Monday, October 28, 2024

 I wrote this in my sleep last night: "Starting Small in America was the last man in the world to wear a tie to work."

Saturday, October 05, 2024

Night Coffee

The sun set long ago

The dusk’s already gone

The Milly Way’s spread overhead

We may never see the dawn

Oh night coffee

Lit up only by starlight

Let’s brew another pot

And drink coffee through the night


I like mine sweet and creamy

You like yours straight & black

We’ll go screaming through the night

Like Cassidy & Kerouac

Oh night coffee, 

Our nocturnal delight

Let’s brew another pot 

And drink coffee through the night


Folks in bed

Counting sheep

We live our dreams

While they’re asleep


The night lies out before us

Our heads are strong and clear

We’ll go flying through the darkness

Up beyond the stratosphere

Oh night coffee

Like Charles Lindbergh on his flight

Let’s make another pot of coffee

And keep flying through the night


Wednesday, August 21, 2024

What if indeed


 I scare myself

Today's Verse: 20 August 2024

If I had a beard
What would it say?
Come close, my dear?
Go far away?
If I had a beard
What would it want
In the night?
In the dark?
How would it relate
To a lesser expression
Of my true self
The hair on my head?
On my chest?
In my ass?
In my nose?
My ears?
And under my arms?
When I die
Will the mortician care
To understand my feelings there
To wash and crop, perhaps perfume
The best of me, my salient plumes?

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Today's Verse: 3 May and 11 July 2024

In the after now
Dreams come true
And nightmares too
In the after now
What I want
And what I dread
Are making out
Inside my head
In the after now
What I am
And what I'm not
Half-remembered
Half-forgot

egina nantara    nijavaguttave kanasugula
                         mattu dusvapnagalu kuda
egina nantara    bayakegalu mattu digilugalu 
                          muddu madittave nanna taleyolage
egina nantara    naneno enallavo
                          ardha nenapu
                          ardha marevu

Friday, July 05, 2024

Recollections of a Shining Youth

When we were young 

We vowed that we’d shine

As brightly as the sun

We’d stand and defy

In fact we’d outshine

Every star in the sky


When the stars saw us try

So jealous were they

Of their place in the sky

They told us up here

By night or by day

We don’t belong in their sphere


Ah but the Sun by his grace

Froze Time’s mad race

Stood still in his place

Whatever we were meant to be

Just for one moment we could see

That we shone for all eternity


And now we’ve grown old

We look back and we know

If we weren’t really gold

If we popped or we flopped

We stepped out of the show

For us just once time stopped

We glowed and we shone and time stopped


Friday, June 14, 2024

Ode to the Wheel

The wheel really is quite a simple machine.
A circle on a stick. But someone invented it.  
We know this because we’re always being told not 
to re-invent it. “No need to re-invent the wheel,” 
we’re told.  Because it’s so basic.  A simple machine.
The circle is the simplest shape, the most perfect form, 
all the points equidistant from a single point.
It’s how the universe should work.  Revolving 
without rolling.  And is there rolling without wheels?
There are no wheels in nature.  Someone had to invent it. 
But once you’ve seen it, of course you want to invent it.  
Put it a circle on a stick and we can use it to move things. 
The circle, the perfect shape, the perfect machine. 
We all know nothing’s really round, but what if 
you could make something nearly round. Nearly perfect.  
Like the human heart, so beautiful, so imperfect. 
But if you could make it frictionless, it could 
carry anything.  Love, you mean. Yes of course, 
that was invented a long time ago.  Simple, 
perfect, frictionless. If only. Don’t tell me
there’s no need to re-invent it.  Re-inventing 
is what we all need to do, every generation, 
every person, every lover.  The wheel will turn.  
We’ll invent it. Let it turn.  Reinvent it.