16, 381. ODDS ON

 ODDS ON

I've always thought - to a man (person) -

on cavalcade Earth - that our steps were

prescribed for us. Nowhere to run, nowhere

to hide. 

-

Headstrong in all others matter of taste and

declaration, we paint our kitchens to colors

that we like, and take our ideas from wherever 

else we choose.  It's just like that, and simple.

-

 I don't take guesses on things I don't know

about; nor do I place bets on horses I've

never seen.

16,380. GESTATION PERIOD

 GESTATION PERIOD

Take the robin from the tree, and

you've still got a robin and a tree.

Those are singular objects that yet

remain.

-

It's not like that with dreams and

hope  -  you remove them, and 

they're gone.

16,379. NEGATIVES

NEGATIVES

It's difficult for me to stay negative 

when everyone is saying the 'right'

attitude will win my day. It may well

be just as they say, yet I harbor my own

digging doubts. Everything sideways falls

off the cart. I am my own worst enemy.

-

I awoke today in a hole so deep and

black I thought there'd be no coming 

back; but by 4pm it was pretty much

gone. Last night, again, was little sleep.

At 9pm the town's fire whistle blew is

nightly signal, and I though that we 

were done. 9:30, the dirigible assholes 

got started with fireworks. The next 

house down the hill is about 1000 feet 

off. He got his 40 minutes of nitwit

folly, and then the next house got their.

And then the next. Each of 3, sounding

like a conspiracy.

-

With a 'rest-home' here filled with 

doddering fools, I was surprised at 

the lack of consideration . No sleep 

for me!

16378. HEADINGS

HEADINGS 

It's been a really long time, in years now,

since I've heard a truly aggressive voice

directed towards me; and noticed only

by its absence. That's a true distinction,

and one worth the mention. 

-

I think the mark of a man is how we

note the passing  -  some men get buried

strangely, with those nods to their distant

past : the Marine Color Guard, the fresh

and preserved uniform displayed in plastic, 

on a hanger at the front. Yes, I always feel

the Government is out of line with that

re-possessive move. What is all this? A

Communist Soviet, taking back all its

souls for its military life anew? Does

not this 'malarkey' ever end, and do

men not have 'lives' in between?

16,377. MY CENTRAL BEAM HAS FALLEN INTO THE WATER

MY CENTRAL BEAM HAS 

FALLEN INTO THE WATER

My house has fallen with it. The center respite

of my days. I find many things to like, in this

naturally de-natured world, and for those I

hold them close. A whistle in the dark; some 

odd moment to remember.

16,376. I CAN'T REALLY LET THIS GO

I CAN'T REALLY LET THIS GO

My trust in mischievous things is gone :

marbles hitting against marbles, kids

throwing cards against walls, boys and

stickball in an old schoolyard. You just

don't see that stuff anymore.

-

Now they park the electric cars at the

charging stations and just sit around

with nothing to do but watch the

postal trucks come and go. The old

rail cars back there? No one delicately

cares.

-

I can hardly take living anymore, and

if the dying wasn't to be such a task, 

I'd be gone already?

16, 375. FRAGMENTS

FRAGMENTS

I dazzled my spaniel with my hipster elan, 

and once, and long ago. Now there are only 

penny candies, penny-antes, and penny-whistles

to go : The Bitter End, the Other End, Cafe Wha, 

and me. Bent and crooked and old and all gone.

-

When I see these places again, in my dreaming,

they are like lost dances from another place and

time. I am climbing to Heaven, in a descending

barrel of hopes and possibilities. (My fragments 

are all broken at the kneecaps).

16,374. SO LOADED DOWN

 SO LOADED DOWN

My saddled back is old and

groaning; there is a mystery 

now in every damned ache. I

want to run off, to ancient Egypt,

and be found in some cuspish

chamber. How long, I wonder,

can those tar-torches burn in a

deep, dark, pyramid; and would

I be alone? Or are there spirits

wagging, waiting for intruders.

-

I'll leave it all to imagination, since

there are not really any true ways

for me to balance the gauge of what

I say. This modern world has far

outgrown the idle speculations,

and we run from dark to light in

and instant - not much more to

be said there.

