Love...like skylark's song which embraces
a miscellaneous beauty.
like daisy's whisper which hugs
a wingless grove.
Ten.
Ten years, I've been scared,
fearing the phone's ring.
Twenty.
Twenty years, I was,
learning how goodbye really felt.
Thirty.
Thirty years, I reached,
forty-four days ago.
Forty.
Forty, my brother was,
for fifty-seven days.
That's all he got...
and that feels like all for me.
I'm terrified, I'll admit.
Every knock on the door,
every surprise text or call,
every "hey" I wasn't expecting.
Each corner hides a death,
each day a loss on the table,
Russian Roulette be damned.
The calendar is loaded - play.
So don't call me strong.
I'm petrified, and I'll face the grief,
as I always have,
but I won't face you.
I'm running, without shame,
from contact, from laughter,
from making me feel.
My response, proudly, is to hide.
So call me what you will -
save strong.
That just reminds me -
that I have received no choice.
Thirty-three percent.
A third of my life -
looking over my shoulder.
Which do I run out of first -
fortitude, or friends?
The calendar is loaded...
no choice but to play.
Miscellaneous
The escargots attack,
They hide their guns
On their spiral shells,
Be careful, Giants.
You think, you think,
But you do nothing,
It’s like watching
A sailboat, set sail
Heading for the moon.
A felucca on the Nile,
A white and round veil,
The soothing under the sun
Won the whole crew.
Bacon and sausage.
Dogs and music.
Whiskey and a wife's smile.
Sometimes, surely,
it is just that simple.
Lately it has not been.
Not in life, not in fiction,
not in poetry.
One year, maybe three poems.
All about grief.
One imagined, yet real -
a son's song for a father's tale.
Two, too true and too close -
a brother to the scion, a brother to the sire.
Tributes written, loss spoken,
still silent the muse,
on all besides -
stanzas only flowing
when so too the tears.
Yet, my life ended not with theirs;
neither will I let my story.
Not my life's, not my characters',
not my verses.
Songs and stories yet remain,
so too adventure and poetry.
Amidst vowing not to forget the fallen,
I forgot those things instead.
that.
They will see my pen fly on,
for thoughts large and little,
momentous and mundane.
No peace comes from staying my hand.
So I will write, today,
of bacon and sausage.
Of dogs and music.
Of whiskey and a wife's smile.
Today, if no other,
it is just that simple.
STORM
thunder clashes
a deluge of rain follows
no birds tweeting
MARCH ON
the bugle’s first post
soldiers on parade
heavy footsteps
CIVIL WAR
guns in abundance
the clock is ticking fast
stalemate
SUSPENSE
atmospheric music
there’s a muffled scream
glass shattering
SNOWSTORM
heavy snow falling
all quiet on the outside
fire crackles
BIRDS
chirping birds
on an oak tree
in the longest day
BUTTERFLY
a common butterfly feasting on a flower
it is the last supper
times up
FATIMA
shepherd children
a vision of an angel
fact or fiction
CAT
a cat
sleeps anywhere and everywhere
not fussy
CRICKETS
silence reigns continuously
except for the crickets
chirping
FEAR
Fear
it's a picture
unfocused...
LOVE
Love,
a picture
alive
colorful...
PASSION
Passion,
it's a weapon
dangerous,
and confused...
HATRED
Hatred,
it's a fire
mortal,
infernal...
DOUBT
No doubt
it's a ticket,
unnoticed landscape...
LUCK
something simple
that easily
doesn't happen...
SONG
Song,
it is a dream
sung or
touched...
Militate on one another with great passion
the nonperson,
The fusty one.
Nothing fancy, delightful or bonvivant
Having a genteel attitude, but impassible
Vagabond. Loner. Prodigious.
Yet no blandishment.
Complicated as a merman
Porous because of mutilation
The obsequy closed with an
Elegy
Rigmarole. Rigmarole.
Not the booby hatch which
hosts may
The railroad tied on knots.
Big as an intrusive blunt forced
object
The copulation of blood and oxygen
Wins over the slightly manipulated mind.
From inside, out
Hapless haploids creating the uselessness of existence
Making, permanently each place
devoured
Feeling the blades and molar impressions piercing through each layer.
Miscellaneous 4
Striking a Balance
Only 5% of the people like their jobs and live to work,
while the other 95% hate their jobs and work to live.
Tom
I consider myself to be a likable person,
otherwise I wouldn't enjoy my own company.
