The Beat of a Different Drum by Geof

He walks where echoes refuse to follow, a syncopated step on puddled glass, soft-footed rebellion, quiet as dusk pressing its fingertips against the day.

No band behind him, no metronome’s kiss, just the pulse of stray thoughts tattooed across his chest like whispered defiance.

The world hums in straight lines, he scribbles sideways. Timbre raw. Cadence cracked. Every silence he breaks rings in technicolour truth.

You call it offbeat; he calls it becoming. In his rhythm, the rules unravel and leave room for the beautiful wrong.


The Different Beat of a Drum by Geof

Not syncopation. Not jazz. Not tribal echo on moonlit skin, but something else: a crackle in the chest when rules bruise the breath.

It starts in the soles, like friction turned gospel. No conductor, no call and response. Just bone vibration and a whisper that won't beg for translation.

This beat, it skews the grid, skips the tidy wrap of genre. It breaks the silence like a grin in a funeral march.

He plays it anyway, thumb on steel, heartbeat misfiring into music. Some call it dissonance. He calls it home.


The Drum of a Different Beat by Geof

It sat in the corner like it knew things, skin stretched tight over secrets, rim worn smooth by the hands of those who didn’t ask permission.

No sheet music. No conductor. Just breath and bruise, just instinct knocking on wood until sound fractured into meaning.

Its beat didn’t match your step. It changed your step. Bent time like a flame licking the wick before the burn.

Each strike: a sideways sermon. Each silence: a dare.

They tried to tune it. Tried to name it. But it throbbed with its own alphabet and whispered in pulses only the wild could follow.

LA burns, smoke blackens sky,
people flee and abandon cars,
90 and 100 mile an hour winds
feed and fan the flames, people
losing everything, even being
rich, or famous cannot save their
big homes and life's possessions.
Someplace in that expanding,
raging inferno my son, an Oregon
Fire Chief leads 300 Firefighters
and their 75 engines and water tenders
over 900 miles south into the fire storm.
Along with firefighters from other
states. Mutual support needed & rendered.

One of my son's firemen is his own son,
and my 21year old rookie grandson
with a little over one year on the job.
His seasoned father has fought many
battles with all kinds of fires, he set to
retire in May after 30 years on the job.
He has seen it all, with never a scratch
or a "singe", but my grandson has never
experienced anything of this magnitude,
being one of a 4-man truck crew battling
side by side in the belly of a raging beast.

All these 30 years I've worried for my son's
safety, now it starts anew, for our boy barely
a man that now walks in his father's shoes.

I will not sleep well until they are all
home safely. I grieve for the victims
of this awful tragedy.

She was an old barn cat, around the place for
a dozen years or more. Superb mouser and
yard hunter. Came from feral parents, aloof
by nature, and breeding, a little wild at heart
I suppose.  In time she developed some slight
affection for some of my family, me included,
eventually a regular welcomed visitor to my
porch, even crawling upon my lap for pat and
scratch under her chin but always declining to
be held by any human being.

She would come when I called her, running
full tilt and jumping fences, ignoring the food
just wanting companionship and attention.
Over the years she and I became good friends.
She came every day, morning and evening to say
hello and oh yes, get an offered meal. Rubbing
her sleek cat body on my feet and legs, offering
up her affection with an audible purring for
everyone to hear even from some distance.

Her age was starting to show, thinner, slower, she
was getting on just as I am, perhaps we both knew
it. Last night she came to the glass door and looked
so forlorn. Though cold outside I put on a coat and
brought her out some food, and I sat in my chair.

She sniffed the food with disinterest then came
over to flop upon my feet softly meowing, I could
feel her little purr motor vibrating on my shoes.
I reached down and gave her a tummy scratch,
she always loved that.

We resided like that for a while, her upon my feet,
me in my chair. Becoming too cold I started to rise
to go back inside, but she did not move, I reached
down and felt no purr vibration, she was unmoving
and silent. In that moment I knew that she had passed
from this earth. I picked up her now limp unresisting
body and placed her on my lap, my eyes teared knowing
that she was gone.