16,373. OF MANY MATTERS

 OF MANY MATTERS

In the mornings, here, as I arise,

before others, it's very quiet. The

hallways at 5am are dim). I get 

tended to throughout the night,

with changed IV's, etc. Then, 

about 6am, (and there are things

about this do NOT like), the old

people stir. Their thankless TV's

are off by then, and long before).

I've already gotten to know the

voices by hearing. Oddball old

female chatterers, who make the

rounds waking the others up. I 

keep my own doors closed, 

since my day-one here, to keep 

out  the chatter. But these 

so-simple voices drive me 

batty. 'Good morning! What 

will you be wearing today!'

-

A gold-mine of contested sanity.

16,372. NORMAL OCCASIONS OF EXCEPTIONAL MINUTES

NORMAL OCCASIONS OF 

EXCEPTIONAL MINUTES

On the main street of town here  -

they tell me  -  there's a nice little

supermarket. It keeps to itself,

though there's no parking at all.

Which is weird. One has to find  

a spot out front, metered or not.

Another item I don't know about.

I'm sequestered in here, all the time.

-

I only hear what people say. My wife,

who enters that fray almost daily, will

always tell me what she finds. I'm all

helpless here, and finding my way by

imagined steps alone.

-

In the commingled existences of some

200 souls, there's a lot of noise sometimes,

amidst the geriatric silences : that's pretty

strange too. A resounding echo, from a

silent auditorium.

16,371. MOSTLY, EVERYONE'S GONE MAD

MOSTLY, EVERYONE'S GONE MAD

You can slide the infraction under the door,

the place where the corn flakes glide. There's 

a raven in the window staring me down. Quoth

the raven : 'You're a bore!' My, my how things

have changed.

-

This quality of mercy is not strained; I always

wondered what that meant; baby food? Strained

peaches or beets or pears. I like my spinach straight.

-

The tan dog walks by again, looking sideways at 

me as it goes. In the aboriginal night of some

dream-time circle, I'd be fearful, but not now.

I am safe in the Heaven I stand beneath.

16,370. THERE'S PLENTY TO DO

THERE'S PLENTY TO DO

Planning revenge on Putin, in a

criminal game called 'Retaliation',

is an online delight. I crush him 

under a bulldozer just for fun.

The moon comes down to drip

on him. The scandal of the century

is called 'Co-existence.'

16,369. I DON'T REALLY WISH TO WRITE

 I DON'T REALLY WISH TO WRITE

I don't really wish to write about this 

because it's not my way. Everyone meets

someone somewhere. A girlfriend? It was

so long ago. I used to walk through all

weathers to the library each night. Maybe

2 miles at most, but I don't even know that.

She and her girlfriends followed me there.

I guess we began talking, but I really don't

remember. They were all a pretty-nice bunch,

of 4. Without much to say, I just started to make

stuff up  -  being from somewhere else, stories

about my life. All of it, at 16? What a walking

funhouse-mirror jerk was I.

16,368. HOMAGE

HOMAGE

Atlas? Zeus? Thor? Aries? Any

of those folks worth messaging?

Would they even know? The dastardly

cast of eras gone my. Another Mt.

Olympus Mafia.

-

We can't contact the past unless they

already knew their own futures. That

never happened, so give it up. Ideas as

wild as lemongrass just fall down and 

wither. Here I stand, Lord, somehow yet

without you; my barren civilization

somehow fighting feast and fire, 

famine, wars and murder.

16,367. MINOTAUR

MINOTAUR

I don't know who left the door open, 

but man they let anything in these

days. There's no sense in making 

sense, just like that. I've moved

mountains before, so I guess I

can move one of these. Chattel, 

to roof shingles, is there really

any difference these days?

16,366. MARTIN BUBER

MARTIN BUBER

I'd like to leave the trees and

the forest, and the scrutiny of

others. I am tired of being looked

at up and down by empty caskets

of renown. This is a dismal world,

and one which holds nothing but 

a frugal sense of stupid juggling,

back and forth, to me.

