His heart is with me,
but his eyes
gazing out the window
into a world all his own
lost in his
own happiness
flight time again, west bound
as dharma trails unfold ahead
trek trek treking
hitching and hiking through
fields of green and gold
and down black highways, byways,
and taking me to Old San Fran
across the land alone
alive ablaze
nightfall finds me lying
under the dancing stars
under that one o’clock moon
dreaming of the days of
wine and Kerouac
they are upon us once again
then as day breaks
forging forward I go
onward toward the bright lights
night lights of red and blue
the flashing neon city is alive
arriving at last
feet fat, tired and aching
as Jack’s ghost comes to my
side, whispers
“I’ve been here before”
and as my journey ends
I realize it is only
just the beginning
Misty oblivious haze
Rainforest appear to laze
Danger veiled by your daze
Lurking in lethal shadows
The sun long set
The sun's feet burried yet
In the dense canopy threat
Blind to the rumbling silhouette
Tranquil leviathan lake
Ripples soothed the ache
Tranced yet awake
Mist matched mind
Growl from behind
Tore trance from mind
Hazel orbs in fear
As the historic terror nears
on the shore
shells dance spin to implore
toy tops pirouetting in sea foam
tiny ballerinas twirling for me alone
as I splash in the shallows on the walks I roam
to enjoy the warmth of summer's blaze
on beach side holidays
laze daze faze
Where in night, down in day
Clutching one's clay clogged face
Dilly-dallying ditzy dances
Dull, dampened waltz swimming with a drunken sway
Methodical movement of the ditz's drunken daze
Dazed dolphins dance down gutteral gin and toneless tonic omissions
Wringing ring wrung fingers, for the ditz's sherry glass gaze
Caught crooning whispers within the careless candid spotlight
Spickle spittle dawned the dolphin's dance, dominance'n drivel
Deigned to sway within a drug infused haze.
Spluttering with the need of stitches, as burly bone ingrowths
Dappered the damper desolate surface
To drag the ditz's measly hip dips, from the four-lipped, two-tipped,
Derailing and de-tailing,
dolphin intrusion.
7//10//2025
Mental health days.
Aren’t days off.
Just like a construction worker.
Wears his helmet in his sleep.
Mental health days.
Don’t come easy.
Hurts as they dig around.
But the root exists everywhere in every dimension.
Like a blueberry.
Well rounded.
We eat it.
It’s just calories in a haze now.
Mental health days don’t really exist.
They get eaten into nothingness.
And they hurt.
Like everything I’ve done so far.
Mental health days.
Are whispery, and challenging.
Navigating around them.
Like I’m in a construction zone.
Mental health days.
Are just like empty calories.
We count them but it means nothing.
Floating around ideas.
They aren’t days off.
I eat them and they hurt.
The root exists in every dimension.
I counted them all.
The construction zone stays put.
Even when it rains and no one is working.
It continues on.
They aren’t days off.
* The jittery boy holds his mother’s hand *
A world of books and pictures, every time
The room full of kids made the strangest sound
He hopes he can be brave and understand
He hears the teacher’s voice that’s soft and fine
His feet go pitter-patter on new ground
A new friend’s face appears, a little smile
The first-day feelings slowly turned around
Now new adventures fill his eager mind
If he gets lost, he waits for a short while
~*~ till found ~*~
When I recalled my college days
spent mainly in a drunken haze
Invariably I’d wonder why
job posts read ~ ‘Degree required’
On Kensington Avenue, many lose their souls
Drugs have consumed them, and they've lost control
They are walking like zombies in search of a high
They need one more 'hit' just to get by
They seem to have passed the point of no return
All hope seems lost, and their bridges burned
They stay in a daze, under the drug's spell
All that remains is just a shell
It's an American city, yet it looks like the third world
As the devastating effects of addiction before us unfurl
Tears may be shed as the scene takes its toll
On Kensington Avenue, where many lose their souls
Trump is maintaining a frenetic pace
leaving the world in a daze
I don’t agree with everything he’s done
but I fully support the need to do it
White powder is softly falling out there,
And the temperature is getting low,
But I, in my soft fleece, am warm in here.
I hear the sound of those having a scare,
As they slide down their driveways even though,
White powder is softly falling out there.
Cars and trucks are still wrecking everywhere,
For no one knows how to drive in the snow.
But I, in my soft fleece, am warm in here.
The FedEx truck has crashed right over there,
And people rush to the stores even though,
White powder is softly falling out there.
Cars are sliding ‘round and drivers despair.
They call the garage to give them a tow.
But I, in my soft fleece, am warm in here.
Everywhere there is yelling in the air
As chaos comes with the covering snow.
White powder is softly falling out there,
But I, in my soft fleece, am warm in here.
Dies, where did time go?
Lies, when I’d wrinkle slow.
Lids of eyes, crow's feet stomp.
Lads look away, see no pomp.
Lady, your silver hair is dyed.
Lazy joints take me for a ride.
Hazy is my history and mind.
Haze of clarity - need to rewind.
Maze of the season - nevermind.
Daze of bright ages, realigned.
Dame hears “Ho! Ho!,” fine silver bell,
Fame of Christ child, where all is well.
'Tis off to the races now that homeschooling has ended.
One half earns for their subsistency,
other half learns about delinquency.
Be they friends and their best efforts were suspended.
Tale spring muses as the anticipant's
appraised specifies traditional hopes
load stages standard addictive transplants
secured cognitive lodestar prolonged copes.
Missteps venture the wide-eyed sneeze, and runny nose
a caption reads, "This be the Time.", gone are
the reporting authors, counting those
to acknowledge them, minus their star.
Bloom's wilt and hues fade know not the hour caused,
advents trending acquisitions neglect closure
but fail to end the brotherhood of friends exposure.
halls went silent the schoolyard empty, turned men paused.
Townie corner boys
(a synonym for a**holes)
won't leave me alone...
bully me, hit me, hurt me,
leave me there filled with...relief
Each day at boys school
I am told I don't belong...
(I'm not an athlete)
so I am treated with scorn
by my peers AND my teachers
"You are retarded!"
Can't tell you how many times
I heard that insult
(my own academic prowess
be damned, be cursed, be ignored)
And so I’m searching,
always searching for something
I can be good at;
and, please Lord, if I can find it,
maybe the contempt will pass
Years - decades - later
a former tormentor calls;
"A school reunion!
Won't you come? Will you join us?"
But the memories still haunt
‘the sole surviving minnow floats
recipe-laden toward the NGO* shark’
~ edie-bidi chili-bidi
Please write a 300-word
essay on the prize-winning
poem above. You may select
one of the topics below:
“The Role of Dietary Laws
in Water-Based Poetry”
or
“Cultural Mores in the Face of
Soluble Uncertainty”
or
“Psycholinguistic Advantages for
Poets of Double-hyphenated Names”
Please place your
smart-phones
in the box on my
desk… and begin!
*NGO = 'Non-Government Organism'
Good luck, class!
(You'll need it).
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