Do parallel lines ever meet,
Or parallel worlds ever collide?
Can two lovers at a distance
Simultaneously feel the same thought?
What's it like to be a triathlon gamete
And be the first to cross that finish line?

When the elevator doors opened
I could see,
Despite your effort,
The mild discus
That washed over your face
Seeing me,
Alone at the rear of the car.

You entered.
Turned your young back to me
And selected your floor.
You were in elevator mode,
And I was elevator polite,
We never spoke.
What I wanted to say,

"Old age is not contagious,
Nor can you open your legs to it
Like STD.
You have to work at it
Everyday,
Old age is something you earn
For grit and perseverance."

I wish you well
Wherever you go
Wherever you are
My desire is you too will age
In your time,
And at your personal pace.

Stop with the daydreams
Of wet ******* unicorns.
Stop with the dam spillway
Of "undeserved tears."
Stop looking in the rear view mirror
And start looking at your **** rear.
Stop the inverted visions,
Need help?
Walk the streets of Calcutta,
Better yet,
Pitch a tent with the homeless.
Stop the mindlog.
Stop the driveling outlog,  
Just stop.

Come closer,
Yes,
    Yes,
You.
I want to see you better,
Focus on you.
Appreciate your mind,
As you appreciate mine
Reading this poem.
Ah a little bit closer.
Thank you.
Is that a wry smile,
Or an inverted frown?

Gout tongued,
Mind numb,
Van Gogh eared,
Vanity blind,
Tooo many I's,
Not enough eyes.
Angst lip deep
In this guano cave
That vibrates
With unrequited
LUV cantos .

Every Walmart becomes a Woolworth,
Every Everest a **** hill,
Every ocean a vapor trail,
Every love reverts to ground,
And so it goes round and round.

If you were to script
Your life,
But one time only
Could you now
Tab over
And ...

*  Bullet list
-  Your dawn to dusk
-
-  ...

And when at last
The final Underwood bell dings
Roll the platen wheel up
And with contentment
Proof read the arching sheet
Down to

"- the end -"
        ?

The apartment neighbor
We never see,
Today,
All I saw
From where I stood,
Was a pair of hands
Place
A bonsai tree
Upon a sunny stoop.

Imagine looking at a brick building
And intimately knowing
Everything about each brick.
Deep, deep knowing,
Every particle and grit knowing,
Back to the big bang knowing,
Personal with each atom knowing,
Intimate with each electron knowing,
Down to the limits of infinity knowing,
A total embrace knowing,
A bent knee and weep knowing,
Imagine there is but one knowing,
Imagine knowing this!

A nameless helmsman
Whose fallible hands
Duty calls to act god like
Guiding a ship of life
Off the coast of Newfoundland
Through a night of blue white ice halls,
Until their combined Neptune fate
Entombs nearly all
To an eternal Atlantic floor
Of dark and frigid sea.

The young contend
With broken hearts.
The old must cope
With rusting parts.

The young feel time
Barely moving.
The old feel time
In bones disapproving.

The young stop
In front of mirrors.
The old move back
To make things clearer.

The young focus
On acquisitions.
The old release
Past ambitions.

The young, if lucky,
Transition elders.
The old will then
Be Elysian selders.


* selder:  From Middle High German, selder 'dweller in a hut or peasant's cottage.

The sea to me,
Or the gulls above,
Appeared equidistant.
Decision,
Zeit, or flight,
off the cliffs at Mohr?
                                          Oh
                                                   so nevermore!

Too much love to give
But few takers?

Visit an animal shelter.
You and your new roomy
Will be glad you did!

Old scars,
Heart contusions,
Fight or flight tattooed
On eyes
Blinding every decision.

Why watch television
When you can spend quality time
In your own mind?

Vespers,
Tidal time pours homeward,
Criers cry,
Lamplighters light,
Cats seek mice or mates,
Prey pray
For one more daybreak.

Lean poem,
Rib caged heart,
Xylophone bleaching under a paper sun,
Casting scorpion shadows across rocky lots,
Resilient, though shattered,
By misread lines or slipshod thought.

When eagles fly lambs bleat,
Taloned shadows circle.
Plunge streak,
Grounding impermanence;
Life, death,
Impersonal but personal.

Do not worry about our planet,
Our one mother and only home.
She's seen far worse than ourselves.
So do not worry about our planet.
Nature the midwife will right the earth,
Restore her vigor, and enforce new rigor
From our wasting, reckless hand.
When all human corpus have joined the land
For some, our final story is a sorry matter.
But do not worry about our planet.
For nature will once again amend the latter.

A sheer cliff pueblo
Hollowed out of city air,
Sun baked, rain washed,
Where there is no glow
About a communal fire.
No medicine man
To blow healing smoke
Over an ailing soul.
No gathering of elders.
Where story telling is machine work,
And watch listeners,
Can barely recall a flickering tale.

Dare I say it,
The oasis,
More like a billabong,
Is love.
And every thirsty beast wants a drink.
The water hole is muddy and dangerous,
Nonetheless,
With mixed success,
Each will take their chances.
Some are killed outright
By a crouching tiger or hidden gator.
Others get a couple of quick sips
But are run off by fear.
And a lucky few
Drink deeply,
Sustaining them for years.

In youth,
Love expressed is mother tongue,
But in age wise love is polyglot.
Words of youthful love are hot,
While in age intricate talk ensues.
Youthful love does natures bidding,
But in age love is free to love itself,
And thus be one shared by two.

Married at fourteen,
A whisper in a ram's horn,
From ****** bliss
To spit up and ****
In less than a year.
Add ten more years,
Seven babies,
And fifty tons of laundry.
"Ma,
"Da says the taters gone bad."
Could death be more happy?

Your night is the day's embryo,
You wake,
You're  a parent to a new day.
You have responsibilities!
No time to do a zombie walk 'til noon.
Time for two, three, lines of finity;
It will jack y0u high on impermanence.
Certainty has never insured tomorrow.
This day is your last banquet?
Fill your plate, but not full.
Do not dine alone.
Say grace, for you are the Pope of the hour,
Your awareness is a sacrament
That blesses everything you see and touch.
Soon your day will die in a ****** cloud
Leaving you with both less and a little more.

This morning's dew point,
Lower than inside air,
Silver gray condensate,
Shades window glare.
Like a night beat cop
Patrolling lover's park,
Fogged windows beacon passions' pant,
Sync-ed heaves chug parallel tracks,
Engine-caboose lurch to subsiding sighs.

Insouciance**

If I could get into your insouciance,
I'd be aplomb,
Without a care,
Unconcerned.
I'd be a veritable dancer
Of nonchalance,
Cool,
Collected,
Harmoniously tempered,
A picture of self control.
Perhaps calm contentment
Would measure my equanimity,
If I could keep my equilibrium
After getting into your insouciance.
I propose to repose like a rose.