Days of Went

While others ponder, frown and squint
I wonder  where, the days of went
Of bare-foot toes and soiled clay
Of corn stalks high and alfalfa hay
Rolled in grass with Sheppard pup
Drank from the well of the windmill’s cup
When I stood fast , refused to talk
And stood my ground on Mounting Rock

Worn ripped shirt and patched blue pants
Mush, cold eggs or pancakes – can’t
Brother, sisters many fed
climbed board ladder to their bed
That’s all there was , there was no more
In a sawed board house with linoleum floor
But our 5 foot 2, our Mother Nurse
Saved us all from that poor-house curse.

E.

Peanut Butter

04:17 AM, dark, quiet, only the glow of the laptop illuminates my fingers as I write. My eyes sting and water, from the contrast light and tears roll down my cheeks. Removing my glasses helps a little but the eye strain of tired eyes may force me to lean to the side of the couch, shut them and catch a few moments of rest. Sleep, glorious sleep, I’ve forgotten how.  How can a man forget how to sleep peacefully. How can he put aside the previous day and stop planning the next. How fast can the mind run from one subject to the next , retracing what he has done and placing in order  all the things that need done the next day. Hell, the next week, the next month, the next year. When did sleep turn into only rest?

04:33 AM, I’m reminiscing  about the year spent in Colorado, re-drove the trip I took to Seneca, KS yesterday, every turn, every road, every quick stop that I had passed. The medium black coffee I picked up at the drive through cost $1.07. Gas was $2.08.9. The date …..the 21st. Sun straight out of the east, Equinox is tomorrow, wait Equinox is  today. The street light is intermittently turning on and off. Why is my mind racing? Why do I feel so alive?

04:43AM It is so quiet, my mind is producing its own sounds . Man can not stand total quiet. Try it the next time you find yourself without the surrounding noises of life and the world around you. You must wait until after midnight, usually by 3:00AM most noise stops in my area.  But the next time you are left with no outside noise, listen , not hard just listen, you may hear yourself, your stomach growls, your heart beat, your breath. You may even hear what I call your mind sounds, listen, there may be squeaks, pops, level tones or hums.. Your mind makes them because it is not getting any outside stimuli . When you are going deaf, your mind makes up for the loss by making its own noise and perhaps mourns the loss of  it..  But if you are hearing voices……. well, we all know what that means.

04:56 AM   Maybe if I would just listen to some music.

05:07 AM Enough with the music… why is it OK to get stuck with and hear repeated music in your mind but it is a sign of craziness to hear voices? Hummm, I’ll have to look that one up.

05:12 Well, time for coffee, toast and jelly today or toast and peanut butter?  Peanut butter.

 

 

 

My Piece of Joy Pie.

I’m not sure what is going on out there. It may be the weather. It may be this dumb founded election season or maybe it’s just life, the way things are. Hell, for all I know it may be frickin’ magic.

We are born, we grow up, we get married, we have kids, land that job that can support the whole clan, move to a location because that’s where the job is, not particularly where you wanted to settle but it will do, the kids get through school, they marry, have our grandkids and the cycle continues with them.

In between, we mow our lawns, wash our cars, go to weddings, school graduations, buy insurance, move a couple of times, change jobs, lose jobs, get sick, go to hospitals, get well, have hobbies, make friends, lose friends, go to funerals of friends and parents and grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters. Life then no life.

We try to laugh as much as we can, even though there’s not really that much to laugh about. So we tell jokes, pull pranks on one another, laugh at how people look, dress, walk and talk. We are constantly looking for something or someone to laugh at. That’s why sports, television and the internet ( or what ever else that you get a few jollies from) were invented, we needed to find laughter and joy in what otherwise would be a pretty dull, hum-drum, hard existence.

What can I say, it’s life. We need food and shelter and clothes on our backs in the hemisphere that I’ve landed on. There is no way around it. But we need that one other thing, just as much as we need water to drink , food to eat or shelter to keep us warm, we need joy. Just a couple of moments of joy each day or month or sometime in our life. Just something that happened or something we saw or read or noticed or someone we talked to that we can look back on and say, “You know what? I had fun that day”.

