Did she really mean that?
What was that snarky smirk?
What the **** does that mean?
I can’t believe he just said that!
Does that mean that…

Here’s a chill pill
Don’t think the worse
Get over your brain strain
Move on to restrain
Here’s a new refrain

Surprise: more than you
No one aspires to conspire
Antagonists might be protagonists
Think better of everyone
Beatles: “All you need is…”

Ohm, ohm
On the range
Where the deer
And the antelope
Think

Where seldom a thought
Is not what is brought
And the world
Is not at the
Brink

There’s a rumble
in the continuum
Step aside Q
Jon Luc Picard is back

Expectations can be dangerous
Friends could let you down
Especially those you love
Thinking true friends
Would do more

Potted plant?
Tuna casserole?
Mailbox sympathy?
Telephone empathy?
Requiem recognition?

Do I lower expectations?
Expect less of them?
Stiffen my resolve?
Grieve for relief
On my own?

So it begins
Nearly a century in
Over 500,000 minutes
Of every year
Times 24 hours
Times 365

And so it ends
Nearly a century in
53-to-the-tenth smells
Tells, shells, tactile sensations
Tens of thousands of likes, dislikes

X-numerous memories
X-thousand relationships
X times X being you
X-ed.

We spend some time here.
We do some things here.
We hope we’ve been here.

Times runs out
Life re—

Starts.

Thin line between
This and when
Between what is
And what’s not began

We walk and talk
And stop and look
As periphery beckons
Through subtle margins

Unheard symphonies
Unseen wonders
Almost patterns
Seeming schemes

An ambulance screams
Cars honk and careen
A child sobs and wails
Shadows whist away

There’s this certain joint
Under cars and everywhere
Called a universal joint

A priest, a rabbi, an insurance agent
Walked into such a place
“What’s your special" was asked

“Everything and nothing“
The universe wearily replied
“I'll take two,” they said

The rabbi drank while
The priest blanked
As the whole joint stank

Ever astute, the agent,
Made an impassioned point
To everyone’s amazement:

“Here’s the universal solution —
At a certain point, remember
It’s only entertainment”

Long-johns on
Grange-eht-Guild hall cold
No! Really cold!
Extra-layer cold!

Tipping point…

Hot! Really hot!
Deck sun sweat
Before sunset
Seasonal change

Time springs forward
Fahrenheit rearranged
Indoors becomes outdoors
Seven am becomes eight am

Time to go outside again

It’s my job to grade them
Tough ****, that
Praising one young person
And another their ****-up.

I love heaping praise not
Conveying bad news
Blackboard, fingernails, chalk
One more year and I walk

What a job!
Hearing young ones talk
Then the first stanza
Judgement.

I want there to be a last stanza:
Did I help you? Did you learn?
It is a sincere concern as I
Vacate my accidental career

I wake in my home
Loving living here/now
Females surround me
(But Fred is still Fred)

I drive to work
I love my work
Young folk talk
Speak their minds

Benefit.

Most get me.
Some don’t–
Their loss.
I do/don’t lose sleep.

Turning 60
All good since 50
Good ‘till (sumpin) ixty
Phase three:

My terms
My resolutions
My obligations
My desires

All good;

Legacy.I

Rebar hope pokes
Up and out concrete
Expansion dreams it seems

In cities and villages
All across Mexico
Construction reinvention

Tomorrow’s new patio
Next year’s second floor
The rebar promise of more

Technically,
It’s not not that.
Though It might be
Or something other
Or completely different

Don’t ask me
I wasn’t there
I didn’t do it
I didn’t see it
I’d rather not think about it

Have you read Moby ****?
Wonderful weather we’re having…
Carbon sequestration will be difficult
(I like touching myself)
It’s not the narrative, it’s the narrator

The hummer hovers at
Giant’s window
Because it tastes good

The cat cradles
Twixt giant’s legs
Because it feels good

The dog’s faux pas of
Nose in giant’s **** is
Because it smells good:

Animal instincts on
Doing what seems right
Teaches us to trust

:

The way to home
Is to roam; to Rome
And to Singapore
And to so much more

Snap shut assumptions
Pop your presumptions
Be ready to roll
With that airport stroll

It’s today tomorrow
At some Gate 54
Seat 24B?
What are you waiting for’

