In 100 Years

wake work worry sleep
wake work worry sleep
this is the schedule that I keep
wake and work and worry and sleep

and I'll wake and I'll work and I'll worry and I'll sleep
until age takes the means to earn my keep
then I'll just wake and worry and sleep
wake and worry and sleep...

wake worry sleep
wake worry sleep
that is the way
I will pass each day
until age takes my reason away
and I have nothing left to say
so I'll wake and I'll sleep
and wake and sleep...

wake and sleep
wake and sleep
this is all that will be left of me
in a decade or maybe three
all I am will be something I used to be
until time plays its final tick for me
and then I'll sleep

sleep

sleep...

An Imperfect Life

Stopped at a light on a cold day in fall
I think over my life, what brought me here.
It's now that I see that I lost it all
and my face is crossed by a single tear.

What happened to all that used to be me?
All I was, everything, has slipped away
like small ships in a sudden storm at sea
and I am alone on this autumn day.

I'd try to gather it all back again
but cold winds blow and the branches are bare.
I don't think there'll ever be a time when
there's another place called home and I'm there.

Now the light has changed - I can't stop for long
so I step down on the gas and move on.

Next Year

Next year...

we always say next year
year after year
until...

next year is here.

And now our lives are measured

in months

in weeks

in days

hour by hour

second by second

until that final moment
when our eyes fly open
shocked at all we didn't do

...next year.

The Radio

I like to have the radio on while I cook.

It is comforting, like the voice of an old friend whispering in my ear,
telling me a new joke or the latest gossip
while I stir the pot and taste the sauce.

It does not intrude -
The radio does not demand I look at it
or write a reply back.
It just keeps talking, humming a tune
that makes me listen while I read the recipe.

And when I sit and eat my meal
the radio fills the quiet
while I fill my mouth, unable to speak.

I thought I'd offer the radio a taste,
ask it if it wanted some of what I had made
but just then it started taking about a diet
and I knew what its answer would be.

The Whippoorwill's Call

Evening has really just now begun.
I hear the haunting calls of whippoorwills
boasting that they have found another one
as the setting sun slides behind the hills.

But there's still time to dream before the night.
The whippoorwill will call another time.
Before it takes off on its homeward flight,
there's time still to think of another rhyme.

And when the whippoorwill calls out for me
then I'll put down my paper and my pen.
I'll grab my hat, lock the door, leave the key
and answer the whippoorwill with amen.

Someday, I will answer the whippoorwill -
when my eyes are closed and my pen is still.

Message Status

i want to say u it's so nice to meet you
u are so nice, dear
What an absoultely HUGE day!

What can you accomplish in the next two years?
Committed relationship
What real men do

Be better than all men!

I hope for reciprocity

She who seeks adventure

(The above is composed entirely of subject lines from emails in my spam folder.  Each line, including the title, is an actual subject line from my inbox. This is what is called untreated "Found Poetry"):

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_poetry

Five Minutes

Why would five minutes do
when I want to spend forever with you?
Why would a passing glance satisfy me
when I want your face to be the last thing I see?

Why should I be satisfied with sips
when I want to drink deeply of your lips?
Why should I be happy with a simple touch
when my heart beats for you so very much?

I want forever, right here, right now,
and one day we will have that somehow.
But if a moment is now all I can get,
if a glimpse is all that time will let
me have of you...

then - for now - that will do.

Five minutes will have to do.

Flight

I sat and watched a butterfly
over the grass, among the blooms
and suddenly I wanted too to fly
over the fears, above the gloom.

Unlike him, I have no wings
just sunburn and rough skin
on my back; no gossamer things
that might lift and bring me in
to that world free of worries
where he delicately floats by.

In his lazy way he never hurries
he just wanders carelessly in the sky.

A Summer Haiku

Wild Summer rains
beat hard on the window panes -
I won't let them in.

The Girl

She moved with grace like Eve among the trees,
in her world without sin, without shame and guilt
before the serpent brought man to his knees
before the first altar had ever been built.

Her face was filled with the purest smile,
a radiant, rapturous sign of joy
without pretense, without thought, without guile -
only her innocence could call it coy.

She closed her eyes as the sun kissed her face
and spread her arms to welcome morning's rays.
She sighed as she felt the world's warm embrace,
seeing at last the folly of man's ways.

Oh, how did we ever come to believe
that there was sin in the nature of Eve?

The Dark Side

There is, I agree, a dark side to me
that likes to come and talk and drink some tea.
We discuss life, love and futility.

He is a wicked whisperer of doubt
usually rushing to let it all out,
speaking at times with a passionate shout.

Then he grabs his hat and is on his way
and knowing he'll be back again some day
leaves me wondering what he didn't say.

What new surprises will he have in store
the next time he shows up at my door?
I'm not sure that I can take many more...

Being human, this is as it should be -
there is and will be a dark side to me.

The Woods in Winter

When a gray cloud of confusion hovers
over the life that I have made for me
I know that a quiet calmness covers
the woods in winter where I long to be.

When my peace of mind's lost and not yet found
and my own company I cannot keep
that is when I know that I should be bound
to the woods in winter where the trees sleep.

When the crumpled paper's piled too high
then I'll push back from my desk and I'll go
to the most quiet place beneath the sky -
the woods in winter, covered deep in snow.

When it's peace and quiet I need to find
the woods in winter calm my troubled mind.