-

Leaving the covered area vacant,

I'd like to stand aside again and 

see the wide expanse of possibility.

Be damned, these small and 

strictured things, by contrast 

now (and I, and thee, and thou).

16,365. I CAN'T IMAGINE

 I CAN'T IMAGINE

I can't imagine anything else but this, 

and if I 'can', it all comes out some

other way: Leaves that grow from 

sockets instead of trees; rivers running 

uphill, and under caverns; deer and

animals that can talk.

-

It's really too onerous for me to 

hold onto. Not creation's way, for 

one thing. The Sun, which may 

run from left to right (depending 

on where one stands), insists 

instead on east to west; how to 

make sense of that is a test. 

-

Help me, help me. I don't need 

the confusion. My hands are full

and my mind is busy.

16,364. HUNTING TO THE GLASS

HUNTING TO THE GLASS

As in a museum diorama, I can see

through to the other side of life. The

hunters with their spears stare back

at me through weeds, and there is

little beyond the marsh grass but 

murk, and a sabre-toothed tiger.

-

I have to stay crash-happy, even in 

this wreckage. Too little to say about

the ivory and the tusk.

16.363. MY SAVAGE DESPERATION

MY SAVAGE DESPERATION

The birds have gone from off the

ledge. There was supposed to be a

band, in town, somewhere today, at

the bandshell, but I heard nothing.

No matter. At noon and nine the fire

whistle blows; a sort of central

notification for a town still afraid 

from its last conflagration. Any

of that has GOT to be better than

my savage desperation.

-

At night, all night, for me, this all

turns ghoulishly wrong : my mind reels,

expanding my imagined troubles into

new and worse grotesqueries. I have 

nowhere to turn, no friends, no kin, 

here, in a place like this. The power 

is worse than the wish.

-

I'm pretty sure, for me, this is the end of

of the line. I'm scared and I'm desperate;

like in a savage way, when a glass no

longer will hold water. (And the

birds are gone from the ledge).

16,362. RUDIMENTS, pt.1.303

 RUDIMENTS, pt.1,303 

(the shakedown was in the kitchen)

I've long lived without certain things; 

items I've always disliked and avoided.

'Sweats', for example. Those loose, saggy

sack-pants that so many like to stay in, for

days at a time. Pretty gross, to me. Shorts

too. In my adult life, I've never worn shorts,

and won't. I don't like the feel of them, and

that Etonian, British boys-school thing that

goes with them, was never me. Anyway, 

back when, riding a motorcycle in shorts

just seemed a terrible travesty. 

-

I co-existed with lots of things I disliked:

schools, church, various cares and palliatives.

TV. Some music, and all those short-end of

life things that can really ruin a day. Most of 

my life was spent 'undirected'  -  I pretty

much roamed, at will, and came and went

as I chose. It was funny, in its way, because

after a few years of seminary training and

discipline, I took off like my own Huck Finn,

once all of those rigors were removed. 

Procedures and process, be damned.

- 

Good or bad, I don't really know. At home, 

my parents seemed more confused, or feared, 

of me, than anything else. Nothing was ever

instilled; advice was nil. It was a busy family,

and I just stayed away and then was gone

(again); given nothing, and taking nothing.

It was an empty, quiet, life, which I liked, and

my rigors of self-training and book-learning,

after all that had gone before, were gracious 

to me, and important to me too.

-

Nothing held much meaning to me;

holidays and celebrations without any merit.

I ignored them all  -  if I wasn't laughing

in someone's face over their 4th of July

ridicule, I was throwing a firecracker

on my way out. Demon-trouble lookalike,

but I knew my ways.

-

After a while it all appeared simple; the

family dichotomy was was : Father represented

brute force, anger. Mother represented a

soft, feminine (in those days) passivity

and some sort of drag-line by which she

has pulled along by kids, family, stove and

home. 'Too much confusion; I couldn't

get no relief'  -  to paraphrase.

-

I found out, after some time, that things

that don't start out correctly never end

correctly either - call it Destiny; call it

Fate. Your choice.