The rain is drumming on the rooftop,
tomorrow the river will flood.
The morning news spews outrage
about sewage in the Potomac,
apropos somehow.
Epstein
Iran
Tariffs
Democrats
Republicans
Jesus saves,
maybe not.
LIFE is full of memorable moments:
My brother died
my cousin died
my friend died
my classmate died~
Seconds tick by silently
as my elderly mother
waits to die.
My life is remarkably unmemorable
and that’s okay…
It's not
as if you have
a choice in the matter,
but if you leave a poem it's
enough.
I was going to add a long remix track to a playlist,
A playlist called ‘Waitin For the Bus in the Dark’,
But waitin for the bus in the dark is as tedious as it is -
Making a remix tedious alongside it wouldn’t make sense.
The remix is exciting now -
Anticipating excitement knocking on my eardrums as I wonder how the tune will change.
But next time,
If I play it too soon,
I’ll know.
I’ll just know.
Knowing keeps listening from being curious,
And makes it here we go again.
But “here we go again” are lyrics in an excellent song -
1973 by James Blunt.
Maybe I could add that with the remix to the playlist
And never know which will play first.
Maybe I could add so many songs
That twill be one unmemorable remix
That won’t all play in the time I’m waiting for the bus,
One unmemorable remix that Spotify can shuffle out of order.
The bus I’m waiting for now is too long away
To make it to my trans support group before it ends,
So I’ll make my way home
And bump into an old friend
Who must have started to find me tedious
Or forgotten about me,
Like a song on shuffle that barely plays,
Forgotten how good it is.
Nobody really likes a short-form read
a small screed about the mind-shattering infinitude of the universe
or the endless grandeur of nature - I mean not really.
We must move along, be willingly captured
by a more comprehensible minutiae.
The ordinary is the realm of the poet,
let the mystics ponder that big stuff.
For it is we who make our omelets
just a little different every time.
And do we list, label, depict, add, or subtract?
You bet we do.
Do we paint with a fine tipped brush - gush about
the normal, the humdrum, the passed-over,
the often overlooked and so typically common;
all those very ordinary unmemorable
yet essential ingredients of a small egg meal
for one?
Yes we do,
and you like it.
Three or four times a day I accidentally think about things.
I lie. Maybe a hundred times a day my ideas are accidental.
Things creep randomly into my mind, a memory of a dressing room.
A feeling that I am being watched by a snake, a smell of lemon for no reason.
Some of the blips and glimpses seem incredibly far-fetched.
They are from the Twilight Zone; unbidden, but totally here now.
Some of the glimpses I receive of totally unmemorable times.
Yesterday I thought of a person I had not seen in fifty years.
She is not a neighbor, a relative or a friend.
She was a classmate I rarely spoke to, for she was shy.
Her obituary was in the newspaper this morning.
He was a gangly kid. Ugly on the upside.
Unmemorable, until the day he died.
Suddenly, he was totally everyone’s best friend.
They try to one-up each other with “Timmy” stories.
Why do we do this? What is wrong with us?
Is it our claim to fame to know a person who is gone?
I saw him Thursday night at Tuck’s Treats. He looked sad.
We chewed watermelon gum together on Friday.
I saw Timmy a few seconds before the grizzlies dragged him off.
I heard him screaming for a long time.
I called the police, but I could not get through.
I heard they dragged him way into the woods. Uh-huh. I saw it happen.
People who would have not recognized Timmy in a lineup of
Two even after nine or ten tries suddenly are at his house,
Wailing louder than his relatives, telling Timmy stories.
Trying to one-up each other.
What is wrong with people?
Amidst the rumination of the eloquent empty lines
I sit, a stranger on a bench at the river bank
lives of the passersby are flashing glimpses in the mind's eye
from morning pancakes to midnight instagram posts
no matter how intently you would hear my words and laugh at my jokes,
tomorrow morning I am a stranger, at the break of the dawn
at the climax of exchanging numerous unmemorable words
at dusk, a stranger on a bench at the river bank I will be
No wonder I want to be estranged at a land
where my words are foreign and so mute I can be.
forgiveness, may, me, spoken word, word play, writing, game
OH FOLDERAL AND FIDDLE-DE-DEEDS! ©
Polite use in ‘words’ does astonish----
Creating a good reference when stated…..
But ‘red tape’ always ensues.
Going about ‘knotting’ a halt to its very ‘charm’----
Waylays ‘to question’ on just how ‘sincere’ is it given?
Unmemorable accounts of ‘dueling’ rallies could go on----
Jostling clashes to and fro if politeness was amiss…..
Just to come to an arranged ‘agreement’ of sorts----
Which is all that is questioned at the beginnings.
Excuse me, allow me; pardon me, if I might and forgive me---
Oh, how should I word this to ‘stream’ in a correct polite manner?
It becomes all, but a game of charades ‘with words’!
While with our ‘tongues in cheeks ’and as ‘puppeteers’---
We frequently are ‘played upon’….
To life’s folderal and fiddle-de- deeds!
With unmemorable face
and mediocre looks.
No catwalk. A shuffle her pace.
Unlikely to catch,with those plain hooks.
The mirror deceives.
Glass designed to
crack esteem.
The glorified assembly line
product,
the perception of
perfection,
your adversary.
March away from the
corner
towards that door
where destiny waits
to enter.
After all, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" - Jesus
The constant is postponed,
by the fall of a silent army;
a cold welcoming is quickly followed.
A mind interrupts the concord,
supplying a nourishment of
indescribable strangeness.
The lack of neutrality intervenes
with the up and coming flow,
inviting a rude awakening.
The future is now submerged
with an uncomfortable past,
washing away any sort of obscurity.
Completing its sole function,
it quickly strives to leave with
the unmemorable aftertaste
of the conditioned body.
I am a sidewalk.
I am new, freshly paved.
I am solid.
I attract attention,
Even if only for one unmemorable moment...
Before you step on me.
I don't pay much notice
To the footprints, the evil soles
That come solely to harm me.
To use me.
To ignore me.
I take one for the team..
I mean, I am here for safety.. right?
I am here to protect,
from cars that come speeding down the road.
I am here to help others avoid danger...
My friends.
My users.
But it hurts.
It hurts to be walked on everyday.
No one needs to thank a mundane sidewalk.. right?
But oh, they do.
I am old now.
No one can deny that I have cracks all over.
Blemishes.
I have helped so many,
Seen so many,
And I am worn.
I am sick of seeing the bottoms of your shoes.
Help me up... please?
I know I have become gray,
And weathered,
And my gravel is coming loose.
I'm damaged.
However,
Won't one pedestrian,
Just a single soul,
Take a moment of their time,
And just thank me?
Thank me
for
being
their
shield?
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