Tom
God, Sees What I Don't
The areas of my life where I have expertise,
God has chosen not to involve me.
Tom
Backsliders are like pigs; no sooner does God clean them up,
until they return to their wallow.
Tom
While all may seek forgiveness,
not all are enthused by the idea of payment in kind.
Tom
An excuse seeks to exonerate by justification,
reason provides an intellectual basis for the action in question.
Tom
As a kid, I thought Hickory trees,
were so named for the hickory switch.
Tom
Child abuse inflicts wounds that sutures cannot close.
Tom
1/8/04
Miscellaneous 2
By Tom
All About Answers
When I ask the right question to the wrong person
I’m usually answered with a stare.
Take Note
The longer your question, the shorter my answer becomes.
Correct Answers
I believe all my answers to be correct,
but many of the questions I take out of context.
Problems
The preponderance of a problem
has a psychological influence over my solution.
Defeat
The problem that I allow to defeat me today,
Will continue to stand before me tomorrow.
I accept not defeat, and rarely take prisoners.
At times our reaction is less desirable,
than the action that gave it birth.
Opinions
Your two cents worth may have great value to some
but to me it’s worth exactly two cents.
For the man whose mistakes are foreign
I give the right to criticize me.
We never take criticism, It’s always freely given
Birth gives you life,
environment determines its quality.
Miscellaneous Tidbits
By Tom
Stupidity
A trait for which medical science has found no cure.
Full of Dregs
Ever look at a drop of water under a microscope?
I imagine our lives appear much the same in God’s eye.
A Pancake’s Two Sides
One thing worse than never having enough,
is never having any.
Call It Individuality
Just as there are opposite sides to each coin,
There also are opposing views to your every idea.
Intelligence Bests Speed
Leading the pack isn’t necessarily being faster than the other dogs,
Sometimes it’s knowing where the shortcuts are!
There are two ways of doing every task,
The way you prefer it, and the way you get it.
More people are fleeced through inattention,
than by their lack of knowledge.
You may criticize the results,
But you have to praise my effort.
The source that has grub staked me to life,
will one day declare my note is due.
Then our debt will either be marked “paid in full”
or “weighed in the balance and found wanting”
I fail in getting the desired answer,
because most times I’m asking the wrong question.
The stars call upon my eyes
and in them I find choice.
They bid me gaze,
they bid me hearken,
and in their diary of days
I espy pages a mind to darken.
A friend taken from afar,
another lost from next door,
each one their own scar
on flesh keeping sorrow's score.
They bid me glance,
they bid me stare,
and in their distant dance
I glimpse a future fair.
A wife by my side,
a drink in our glasses,
on a porch my hands supplied
as a sprightly storm passes.
Do I stumble when the shadows come
and stay down, picking at those scars?
Or do I dream of joy yet unknown
and stand, walking toward that porch?
The stars call upon my choice
and in that I find my eyes.
Tonight you step outside.
Out where the fireflies alight
on unseen eddies of air;
out to where the stars lend their light
and a breeze caresses your hair.
You sit on the step and you wonder
how a time so dark ever seems so bright;
you drift in reverie and you ponder
just where our souls go at night.
Not while your dreams take flight
behind eyes closed and blankets warm;
but while your sleep loses the fight
to the muse's ceaseless storm.
Where do our spirits flee to
when the sun is long out of sight;
why does rumination find its cue
after most have said goodnight?
Why does this hour make thoughts unite
and scrutiny of life reach full speed;
why is it so much easier to feel and write
when the moon from its daily chains is freed?
A ship in a dip is a duplicate of a massive six ton truck echoing at nine miles an hour in a tunnel. Oh traffic rather stoic today. But trafficking is often great fun for gerbils weighing in at over eighty pounds. £ % £ % waffling. Waffles and lots of cream. Iced curves in mazes. Vast tunnels of elephants then. Played with a big shrew in a big field. How great the ears of a geological gelding reading an encyclopedia in reading glasses. The small antique table. Steady hands are hooves. Freezing is the device of a used tabletop tablet score. Wisdom is neither obtained from a scientific sheet or a statistic paper. Lust lusting laughing leering leaning longitudinal leftovers. And a very smiley face of a bin. Bean beaming braking branching. Hahahaha and now a big wave waving. Hahahaha and a minnow. Xxxx jeopardisation. Xxxx palaeontology z
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