4×4

a haiku for modern drivers. I wish I had a photo

Tough white four-by-four
jacked up, one ton, approaches
speed bump: slow to ten!

60/100

Waiting

Old folks get “procedures”…lots and lots of ’em. Is it worse to prepare for where cameras should never go, or wait for someone else’s? (Said “someone” adding two hours to the wait because the fine print for drinking liquids addressed certain drugs which said “someone” might have been taking.)

Was this grass gone to seed when I entered the building? August 2026.

Waiting
[.....]
Never my strong suit, worse
when it's unanticipated. 
Need to blame someone. Hope 
we're at fault; hope we're not. 
Then again...what did you
plan to do today? Nothing
Much. What ARE you doing? 
See? If two roads lead 
to the same place, how can
one be better? (However: 
could that dude perhaps
lower that video's volume?)

59/100

man with cat

A haiku today, the second of slight illness (on top of all the parts of me which don’t seem to want to work right). It’s OK. I think it just started raining, and I know I’ll mostly be just chillin’ tomorrow when my wife has one of those procedures all of us old people get….


man with cat on lap
pet each other—happiness.
nubbins on his pants

58/100

fly in the explosion

Almost every day, he said, my
glass seemed more than half full,
but a fly would dance on top. When
we came into home, winging away
from sunset, I saw one cloud-like
nuclear explosion. My trip's 
symbolic, beautiful resolution.

57/100

Found poem 25August

Different voices have defined “found” poems differently. Here, I started with the opening line of a poem I drafted over a dozen years ago, then used random web pages to suggest a few words from which would spring the next line. I let whatever revealed itself in my creative half exist without immediately squashing it, merely shaping it, translating it from my interior language-without-words to a poor imitation in English. My Editor insisted on punching meaning into it, which I allowed. At the end I decided it needed to come full circle, thus lending meaning (I hope) to the final lines. In a way, this process worked similarly to something I’m getting ready to post (non-poem) when time allows.

We wear patchwork clothes, stitched by sadness
not to have seen snow leopards through our
blizzarding genesis. Inspired by writings we
don't understand, we personalize them 
to make everything obtain meaning 
where none existed. Welcome to your mission:
to drive home meaning to others while 
pathetically struggling to find your own,
exhibiting your confidence which betrays
your lack of understanding. "the mic is yours,
Ken," as if he thinks I'm important. Games,
games fill cracks left when motive, meaning
dried up. More valuable than playing? Being.
Staying within where we find nothingness
imbuing everything-ness. Boldly facing it
without doing, comfortable in this. Yet,
in here we wear patchwork clothes,
satisfied they're stitched by sadness.

56/100

Friendly strangers

My friend in 2019, already 18 years toward strangerhood.

People become semi-strangers over

time, distance, lack of shared 

experience. Reacquaintance 

brings pain, ripping some kind of

bandage from maintained relationship.

I can't pull this string-can telephone

any tighter due to Earth's curvature,

certainly not through Einstein's
 
space-time fabric bending thingy.

I want old things to pop from

just-opened cans, fresh, familiar,

just as tasty as before. Is that

too much for me to ask?

55/100

Schism

Schism—that beautiful word.
Listen to it! Hear it? 
Ripping through what once lived 
whole? Its glorious "skuh" 
scissoring toward schoolish "ism". 
Feel its sanctimonious  
surety? How pulling
apart gives one purpose,
direction, somewhere to
stand? So much easier
than moving toward that
Other Force. Loosening
rather than tightening.
Accepting difference
without judgment. Giving 
SCHISM nowhere to live.
There's a reason those
yin/yang symbols have those
oppositely colored spots.

54/100

Habits

The older I get (and others I presume), the more difficult it becomes to fight against the tide of habit. For a borderline obsessive-compulsive, it’s extra hard.

My father’s rose, transplanted. July 2024.

Habits beget habits,
rituals, rituals.
Unfortunately,
predictable.
Grasp inspiring
spark, informer of
our ruts. Use its
spark, its flame,
burn away time's
accumulated dross.
Re-enter one's
original intent,
one's sincerity,
one's honesty.
Live there.

53/100

Summer ’76

Pop quiz: young man below (who hopefully will not be recognized because I doubt he will be flattered) was a real-life grad student. This photo represents what?

A. a waste of his parents’ money
B. proof “too much education” actually is a thing
C. the dangers of drinking
D. the empirical method at work, determining remaining quantity of beer
E. a complete lack of hand-eye coordination
F. pick any two above and provide a complete argument for your choices

Summer, nineteen seventy-six,
living my self-realized dream of
poverty, danger, emotional
confusion combined with
dead-end work. No car.
Walk two miles to work,
six days per, rain, shine.
Three of us with Crazy
Pete supervising(?),
performing work long since
killed by technology's steady
advance. Loaned co-worker
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle 
Maintenance precipitating
his mental descent, believing
himself to be Jesus. Nearly
killed my roommate, here now 
first confessed. My defense,
your honor, has to do with
his pistol-waving girlfriend,
sister to his wife—plus their
side business, stealing pills
from our state mental ward
to sell them later. Thinking
America's Bicentennial 
would prompt Jefferson
Starship plus Grateful Dead
to perform freely in
Golden Gate Park, headed
south with friend Ray, driving
one-oh-one down entire coast
(nearly killing us when his
bald-tired Vee-Dub spun
circles on twisting roads
through California's
redwoods). No concert
transpired but our good
friend entertained us
from his expensive digs 
above Oakland, serving up
ridge views with top-flight
drugs. Returning, faced up
to first failure as freelance
writer of fiction, looked in
my mirror, predicted, "If
you don't get your ass back
to college for some kind of
degree, you never will."
U-Dub to my rescue,
restoring my transcripts,
enabling graduation
in five college quarters.

Postscript: afraid to take
summer off (because I'd
drop out again), attended
said institution for nineteen
months, grabbed its
sheepskin after Christmas,
proving to myself how one
can be right/wrong 
simultaneously.

52/100