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?)
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….
Benny on lap. April 2023.
man with cat on lap pet each other—happiness. nubbins on his pants
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.
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.
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.
—Johnny Rotten on “No Fun (excerpts)” from Troublemakers, an anthology album
Author’s brother (left) and author Seattle Center, September 1965
This should be my second childhood. I remember childhood, or I think I do. Days shimmered, each one full of promise: unbounded time, more valuable than gold, silver. Complaints only when I heard THAT call: "time to come in"—"time for bed, young man"—"c'mon it's time for church". I still rail, still complain to The Adult, but he lives in my head now. I want to subcontract my adulthood so I can play through- out my adult childhood. This role requires timely attention to details of my life without one whit of bother to me...ah, but then I would need to hire someone to watch that first one. Where would it end? No, better to restrain my adulthood to its bare, needful minimum, let my child command ev'rything else.
This poem would have been way cooler posted on August 18th when it meant more. I drafted it near midnight, and couldn’t bring myself to polish it, find a photo, etc, until today.
Second to last or final voyage out?
Penultimate: bridesmaid celebrated faintly. Always announcing never announced. John the Baptist to Jesus the Messiah. Loved by writers For its erudition. Why this focus on opening act before The Headliner? Who decided this needed a word? Why mark the race's last mile?
Today we trot you out to perform yet again your ultimate function: forty-ninth of fifty, thus almost halfway. Thank you, you're done.
Technological threads wrap tightly. Despite rich promises, every third trial brings misery, frustration, anger, despair. How can society's linchpin fail so often, so wrongly, so spectacularly? Flip switches, lights light. Turn keys, car starts. Water plants, they grow. Turn on computers, hold your breath 'til sure no obstinate refusal to load one simple operating system occurs, no twirling apple-logo twirls indefinitely, no screen fails to light. Progress? Or have we simply traded one stubborn mule for another?
A bit trite and a bit short, but this will have to do today. An Irish stout has designs on my mind!
August 2026
Adrift, but found my course plotted without my ken, without approval. Yet when my course pointed me to where I'm now, I found this port, suited me just fine.
all the voices in my head 