New Year Resolution Rewind

From Dec. 31,2014

What is this inherent need we feel each new year to think we need to be so resolute that we can change something about us, make a resolution. Such a word to use. Sounds serious, determined, resolved, single-minded, so serious. We are so resolute that we don’t just make one resolution but a complete list. When it comes to resolutions I don’t ass around.

This year, I’m being resolution realistic, I just have two:

Resolution number one – I promise to keep my pickup, clean and looking like new.

Resolution number two – Do my part in bringing world peace.

Although it is number two on my list, there is a better chance that I will bring world peace than there is that I will keep all of my half full McDonalds coffee cups from collecting in all of my cup holders in the pickup. There is a one in a billion chance for world peace but at least there is a chance. Coffee cups thrown in the trash, not a chance. I will feel guilty about not doing that all year.

And world peace, I’m being realistic this year, I probably will not seriously start working on that until the Sunday night before next New Year’s Eve. Oh, I will have a partial outline that I will make up on January 5th. The usual line items,  first go talk to the Israelis,  next the Saudis, then go see Henry Kissinger and perhaps Jimmy Carter and ask for any notes they may have. I will check the web for the best airline ticket prices to the Middle East. The usual pre-peace-talk legwork. I’ve made this resolution before, I know what’s involved.

But after all of this is collected and all of my yellow legal pads are scribbled full of my own thoughts, they will languish deserted on the console and floorboards of my pickup for 10 or 11 months, collecting circles of spilled coffee cup stains as a constant reminder all year of two things I need to get back to. After all, I am resolute in seeing to it that this world peace thing is worked out before the end of the year and I’m making a resolution for crying out loud! Time’s a wasting!

Resolutions…Phooey!

I do hope you’ll have a Happy New Year though. Sorry about the world peace, maybe next year.

Such is the life of John

Southern Windows

When the morning Sun shines through Southern windows
and the Winter leafs first cover with sparkling frost.
We cover tight within our quilted sewn blankets
And warm our feet against our lover’s flesh.
I exhale curling breath onto the frozen window
and scratch the new frost by my nail to etch
our names within an arrowed heart throbbing
and watch the Sunshine melt
our new Winter’s sculptured breath.

DSS

 

 

Happy Holidays or Not

To all those that are celebrating spiritual holidays of this season and to all those whose spiritual consciousness do not require these observations, The Distantshipsmoke Gang wish you peace, love and a fruitful and safe new year.

To all my readers, thank you for including  our words and poems into your daily lives.

John and his many ..

 

The Forgotten Man

The ways of the forgotten man
the scratch and twine of solitude
No dressing for dinner
No give and take discussions
of the latest U.N. Resolutions
or disagreeable conclusions
of foreign  led decisions
Just a soul of a man that wakes early,
checks the morning’s wind direction and temperature,
makes a fresh cup of coffee
and feeds his waiting tail wagging dog.
Some say simple life
but many want nothing to do with it
as they meet their own day’s grind,
rut, fortune or failure.
playing the cards dealt them that day.
But he, the forgotten man,
thinks of no destiny, future or past
and lives in the now
of writing  in an unread personal weather reporting  journal,
computing coffee prices by the pod and concerns
of well-balanced hound diets.
All very complicated subjects
for a man of age with limited access
to current study material.
The forgotten man is not lazy
only perhaps vastly misinformed
or maybe just a poor interpreter of the fine print
of very old articles of scientific theories.
He really believes he must get out of the house more.
The forgotten man is very happy.
But no one asks.

OC

.

Remarkable Walk

We are on a remarkable walk.
From death to Birth
we march with bare feet
bare heads and sunburnt shoulders
protected from man and sun
only by flip-up, clip-on plastic sunglasses

We try to be cool
armed with our 12 gauge Levis
but the Carhartt Tee-shirts only
let us down, hot and sweaty,
telling – who we want to be
but not who we are.

October and November
pass with little rage.
only a few men down,,
misplaced children lost,
and few hundreds turned away.
This…. the end of our remarkable walk

E.