Remember me, why
not; weary am I
in the process of
splinters, of fractures,
of the glass.
Like a Picasso,
I’m admired through
fractals. Remember
my kindness,
absentmindlessness,
my madness.
Yes, my madness,
when I
clean the house,
(You must not touch
my lips, nor feathers)
when I am furiously
flipping knives,
cutting pieces of me
in the dark.
Remember me,
I speak quietly,
(your ear is hot
to the touch, wet
with whispers,
pangs of pleasure.)
I have many voices,
so many choices,
my lot in life.
(Roulette wheel
deciding my future,
if I did not believe
in God)
But I do; remember
me for my imperfect
compassion, the cracks
in my heart, how
I explode. A firecracker
that makes you laugh,
tickles your funny bone,
keeps you breathless,
finds your keys.
Remember how I awaken
under your eyes,
especially when they’re shut.
We are in a storm,
sometimes the umbrella’s jammed,
upside-down, flying off, but
in the end it protects
who we are as man and wife.
Remember me, more
than a wife, mother, child;
remember a friend, a fractal,
a conceived idea, a hope
of the future.
The round table spins,
all is a roulette wheel,
now I am the favored Knight.
Yesterday I was the least,
children made sport of me,
scrawny curs snapped at my heels.
The King's favor is fickle.
The Queen shades her eyes,
her demure down cast mien
a façade, a veil beneath which
simmers a flame we both have ignited.
Today I ride ahead of the throng,
my banner tall and straight.
Tomorrow is uncertain
the table will turn again,
for what can be, may not happen,
and what may happen never be,
better to let the world spin on,
for even kings and queens know
that any gambit is just another
uncertain gamble.
This gamming table
goes around,
and just where your feet
touch firm ground
or slip
none may predict.
yet the
Autumn leaves are
still falling from
the naked trees
like a deck of
falling cards from
the magical hands
of the casino card dealer
flushing out
kings and queens
aces and spades
from the looking-glass mirror
are the frightened faces of
The Joker dancing
through the wind parade
until the next card shuffle
is played and somehow
we can only see
the broad flashes of light
red blue green
and a little bit of indigo
in between the gigantic
spinning roulette wheel
and behold the
synchronous flight of starlings
across the autumn blue sky
A pondering thought I'm trying hard to conceal.
Thoughts roll around the rim of my mind's roulette wheel.
Do I gamble on love or risk losing it all?
Is it red? Is it black? I'm unsure what to call?
The stakes they feel high in this game that we play.
Thoughts rolled like a dice. Do I let it all slip away?
But the wheel it keeps spinning, thoughts chasing the light.
Caught between courage and fear, Am I wrong to be right?
What if the wheel spins wildly and it lands on my heart?
Could joy bloom from surrender or just tear us apart?
As I stand at this junction at a crossroads of choice,
I look for words to inspire from love's whispering voice.
If I wager on love and give all that, I own.
Will fortune favour the brave, or just leave me alone?
Should I live for a moment? I can't put into words?
As I ponder this question, with thoughts kept in reserve.
So, I ponder these thoughts as I take one more spin,
As love is a mystery that we seek from within.
If you stumble in life, make it part of your dance.
It's just a pondering thought. Let's give love a chance.
A Cowboy And His Thoughts On Dodge City
In the razor whip and faster gun
the flaming sun, the fertile fields
the rose-felt day
I walked alone
along the barren street
beneath bramble shields
A heart that swore to the purest truth
the eager thrills of wayward youth
With stripped heart allayed
steps taken and no holds barred
through soggy marsh
and burnt out corn
the west stands its ground
from eastern ridge and western sky
my horse knows well the way
six-guns speak,
roulette wheel creaks
the cowboys force their way
O' please, be thee still
as men attempt to force their will
and looks like no rain today
we wait for dusk and night
death be the greater fright
the dead buried at Boot Hill.
Robert J. Lindley, Aug, 10th 1972
Note- One of the greatest themes in movies is the Western and the cowboy.
Rawhide, Wyatt Earp, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and others all preached the moral theme of fair play and law and order. Think what theme movies teach today! Certainly not that, imho. RJL
A passing tram
and people
on Sunday morning walks
provide the pretext
of direction and give
a vague, comforting hope
that movement
has a purpose.
But the hard stuff
has a fuzzy core.
A ghostly roulette wheel
of what could be
makes the morning
ride the vagaries
of a spinning ball.
Yet all is anchored,
somehow,
to this lovely illusion
of a cafe table
on which there is
an arrangement
of perfumed flowers,
two cups of coffee,
two warm croissants
and you and me.
I feel like Archimedes building calculus from scratch;
Got a lever I can lean on, but the fulcrum doesn’t match.
You’ll find them on the scoreboard
And every roulette wheel.
They help you cheat at blackjack
By sweetening the deal.
I feel like Isaac Newton making gravity a game,
Setting poetry in motion, riding Kepler’s horse to fame.
They figure into interest rates
to calculate the yield,
And help the fans identify
The players on the field.
I feel like Alan Turing cracking codes at Bletchley Park,
Decrypting the enigma of injustice in the dark.
They calculate the census,
And quantify amounts.
They’re handy for those vultures
Who tally body counts.
I feel like when Bob Seeger sang of bad arithmetic,
And rocked his Silver Bullet Band in Hindu Arabic.
They give a helpful estimate
Of what we’ll have to pay.
Just amortize your mortgage rate
And wait for Judgement Day.
Try not to get caught in a sooty coal scuttle
Or trying to rip off your local cross-town shuttle,
Be especially careful to remove your shoes
Before getting into your best friend’s canoes.
