Among the Noise

All I know is what I’ve done by stumbling
to and fro, up and between, among the noise
and shaken heated air.
Only to land on one wheel far left of center
with silent lips that seldom stay sealed,
and more is always said than what’s first thought about
but still never thought a fool.
With squinted eyes and wrinkled brow,
I sit pondering ….. like Darwin’s dog “speculating on the mind of Newton”
but with no belief in God.
Working hard, flying straight, telling everyone I only do what’s best,
but feeling I’m really doing nothing at all.
Surviving by only doing what’s needed to keep the blood
flowing in my own worn narrowing veins
and providing hot food only for the few I love.
Trying like hell to see the beauty in sunrises, full moons
and animals made of nothing but distant stars or white sailing clouds.
Hoping someday to once again only hear the silence
beyond my always noise filled ears.

DSS

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Late Reminisce

Months have passed with no word from you
You chose your book, the book you view
no said good byes, no scented note
no handshakes or good-byes were wrote

Now home is lost and you return,
to watch the blazing fires burn.
And sift through ashes and reminisce
proclaim your love for those you miss

The time’s too late to reach and save
to pull your home from the grave
Too late to kiss, or to gently hug
The time to save … was before the graves were dug.

DSS

Metaphors

Watching the green wheat waves roll across the fields
we are reminded of a football stadium and enthusiastic fans.
Marveling at the migrating herds of wildebeests stampeding
remind us of congested and crowded morning rush hour traffic.
Seeing the steep jagged cliffs and tall mountains of the Rockies
we think of how steel girders rise to form man’s tallest buildings.
When did the tenor become the vehicle of our metaphors….

DSS

Satire de Possum

Meet my favorite Comic Strip character, Pogo. Created by Walt Kelly. If you have heard the saying, “We have met the enemy and he is us”, Pogo was the first to say it on Earth Day April 22, 1971.

Pogo was a great philosopher. A very wise possum. I read Pogo all through my childhood and into my adult life. The possum became my Animal Totem. He helped form many of my social, political and personal beliefs that I hold dear to this day. I have passed on Pogo’s influence to my children and grandchildren on every chance.

Unfortunately, Pogo is not syndicated any longer in  any newspapers that I’m aware of although there are many Pogo books that Walt Kelly published before the artist’s death in 1973.

For sound advice, political satire and just plain fun reading, give Pogo by Walt Kelly a web search to find Pogo and his friends in the Okefenokee Swamps of the Southeast U.S. Any of his books would be a great start in helping to understand even 21st century world events and politics.

Read him and you will soon love him.

E.

Coffee

4 A.M. and counting
the clock is pacing the coffee pot’s growl
and the darkness outside matches the aroma
the dark smell of the brew
I need none of that cream and sugar, Baby.
I drink mine commando
and Hot, too hot for the lips
Let it steam for a while before I drink
Take the time to smell the brew
Slow, slow down
It takes patience in my house
This wake up and get up juice
and steaming cup of foreplay..

DSS

April

April is my month. How can I not love a month that starts with a fool’s day and also contains my birthday? I know that it was years ago but I was indeed born at a very young age. Dirt had just begun to form on that smoke filled cloudy day. The volcanoes had stopped blowing their stacks just a few days before.

My birthday falls on a weekend this year, so I had to decide whether I will be taking a long weekend to make up for it. As some of you know, I always take my birthday off each year. Regardless of which day of the week it falls. Yes, whether on a Monday or a Wednesday, I’m sleeping late on the day of my birthday. If, as it has this year, it falls on a weekend, I celebrate it on the Saturday or Sunday but I have to decide whether to take Monday off. It is sort of like the post office and other government offices, a three day weekend. Every 6 or 7 years I have to make this decision. In the past, I have taken the Friday or Monday off and enjoyed the three days of relaxation. This year, I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone and decided to work.

I now can say, it was a mistake. No red blooded American should turn down a three day weekend, particularly if it is in celebration of the day of their birth. I really didn’t get anything accomplished today. I was still reeling from the fact that I have gotten another year older. And what a number of years it has been. I used to celebrate because I had reached an age that proved I was old enough to do something. These are landmarks everyone has had. Events like old enough to go to school with your older brothers and sisters. Old enough to get a BB gun without worrying your mother that you’d break windows, kill birds or shoot your sister’s eye out. (Mom never did say ” you might shoot your eye out”. I really think if I did any harm to  myself, she thought it would just be, what farmers call, culling the herd.) The magic age of 16, the driver’s license. 18, graduating from high school and registering for the draft, 21 for drinking and voting. I always thought the privilege for drinking and voting should have come before registering for the draft..Am I wrong?