When I was a confused teenager and was feeling down on some old lonely Wednesday night, a stick of Juicy Fruit gum and an 8 oz. bottle of Coke was enough joy to keep me going for the rest of the week, I still search for those props. It doesn’t take much and a little joy can go a long ways. Every once in a while, we need to find that piece of joy, that one little piece out of life’s joy pie. It’s there, it may be hard to find, don’t expect it to be big, it will probably be very little. But you need just a tad. Search for it, just like we search in the refrigerator for that last piece of dessert, roast beef or left-over chili. Open those doors and peek around every old bottle of mustard and ketchup, keep looking, it’s there. Hell, it’s fun just looking for it, that piece of joy.

Such is the life of John

 

For Lack of Anything Else, The Dog Days

Well, the Dog Days have got me. I’m taking a few days from work and maybe I will write a little. Until the inspiration hits me or my muse slaps my lazy face and throws out a juicy bone that I must gnaw on and hopefully it has enough meat on  it to give me a few paragraphs, I will have to settle on a re-blog of a piece I posted a couple of years ago.  I think there are still a few billion people who haven’t read it yet.

Really, I’m trying, I really am. It’s the Dog Days for gods’ sake, I have about 30 drafts started but so far I’ve got nothing. Nothin’ I tell ya! This will have to do for now. OK, I may add a picture or something.

The kid and his pet chicken.

Dog Days
1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere
2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity

The Dog Days of Summer. That’s where we are in time and space, the Dog Days. In my space and at my latitude the corn is just starting to naturally dry. Kids are walking to school again, some enthusiastically, some more reluctantly. The drone of the air conditioner is still common, continuous and mostly unnoticed. The morning rains are light and the winds are southern. Weather only reaches boiling point in late afternoon when the sun, the breeze and what little moisture in the air mix into a concoction of violent storms. Then afterwards turns into sultry heat before the sun starts to go down.

Summer projects should now be well underway and reaching completion, certainly if not started by now they will soon be kicked out of the schedule, whether it’s for new pavement, back porch or swimming pool. I get the sense of winding down, although I’m as busy now as anytime of the year. But the sense of having finally settled into the year is dominant and the realization that we, with just a little more luck, have probably made it through another 12 months. People have just learned to slow down and tolerate the heat but must soon ramp up and prepare for the hustle and bustle of school activities. Those with and without children are thinking about what fall will bring and are instinctively musing of exchanging mower for rake and later snow shovel. The smart ones are preparing for winter. If we were squirrels, we would be starting to work at a feverish pace.

Such is the life of John

Inland Seagull

This week in the life of John ( as if anyone gives a damn)

The last couple weeks I have been to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Illinois  and of course the Ol’faithful and backward Kansas.

I’m noticing a trend, I have reached an age where young clerks and waitresses are calling me “Hon” ,”Honey”, “Darlin” or “Sweetheart”. It strikes me in a bad way whenever I am called any of “those names”. I feel it is condescending, sort of being familiar. I don’t mind being called Sir. But man if you knew me, I ain’t no Honey, Hon or Sweetheart. It happened to me three times in three different states this week. I think it may become a trend in the service industry.  I can stand it and say nothing, I may just give them a puzzled look when they call me that. I don’t think I look that old to be called a name usually reserved for older gentlemen in open back gowns residing in hospital rooms or nursing homes that may need a sympathetic word or two to soothe their physical or mental pain.  I can remain silent when I am called that, but OC, if he notices it, he comes out and goes a little ape-shit wild.

It was Colorado, an airport that I’m sure hundreds of thousands of travelers pass through each day. All walks of life are seen there. I waited in line to pay for my purchase and paid close attention to what the girl clerk was calling the customers. Overwhelming nothing, not one of “those names”. Tens of people waited on, not one “name”. I step up to the cash register and maybe took a little longer than the others to count out my change, but not more than a second or two, and it came “Thank you Honnnn”,  and a weak smile.  I felt puzzled by it, but OC took over… and asks “What did you call me? ” and she sort of smiled and says “Honey”. And OC says ” Thank you Baby, and you smell good and have very nice Tits” .

