I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name

there's a small river flowing
by my place of work in an old mill town
where the mills that once choked
the river are no longer industrious and
there isn't much for people there now
but the river is alive again

every day I walk by and stand for a minute
on the high bank
to try to see beneath the surface
of the brown water

today I watched a snapping turtle hunting
yesterday, a crayfish scuttling from my sudden presence,
and before that a swimming muskrat,
black birds and a squirrel at play,
small darting fish.

life is so much more than me
more than just
us.

Voyager

Bat-eared under summer hair cut
straight across the forehead,
he wants to climb a mountain, read ten books,
go to a wrestling match, learn all there is to know
about superheroes - all of them -
and the powers they possess.

Unremarkable

Stimulus/Response
made small-eyed
with low grade hatred
born of  unconcious repetition

Before you can turn away
they see
and know

Lemon Brown

When I was drowning, you set me alight.

Request

Dad?
Can you teach me to do
something you know how
to do?

Nice Place To Visit, But

This place, or that part of it,
waits to swallow you,
and as a sad matter of fact
is slowly enwrapping you now,
a constrictor.

Deep brown,
you are here by no fault of your own
and the only one in the neighborhood
who's actually ever heard of
Bangladesh.

Greet the madness around you
with a smile that blinds the viewer
to all of the rest,
what you have come to know,
what you fear.

I wish for you,
wings.

Chuck Berry - Havana Moon

I heard this for the first time today.

Night Life

The night lets you know
with certainty
that you are unworthy of it.

Sure, you're brave enough,
in that imaginary sense,
to enter it, to begin -
shuffling quietly through
an ambush of fireflies.

Beyond them, there are no lights,
but the blurred stars too far away
to notice you and the moon
who must have called out sick.

There's just a faint semi-glow
to the light sandy surface
of the dirt road to guide
the placement of your feet.

You begin to listen with your whole body.

Imagination tingles and
you're thinking it really is your sixth sense,
until the throaty growls and hoarse barking
of fast approaching dogs you cannot see
stops and stiffens you in your tracks.

"Easy...", you say,
to the darkness.

Wine Colored Days

My favorite Canadian sings it nice. If you can't feel this, check your pulse.

Albatros

Pumping The Brakes On The Passenger Side

All three graduated something today
kindergarten, grammar school, middle school
everything is moving, changing,
and I am left here to spectate and
to marvel

There Must Be Some Kind Of Mistake

They make a long list
of the things you
don't like
or hate.

It doesn't paint you
in a very favorable
light.

They seem to be saying
they'd be okay
with you being
someone
else,
someone better.

I'm still thinking,
hold on,
I'm sure there is something
I like that you
refuse to give me
credit for.

I'm almost certain.

Blood And Honey

A World Well Made

Animals seem to be appearing to me
pressing me somehow
turkeys today, wild turkeys
we live in the world with others
we are not special
and we all hope to stay free of disease.

You Too Will Wake Up One Morning With A Lot More Memories Than Dreams

Tell It To Go

Training run today and it's
sunny and bright and hot.

The woods are filled with horseflies
which change the tone of this outing
from recreational to spiritual trial.

Becoming a blood offering and
watching them dizzily orbiting my head
growing in numbers, finally biting
right between my shoulder blades
just beyond my reach.

They learn,
they adapt,
and so must I.

So I take to the road,
and now it's oblivious cars threatening
and hot pavement beating the soles
of my feet.

But on this trip I come upon a brown snake on a dirt road
close to a Great Blue Heron's long feather and a
a smallish box turtle, withdrawn, except for its watching head,
a dead porcupine, perfectly intact, lying on its side as if only asleep.
I run as softly as I can.

There are many empty pint
and half-pint peppermint schnapps bottles
strewn along the roadside
mile after mile.
Someone in this town has a serious problem.

Imagining him drinking,
bottle kept low in his lap,
driving slowly, searching,
endless night.

My problem, however, is a 100 mile race
with a start and a finish and the question
are you enough?

Out of water now,
stopping to drink from a cemetery spigot,
and no one there takes offense.

My feet hurt already at only three hours in
and my calf muscles twinge and ripple with activity
that I've come to understand as pre-cramps
caused maybe by a lack of salt.

Must learn to manage
my water,
my fuel,
my electrolytes,
my mind,
and dreading the science of the damn thing.

Experimenting with different ratios of running and walking:
15 minutes running/5 minutes walking, 10/5, 5/5,
and sticking to the plan of not allowing myself to walk
more than five minutes at a time,
of not falling into the dirge,
the death march.

When it hurts,
trying to think about staying upright
relaxing my body
controlling my breath,
my form...

Trying to avoid thinking about how tired
I will be running ten times this distance
or how much that effort will cost in pain.

Gently instructing my mind
to know
that it will get done
and to go.

Thinking about a title for something unwritten

Unsung songs, tuneless
and unheard,
I dedicate them none-the-less
to the hard pressed.

Depressed is less than I am,
but too tired
to explain the rest.

Continue...
please do,
don't
ask me why.

The First Pain

Oh, The Places You'll Go

End of the year
singing your kindergarten songs
happy and confident
having found belonging here
the world can shake you
and I don't want to see that.

Sweeping

What do you love?
One shot a bear
Another lost his teeth
I'm not sad about today
I'm okay
Keep running
Try for sleep

Constant Fear