It's complicated
Living with another

Both have wants and needs
That intersect or conflict

Conflict is
Complicated

No easy way out
Best to stay with intersect

On the shortest day
Before the new decade
As the sun belt sways
With seasons changing
High in sky is Venus
Bright night beacon

Tomorrow will be longer
Bringing urgent hope nigh
That as the earth tilts
So do we, happily
To greater fortune
And love reciprocal  

May you see clear in 2020
And have dreams realized
With all fears deprived
To all I known and love
Good health, better life:
My card, my Yuletide

I need
I need something

I scratch at my neck
And peck at my phone

I want
I want something

Just what it is is elusive
Just below the surface

I want to scratch the itch
Answer the question

But I don’t know the now
I sit, anxious

For your sacrifice you get
An *** and a half
Your ***** donkey

A cat-n-a-half
Wild, unpredictable
Somewhat lovable

A dog or two?
Royally loyal
To you

Fish?
No
So?

Chicken?
**** yes!
The rest?

A horse, of course
In your corral
Stable.

I prefer Oliver to olives
Geek before Greek
Funny man with stand

White flame with
truth claims
About last week

Unapologetic
Helps us reject it:
Mendacity

RAT-A-TAT-TAT

I don’t like that
Splatter-splat-spat stat

Chaotic parading of guns
On TV shows, every one

If we stop showing it
Will we stop owning it?

IT TAKES SECONDS TO AMEND
Laws protecting everyone.

Constitute.

From the land of fog
We drive through big island vog
The hot breath of Smaug

Every touch toward flesh affection
Could be seen as male aggression
What’s a poor boy to do?
The first move begins with you?

Stroke my ear?
Look me in the eye?
Your hand strokes my inner thigh?
Hey Venus, that’s my *****!

Who said you could grab that?
Not to say I don’t like it—
Difficult tango this, Isis.
Physical crisis. Your move.

Normality upended
Recency appended
Laws and logic upstaged
Reality outraged

What was was
Is now is
Then again
Again begins

Anew
Phew!

What an *******!
Tug of war with credit card?
Accosting probable provost?
“Don’t ******* a yeti!”

Three decades in
Day out, day in
Doing my job well enough
I must tread lightly

(I want to SHOUT!
Throw a shoe at the speaker;
Wear purple [or a big] hat
Maybe a big purple hat!)

No. Slow down. Head down.
Know your place
Just one more year
Then the world: my oyster.

(BTW: I hate oysters
Allergic to shellfish…then…
“Shnick!” Take my helmet off;
Finally free of toxic environment!)

We do what we can do
With our time allotted

We want everything safe
Done; in the can

We want to rescue
Who we love

As we run to it
As fast as we can

Should’ve, would’ve:
palindromed

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

Baby came to me last night
Approaching with tentative stealth
A slink around reconnoiter

First a tail **** flirt
A jump up and down
Waters tested

She paws away
But not too far
Then creeps close again

Invisible pounce
Golden eyes tête-à-tête
She’s not sure yet

Then the chin dive
Under beard comfort shown
With sandpaper tongue

I wear my hickey proudly
Baby’s reclaimed me despite
Abandonment issues

She hit the wasp’s nest
The big orange piñata
And the angry elephants flew

A slimy smarmy swarm
“Witchey hunt; unfair”
Bouncey baby bawls

Gopers gulp and declare
“Witchey hunt; unfair”
Lockstep in discourse

Not mistreatment
Of the indecent
This impeachment

Forget circumstance and pomp
Now, right now is the time
To finally drain that swamp

"Bye, ******“
Said the 60+
Year-old guy

Might have been
Different if not
So diffident

But the same old guy
Here safe at home
With his sweetheart

Says, “My, my; while
It should have been different,
Glad what is is”

we plug along
day to day
up early
doing our job

i’m a lucky *******
liking my accidental career
molding minds
for decades

aiming at a last goal
needing collegial words that
come and come and come
and i’m humbled,

left floating

Here I am
I'd rather be
More now than then

A purge urge of
Places when

Say it different?
Do it different?
Be it different?
Is it different?