Never talk out of turn in a dim lecture hall
Or declare your intentions right after a fall,
Nothing is so special as finding a gum wrapper
Or spending an afternoon with a Twenties’ flapper.
Pay extra attention to your barbershop’s rules
Lest you be clipped bald with his rusty tools,
Take notice of the colors on the roulette wheel
Better to take a first-base than a third-base steal.
Last, but not least, remember to remove your hat
Before jumping into a pool all covered in fat,
Should you forget, don’t hang around taking blame
For you may be the first one to go up in a flame!
written August 11, 2021
Don't know why, their is a hue and cry, people to anxious and worry to much, and in the process, forget how to touch. After all, their God, and Mother Nature can be anywhere, anytime, checking for dirty underwear. It's always been an absolute, and will never change, sooner, or later, one or both will come for us, just a matter of when, they give the roulette wheel their personal spin. So my advice to the bird watcher's out there, look at tomorrow with nary a care. Chill be yourself, make a mark, whether your favorite family is a finch or a lark. Just don't double park, and advice of friends heed, when under a camera's watchful eye don't speed. Getting to the open spaces, where wildlife can show you it's paces.
Craziest time in virulent living
when protest is black and white to erase
invisibility
when fueled rage overtakes urban pockets of beauty
when the ash from smoking crater anger sears
public spaces
or an insurrection unachors reason
Shifting focus from a virus, hot iron of deep confusion
Pandemic cruelty to the unprotected masses
Indelible marks of worry
Frayed threads of crazy in trenches of stand off
A nightly-news world reduced to sound bites
Are we on the right side of change?
A turnstile that thuds constraints and fury
Hard scrabble life, a gnarly tale
No sleeping bag comfort
in living, oxygen thin
with nothing left to conceal
Hope sustained in the roulette wheel of history
that breakdown is temporal
that an impasse will give voice to the suffering
that things strained heal
Even the iron-cold ground boasts transformation.
Poem revised: October 9, 2021
So many- gone before us these past years-
dear friends and family have left our side,
to whom we said goodbye with heartfelt tears.
We shared such joyful times with kin and peers,
through ages when no worries were implied;
so many- gone before us these past years.
Yet, time does not stand still, but leaps and veers
in ways, we never dreamed it would decide
to whom we said goodbye with heartfelt tears.
So like a roulette wheel, age chooses, blears
those sick and weak we hug at their bedside;
so many- gone before us these past years.
With those now left, we share, from yesteryears,
good memories of those held dear inside-
to whom we said goodbye with heartfelt tears.
And now, we hold hands tight and hide our fears-
which one of us will join them on death's ride.
So many- gone before us these past years-
to whom we said goodbye with heartfelt tears.
Neural toxin transmission ...
duel exhaust verbal emission
Cold hearted con-fusion engine,
fisticuff fuel injection tension
Hope asphyxiation accelerator ...
bad brakes, karma crash creator
Metal lip kill switch —
femme fatale depart spark ignition
Speed dial turbo eraser itch,
carbon monoxide vapor condition
Poisonous rearview speak,
foul vow peek under a cobra hood
Leather tongue con-vertible,
gaslight soul with the crooked bosom gear stitch
Methane mood reverse reek;
silver chrome clutch fingers, so roulette wheel no-good
Neutral tone shift ... cruise control hostile:
Death dealing driver heart hot-wired to a kill switch
Years of weary travel, sojourn soon to end
the time passed unseen, in elixir of youth.
Now sunset awaits, a shadow to descend
faded twilight greets, the inevitable truth.
Diminuendo of some whistling songbirds
vanish somewhere inside hearing aids.
Arthritis and denture, with forgetful words
bifocals now see, only butlers and maids.
Snow of winter has to melt in heat of sun
leaves of autumn, once brown they wither.
Rings on trunk of trees, counted one by one
bygone days.. can't they again be together?
In the last casino game, no one will ever win
Roulette wheel will stop, no one knows when.
Debris File of Life deleting to Recycle Bin,
An estuary flows... to Death, in final Amen.
Dated 5th June 2019
Sponsor Emile Pinet
A contest on aging
What’s the color of forced migration pain?
Ask a black person in America,
and you’ll get fifty different slave answers
What’s the silent sound of invisible chains?
Fifty killahurts of black ...
Aryan brotherhood iron swastikas uniting
What’s the latest “pull the trigger” hate spin?
Fifty states of fascist terror —
Goshen ghettos under daily thought policing
Who got their Klan thumbs
pressing heavy on the justice scales?
Increasing the widow population of the cemetery cells
Who got their hooded hands
casino slot turning the roulette wheel?
Decreasing the charitable portion of the orphan meals
America’s moral debts are in the red
Haughty heifer blame your mounting troubles
on the poor black scapegoats instead
Fifty shades of dark overcast gloom
hanging over the branches of the oak tree
Liberty got locked in a buried room
waiting for captivity’s end to be set free
Fifty shades of rejection in vessels of doom
Thirteen colonies
of spotted lepers will be coming home soon
Fifty shades of black ...
let the moon eclipse the sun
Fifty shades of stars ...
let the striped prisoners run
Gods Rubik cube, twisted and turned
All combinations tried and failed
The wrong jigsaw piece that fits in no gap
The red number on a roulette wheel of black
The joke no one gets in embarrassed silence
The fly in the ointment,
The pea in your beans
Inside myself i don't talk but i scream
The words that change what we know
The clown of reality
The king of no land, the god with no soul
The man who is destined to turn into sand.
With all of you we walk hand in hand.
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