We kissed:
lips groping without knowing,
hands benign and trembling,
timid and still.
You were a gift I did not understand.
I had no way to accept the
strange dichotomy of peace and fire.
When I moved away to California
the ocean became my lover and
sand buttressed my heart;
I began to understand.
(upper left car: tadtop.com; upper right: v8buick.com; shot of Salt Creek at Dana Point: lodging4vacations.com)
“Time to make little rocks out of big rocks.”
Work is work.
I remember:
cold clouds slung low, soaking
all of us, men and machines
thundering through my earplugs and muffs as
a thousand drummers
play with wild abandon.
I walk the circuit of jaws and belts,
cleaning here, oiling there, driving
old trucks to precarious positions,
blessing the rusted metal keeping the rain
off my steaming wet self.
Making big rocks little taught me much
about wanting to make a living
with my native intelligence
rather than my native strength and agility.
Fast forward forty years and
I’m still making little rocks
from big rocks; the only differences are
the tools and the roof above me.
Work is work.
(top: alibaba.com; middle: ihconstruction.com; bottom: lisasusan.com)
(Note: this is not supposed to be a scientific treatise on how synaptic transmission works. The ionic chemistry in a synapse is quite complex. All I’m trying to do, here, is experiment with how I perceive things in a poem.–jrs)
A clever combination enables
the paths our thoughts follow through
the labyrinths of our brains.
The Chlorine atom must find
an extra electron to become a chloride ion
before it can marry the Sodium in
an ironic iconic bond that enhances
the Hydrogen and Oxygen partnership that
enables all Life we know here.
That’s Life with a capital ‘L,’
not just the trendy stuff.
Salt helps direct the traffic;
the information forming, appearing, building,
until we have an idea, becoming a thought,
becoming a feeling that remembers the
synaptic sequence we created.
We created. Yes. We do that.
We create who we are and we create
who we appear to be, which can
be very different from each other.
The gap between who we are
and who we appear to be
is where Art lives.
When I drop by and he invites me in,
I touch everything at once.
This makes Art laugh and
I thank it all, including the salt.
(top: approximatefield.wordpress.com; bottom: scientopia.com)
Writing is the meat.
Music is vegetables.
Reading for dessert.
(kabobs: halfhourmeals.com; pecan pie: myfrienddebbie.com)
Freak Mountain Ramblers:
I love happy feet music;
hope is the way home.
(www.freakmountain.com)
My footfalls seem strange,
hollow, like I’m walking
across an old drum hidden
in the darkest corner of
a clandestine music shop.
I am on a path wending
through a wood, where I am
attempting to be quiet, but
the booming of my passage pricks
up the ears of the squirrels who
make tsk noises at me,
scolding me for my impolite traipse
through their living room.
They call me Boomer and remain
steadfastly unaware of the irony.
(drum: drumchat.com; squirrel: stobhilllungcancersupportgroup.weebly.com)
The eaves sing their songs,
odd harmonies swirling
with gulls as they wheel
worried among the masts.
The crows are hunkered
somewhere in the green
watching the blustery sway.
The chickadees hold tight
as near the trunks as they dare.
Strewn papers scatter my desktop
as I listen to the eaves sing and
envy the birds I cannot see.
I feel for the gulls.
Like me, they can’t find
a place to land
in this capricious wind.
(gulls: jrcompton.com; rainbow: crystalkennedy.wordpress.com)
The grass, bent with breeze,
wets my shoes and pantlegs.
It tastes of salt and
smells of rain as I stand
sinking into the sand beneath.
My knees are calm, my heart bright;
my senses know when I am home.
My mind will someday follow.
(top: openwalls.com; bottom: bitsandbytes.net)
We are all human:
a few of us light the way;
Caged Bird rises free.
(from oprah.com)
(Note: I’ve always enjoyed smoking. Do I feel deprived? Yes. Do I feel good about stopping? Yes. Euphoria comes and goes. It’s an insidious addiction.–jrs)
My skin crawls off of me
and disappears into the outlet
just above where my computer plugs in.
I watch my muscles twitch
as they try to hide from the light.
My blood and viscera,
not wanting to make a mess,
stay in place to feed,
to maintain, my deeper sinew;
an internal siren warns me that my skin
had better come back soon.
It does come back,
oozing recharged from another outlet,
but has to try a couple times
to get itself back on properly.
Relieved, I accept its apology.
(top: acebuchblog.es; bottom: beautifuldecay.com)
The audiobook is live!
Narble Furt Lives 