

No Sense

 

I did not see or really think much about the world

passing around me for many years. Only the simplest of plans in my thoughts

My head felt some things pass through like fear or lust, maybe some shame 

in my pocket from not enough, from one handhold to the next.

Impatience hung around the longest; hurry was always leading me to somewhere.

Admiration and wonder escaped from me, along with friends and the joy of stories. A thousand sunsets died and I never waited and wept for them. I was on the lookout for sunrise.

After so many new address's, I grew complacent and settled for in-arms-reach instead of further than the moment.

I forgot the taste of new and kept licking the same old "now", 

till threadbare. 

Granny’s Fairies

We cousins readied for bedtime on Granny's sleepin' porch.
Six mouths haphazardly brushed, repeated glasses of water as whined for,
most of us here overnight for the first time.
The Dr. Pepper snoozed in the fridge not ten steps away.

She attended us so well, her hair braided up in a bun,
with a crossed left eye that never really look at you squarely
and an old tobacco bag pinned to her brassiere that
held the funds for our Army-Navy store desires.

There was cotton clipped to each of the window screens
to warn the birds away, so she claimed,
and she had fed hobos lunch on the outside table long ago,
taking care of all that came her way from the tracks behind the pastures.

Mounded deep with mismatched pillows and
flour-sack quilts sewn by years of hands and thread,

the old swayback beds waited folded back, nice and neat,
then were loaded up with two or three cousins each.

The old rock salt crystals that grew in the bowl

atop the heater sparkled with table-lamp light.
The swamp cooler blew slow, stale, sweet air trying to let go of summer heat.
It was the cool of the darkening evening and as the sun slipped from the sky,
she drew us to the windows that faced the back yard.

"There, she exclaimed, do you see 'em coming?"
We pressed our faces to the glass, peering out into the falling deep dark.
"I call 'em to protect you all on my sleepin' porch. Here come my fairies!"

The scattered twinkling of tiny lights came towards us,

up from the horse pasture, even appearing higher-up in the trees.
You could just make out the advancing line of fairies, spreading out
across the yard, each signaling their allegiance to us all
for the long heavy night.

Those conjured fireflies delivered that which could not be denied.

We believed and slept deep and safe in the sleep of quiet invincibility.
Soon it would be tomorrow, and time again for swings

and tomatoes and salt and watermelon

and maybe even a sneaked small taste of Dr. Pepper if you dared.

 Old Version:

We cousins readied for bedtime on Granny's sleepin' porch.
Six mouths haphazardly brushed, repeated glasses of water as whined for,
most of us here overnight for the first time.
Dr. Pepper snoozed in the fridge not 10 steps away.

She attended us so well, her hair braided up in a bun,
with a crossed left eye that never really look at you squarely
and an old tobacco bag pinned in her brassiere that
held the funds for our Army-Navy store desires.

There was cotton clipped to the window screens
to warn the birds away , so she claimed,
and she fed hobos lunch on the outside table long ago,
taking care of all that came her way from the tracks behind the pastures.

Old swayback beds were dressed and folder back
Then loaded with two or three cousins each
Mounded deep with mismatched pillows
Flour sack quilts sewn by families of hands and thread.

The old rock salt crystal that grew in the bowl atop the heater sparkled with table lamp light-
the swamp cooler blew slow, stale, sweet air trying to let go of the summer heat
It was the cool of darkening evening and the sun slipped from the sky
And she drew us to the windows that faced the backyard.

"There! Do you see 'em coming?" She exclaimed,
as we pressed our faces to the glass -peering out into the falling deep dark.
"I call 'em to come protect you all that rest on my sleepin' porch. Here come my fairies !"

The scattered twinkling of little tiny lights came towards us
up from the horse pasture, even appearing higher up in to the trees
You could just make out the advancing line of fairies spreading out
Across the yard, each plead hugging allegiance to us all
for the long heavy night.

Even now I recall that night as the first time I witnessed true magic. It was as close as We all ever got I suppose. True and magical wonderment springing from my granny's conjuring old ways of love.

Those conjured fireflies delivered that which could not be denied - we believed and slept deep in the sleep of invincibility and barely even whispered.
Soon it would be tomorrow, and time again for tomatoes and salt and watermelon and a sneaked taste of Dr Pepper if you dared.

Columbine

 

Exhale.

Breathe 

and remember,

Columbine
is still a beautiful flower


growing
wild in the Gorge.

With no bullets,

only petals.

Again

 

The testament of geologic scars layered in blown sand and silts
and ancient muds, holds the fossiled record of the long before.

Oh, the written muds. Progeny of water and stone.

Recorders of the past, Earth’s humble history pages.

Grand peaks and trenches, mighty dips and fractures within a plated crust
undergird the fractional soils we dig and scratch upon.
We beings mere birds at our continuous dust bath. Fluttering over and again.

 

Rock and water live on and on in eternal lives
while the lapping “we’s” of the world in all our might and industry

so slightly sculpt the thin soil. Tilling

and plowing our faint, fleeting ripples here and there.

 

The highest peaks have been laid low to the deepest seas
only to be vulcanized and thrust upward once more,

along spreading ocean-ridges, mountaintops or in island births anew.

 

Fissured cracks and dikes that flowed with molten stone,
cooled and re-smelted with golden veins and crystals

grown cavern-deep, segregated, in their sparkling prismatic skin.

Aged blue glaciers patiently gather the bounty from the clouds, and in

their slow incremental journey, return it to the sea. Reunited oceans

rise up to fall afresh, to flow and freeze, to re-carve the land, and deny drought.

Blowing and sprouting and rooting legions of slumbering natal seeds.

 

Countless caves weep with earthly seeps. Water with aged potter’s hands,

drawing down and gathering up the dripped precipitated change.
These drips have shaped our lands, washed our faces, greened our crops, only

to return and cool, and slake our unrelenting, biologic, thirsty needs again.

 

Rivers bear ice-melt, rain, and mountain alike, carefully and slowly back to the seas.

The very water in our cup has seen, has witnessed and bathed kings and nomads,

and hosted the first sparks and birth of life, only to fall upon it all endlessly again.

 

I have wondered in a whisper with myself,
which formidable element of change reigns supreme?



Stone, the so impressive, erupted from volcanoed cones,

graven god, temple wonders, cities, poured and graveled roads,

dams and mountains high, to the stacked layers cut in canyons low

or the water dripped like clock ticks, in falling rain, calving bergs, maelstrom,

tide or tidal wave and rivers-run with its relentless, tireless tongue,

slowly licking the mountains down to naught?

Both sit among the lofty seats of change, but there is one other that sets the course;

One that beats out the pace, beats out each step and crack, counts each layer and drip.

Time demands patience and is the maestro whose baton will say or not, yes, “again.”