So sudden, one minute there and then just gone.
Not a bad way to go, rather than some long-drawn
-out affair, with doctors, useless operations, hospice
and lingering formidable pain. Just lay down and
go to sleep.

We should all be that lucky when our time comes.

Get maybe six or seven hours sleep,
wake and struggle out of bed.
Stretch to get out the kinks,
living with pain from head to toes
Visit the bathroom in a hurry,
urgent needs attended to.
Shower and shave for no real reason.
Put out the dog, let in the cat.
Feed both and give each a pat.
A bowl of cold cereal with fruit
Lactate milk, brew hot tea, one sugar,
a little cream, English muffin with
honey, tidy up the kitchen.
Turn on the morning local news,
avoiding the "Breaking News"
channels that mess with my head.
Maybe watch a game show or two, just
to lighten the mood. Return to the kitchen
and for a second or two forget why I am there.
I seem to do that a lot lately.
Mount the treadmill for 20 minutes or so.
Take my meds, drink three glasses of water,
hydration being very important it's said.

And so, it goes each day a duplicate of the
one before and the one tomorrow. A captive
caught in a repetitious bubble of advancing
age, kept company by a lifetime of memories
of all that I once was and shall never be again.

Not complaining, I have all I need, a good roof
overhead, food, a home of my own, family close
by, reasonably good health and I am not homeless.
Go to bed happy, arise the same way. No real regrets.

Getting old is a double-edged sword, it cuts both
ways and can leave some scars in the process.
Quiet pragmatic acceptance is the key, along with
realistic expectations.

a crow throws out notes
trying to find the lyrics
in the falling leaves

the sun is now tipping
to that side of the sky
and winter pulls it stitches tighter

we break
all the beautiful things
always leaving
more questions
than answers

I saw the smoke from the mountains,
Early in the morning sun,
Billowing deep from the trees,
Where the great mountain beast once was.

I saw the smoke from Paul Bunion’s cabin,
Rolling up into the sky,
So when I climb up there tomorrow,
I’ll bring him a great big pie.

If milkmaids dance,
I haven't seen it.

That doesn't mean it doesn't happen
when I'm asleep
or dying.

If apples can be poisoned
I haven't tasted one.

That doesn't mean to trust your grocer,
lover,
or restauranteur.

Oh, you, decked in white blossoms like some ironic saint,
evangelizing my arms, my tongue, my will
like the loving dead.

I know now that I was kissing a corpse--
one heart beating for two,
pony for dray horse, dragging along.

I can't swear that I'll be smarter next time,
but I mean to be.

I 'll remember your face, your ways, your smile,
turn my head like a lady
and spit.

When a detective falls in love, he does not know who to bill for expenses--
everything is up in the air.

At a mixer for suspects, he invites me to dance via loudspeaker.
Radiant in my white dress, I resemble a snowy owl
even down to my carefully bandaged hand which he takes without hesitation.
I whisper in his ear:

I am Leon Czolgosz.
Your heart is the President of the United States of America.
We are dancing in Buffalo, city by the Niagara.
My detective, of course, falls hard.

The next time we meet, I wait for him in the bullpen at the police station.
They know him there.
They hire cellists.
He confesses his deepest fantasy to me:

I want to speak words of love to you
via telephone
with our hands naked and separated only by the safety glass.
I want the call recorded
and broadcast to wild lovers around the globe.

Shortly after, we are married. I wear my favorite bearskin robe.
My small black cubs frolic nearby,
climbing the pews and then tumbling gaily down again.
My detective is resplendent in his tuxedo.
The hired band plays Funiculi Funicula.
I snarl when my detective gets too close to the cubs, and this inflames him.

At last, we lie in bed together, like busy machines come to rest.
I am wearing nothing but the revolver-shaped earrings he has given me.
My detective wears a felt fedora
and a look of smug adoration like a daredevil over the falls in a barrel.
I am The Queen of the Mist,
suspected in various thieveries, check kiting, and jaywalking.

Our love is an aviary
where birds wheel above the thundering water like intelligent confetti.
Look in your mailbox, I tell my detective.
I have left you a valentine and an Easter egg.
He asks if, after all, I am his mystery client.
I enter a plea of innocent.
My love is happy now, laughing.