Subliminal
Submissions
Here now

It’s observable, undeniable
You can set your clock by it

Forget innuendos
Reject insupportables

Trust your dog
Respect your cat

Chickens?
Et-hem

Tomorrow should be a Monday
It really is a someday
It might just be a one day
It could just be a fun day

I’ll take that petty pace
That creeps in and in and in
And keep my pretty face
Reject the ratty race

So: no; I’ll
Go slow—
A no show
Me, aglow

I’m thinking about here now
Being then when rescinds

Present becomes
Future past

Pondering what
Begins

**** happens
Sometimes sloppy
Sometimes with
difficulty turds
Painfully pressed

**** happens
Directives dire occur
Hold on, strap in
Lend a mask to
That other poor *******

**** happens
No wipe away
No walk away
Get up, regroup
Deplane

I would take you with me
If you could stand my masculinity
As we stumble rumble forward

I’d take a station wagon
With the third row pop-up seats
For all the critter sitters

If there was room,
I’d cram in every mistake
To close or just review

I knew better
I’ll know better
I’ll do better

If there was room
I’d step into it
And hope you'd still love me

This room has a view
Just step through
Us, me, you too

You reduce me
To speaking pleasantries
The eggshell walk
Careful talk leaves only
Quiet desperation

A day off
Stillness declared
I’m not in right now
But I’m home

Leave a message:
Bweeeeeep!
May or may not
Return your call

Fists up
Square off
Who’s more right
Ends in a fight

You pummel
I parry left, you
Counter right
As you should

Left hook!
Upper cut!
Sucker punch,
Rhetorical quarreling

The ending tie
Is preordained
Win or loss
It’s all a gain

If interregnum
Is how we reclaim the realm
Time is: do it now

I slipped gears
No drive
No jive

It’s good though
Just chill
Be still

Watch grass grow
Paint dry
Be wry

Darling, I sit poised
In interregnum

Good for me?
We’ll see

Spaces between
Serves reflection

Finding a film for my love
Flowing from Amazon Prime

Stopping in a wonder of words
I know whose woods these are

Dead Poet's Society
Echoes deep in my personal well

A prevailing influence now a
Confluence to career’s end

I wouldn’t call it plagiarism
Just another poem made possible

I sometimes live life as monk
In solo solitary reflection

Put yourself in public and
Your past can parade by

A surfeit of friendships
Stopped to chat today

As I labored to finish a fence
Something there is that loves it

A confluence of friendship
With a past that is now

Reminds me of a child’s rhyme :
“One is silver but the other’s gold”

I try to see the world for what it is
Not what it seems to be
Or what someone says it should

A baptism of realism,
Faithful leaping from me to
Voyages though our our

I twiddle with my phone
A futile search for meaning.
It's not good to be alone
And find only yearning.
For what?

Unknown.

That door has closed
Everything known, practiced, reveled
A short time ago

Ones trusted, loved
Now just another
Long past innuendo

The new unknown
A chasm sprightly trundled
As a newborn idiot would

Has its bright baubles
But leaves one troubled
What mattered whence when

Which involvement mattered
What remembered remains
I don’t think I’ll see again

Baby came to me last night
Approaching with tentative stealth
A slink around reconnoiter

First a tail **** flirt
A jump up and down
Waters tested

She paws away
But not too far
Then creeps close again

Invisible pounce
Golden eyes tête-à-tête
She’s not sure yet

Then the chin dive
Under beard comfort shown
With sandpaper tongue

I wear my hickey proudly
Baby’s reclaimed me despite
Abandonment issues

I want to be a Supershero, a
Wikipedia entry with a
Book of poems trending

I want to be that melody, the
Friend you hum right to the end
And think "what a mensch!”

I want to be the
Brother, son, lover
Friend to another

I want to tell a story
Writ large where you will
Gasp, clasp hands, laugh

You might even cry
Or at least
Have a tear in your eye

Wake up!
I’m awake.
No you’re not!
Slap!

Wake up!
Am I dreaming?
No I’m not.
I’m awake.

My dream:
I’m slapped awake.
By someone not her.
A dream begins:

Coruscating typographic glyphs
Leaves retreating
Roots descending
Tarmac glimpsed

Wake up!
I am/not awake
Wheels down
Then up again

Not awake
No landing
Still ascending
Still plummeting

Wake up!
Which is the dream?
Awake/asleep?
Slap me.

Hey-seus Christo
Eschewed all notoriety
He lived a life of
Quiet peace and piety

Without belief in deity
I follow his philosophy
Being good without god
Is trusting your morality

Travel truth’s compass
Know whom you trespass
Acknowledge the line
You just passed

Accountability is this:
Be true to thee and them
Avoid the dark abyss
Follow your bliss