I , of course was appalled and turned to quickly leave. The older gentleman waiting directly behind me was laughing his ass off and said “Right on Brother!!” He and OC traded fist bumps. Maybe that will become a trend.

Such is the life of John

(OC reappeared about a year ago. To learn more about my other alter-egos , go to my About page)

Heavy Metal

Beneath the soft stretched fabrics
are the hard bodies of youth’s firm human frame,
Judged by fast changing clocks
and watchers and lovers of perfect style and form.
They win or lose by hundredths of seconds
or fractions of subjective points.
On podiums they bow their heads with broad white smiles and joyful tears
To begin wearing medals as heavy as the egos of their national anthems.
And to be known forever as having the heart of an Olympian.

DSS

Friday for Saturday

Well today is Friday! How many years have I lived for Friday?

While I was a child, too young to work or for school, I even looked forward to Fridays. Many things happened on that day. If Dad was working away that week, he would be arriving late that night from his trip home. There was an air of anticipation in the house. My older siblings who were in school would be energized too. It was the end of the week, no school tomorrow. We all looked forward to the coming Saturday. Saturday was a wonderful day for us all.

 You see I lived in the day when Saturday was the day to “go to town”. Everyone went “to town” on Saturday. We lived on a farm, went to country school, and it was many miles “to town”. You just didn’t “go to town” on a whim. After all, it was seven miles of gravel roads to travel. So the weeks seemed long.

Most business evidently was conducted then, on Saturdays, I didn’t know what but I felt it in the air. Major decisions and transactions were done on that day.  Groceries were bought, any other needed supplies from chicken feed to coal deliveries were arranged for. If it was Spring, you may even be sharing the back seat of the car with a cardboard crate full of peeping baby chicks that we picked up at the hatchery. Saturdays were what we were excited about on Friday.

Today, this Friday, it is me working away and I’m planning my escape for home. I also will arrive late tonight as my father did. I feel the anticipation he must have felt. I hope there is excitement in the house looking forward to my arrival. Our Saturday has no particular plans but the possibilities are endless, we may even “go to town”.

E.

Swiftly Alone

The coming and going of the ones in our life
One day they are there
the next they are gone
They move on in their travels
as I do and they say the same of me
None of us really knows where.
River of life is filled to its banks
with the flesh and souls of the ones we once knew
Family tied together by thin threads
Others appear as strangers one day
and we are carried by the currents together
trying to stay within reach with heads above water
attached only by our weak grips and wet string
but swift and deep waters slowly move us apart
Pulled from the last touch of our finger tips
we can only raise our hand in good-bye
yelling of places we will meet just around the bend
watching and listening until we lose sight
and each other’s shouts are no longer heard.
we are left moving swiftly alone.

DSS

We the People

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”  Thomas Jefferson

I allow myself to be patriotic, nationalistic and idealistic for one, maybe two days a year. The 4th of July is one of them. And for at least one day I must. I must remember that I do indeed come from “we the people”, as do you. Have a great celebration of our Independence Day!

We the People, we who remember.
We are the pushed, the shaken and the torn.
The good are taken from us,
some taken to lead,
some to do our bidding
some to succeed,
some to die.
We the People, we who remember.
We are the hard-working and the builders,
the unspoken, the wholehearted.
We the tolerant, the patient, the taken advantage of.
Quiet with ideals too hard to express,
We the People, we who remember
the good of every man, of every good cause, of every dream.
We, the Children of the Mother of Exiles *,
the mother who stands with silent lips.

DSS  7/4/2011

*The words “Mother of Exiles” quoted from the famous poem “New Colossus”.

Olympic Art

The arch of the foot
the curve of the back
the lines of the thighs
The smooth feel of the torso
Determination in her eyes
the placement of the arms,
The tight form in erect rolling motion
to the splash-less submersion.
The dive of 10 meters.
Poetry in motion.
Olympic art.

OC