All of those years are ages we look forward to. Well, most of them anyway. But once you reach 21 things start to go a little down hill. Sort of down hill but we can laugh about them. Like turning 30, we are in that “don’t trust anyone over thirty” separation from youth. Then 10 years later the big “4” “0” rolls around. Forty is probably the first age we reach that we begin to think the more sobering realizations of our mortality. At 40 we don’t heal up as fast as we did when we were 20.  Then we reach 50.

At 50, we really just feel that we are indeed adults. We should be starting to dress more “grown up like” at 50. You know, wearing less Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd tee-shirts and less tennis shoes. But we don’t, we actually start wearing our rock band tee shirts more and start listening to much more Golden Oldies. We are seen wearing not less but more comfortable tennis shoes and less wingtips. I think most therapist call the age between 50 and 60 the decade we truly are scrambling to hang onto and relive our youth. The 50 to 60 aged crowd probably knows more about their teenage and twenty something rock music and movie stars than they did when they were 19 or 20. And now they have the money to actually go to their favorite band’s second or third farewell concerts. If done right, the 50’s to 60’s can be the greatest time to be working on that bucket list. Death is not exactly staring you in the face but you can see the damn thing just starting to appear on the horizon. I think we sober up and grow up the most in our 50’s decade.

Then the 60’s, I’m a few years into that decade now. A week or so ago I went to what may probably be my one and only Fleetwood Mac concert. Yes, it was on the unwritten bucket list. I still want to go to another one. I figure I can do it as long as they can. I’m actually looking forward to that next landmark age, retirement age in a few years. I wore my Pink Floyd tee shirt this weekend. And I was thinking of buying a low powered BB gun last week when I saw a stray cat chase my backyard rabbit and paired Cardinals out of my yard. I’d rather have Cardinals and Rabbits in my backyard as stray cats. But it felt funny not having anyone telling me I couldn’t buy one. You get that way in your 60’s. But I would never chase the neighbor kids off of my grass at this age. I reserve that for my 70’s and 80’s.

Such is the life of John

Lilacs, Satin and Lace

Lilacs, satin and lace
Missing satin and lace
Looking out my window
at bridges spanning diagonal frames
Eating alone
recalling words to long forgotten love songs
Unspoken
and hearing only the muted sounds of voices next door
Remembering our favorite names and soft words,
and the sound of her over-bite lisp
Like the smell of lilacs
Swept away
She was swept away.

DSS

Uncovered Brass

Wrap me tight for the fire
Slide me into the flames
Let no man see my wrinkled flesh and thinning hair
No long worms will curl through me
Flash my bones to ash and sift for my gold
Let me rest awhile in uncovered brass,
in the light, above the dirt that I toiled in.
Then cast me into the breeze
so I may always drift above it.
Please wrap me tight for the fire

DSS  4/25/2011

Goliath Thought

From within it’s formed, the Goliath thought.
the idea from wisdom’s wealth.
It has no texture, touch or feel,
only the vapor mist of the image sought.

From restless sleep, the reoccurring dreams
are sequenced as on silver film.
There is no canvas, script or clay,
but they are as real as forged iron beams.

But from these fleeting and frail mindful hones
grand ideas take on real life.
Unlike giants of human flesh,
are not brought down by slung single stones.

DSS

November 3, 2012

No Regrets, None

Lately, I don’t know why, long forgotten songs and artists are capturing my attention. Something, perhaps her spirit, has forced me to post this.

Again a song from the past has arisen and drilled itself into my head as a determined earworm that has embed itself there for as long as the music and lyrics sees fit. This time the reoccurring song and image in my head is “Non Je Ne Regrette Rien” sang by Edith Piaf.  Sadly, because of her early death, it was very difficult to find a live film or video recording on the web that captures the fidelity and gives justice to her voice with her visual performance.

But as I listen to this music and voice and I am forced by its power to seek and learn more about it and its artist, the music , as great as it is, wanes in the spirit and the shadow of the performer herself. Edith Piaf’s life story is one as inspiring, as uplifting and as sad as any singer songwriter that I have ever listened to or read about. I can only compare this incredible French woman with perhaps the life and talent of the American talent, Billy Holiday. At one time Piaf was France’s most popular artist.

Although Edith died at the age of 47 in 1963, I at a very young age remember watching her perform on television on the Ed Sullivan stage singing this signature song that even as a child, I was attracted to its gripping power in a language I could not even understand. But that song was lodged in my mind then and lay dormant for over 50 years until it reappeared again triggered last week by, of all things, the appearance of a new Cadillac commercial.

Edith Piaf’s story is very interesting and I would encourage you to look into her life and perhaps pick up a bit of her success, inspiration and tragedy. No regrets certainly describes this woman.

DSS