I forgot

My mind gets lost now that I'm older..
can i cry here on your shoulder??
Will you listen to my muted tale of woe?

I dont recall now... I've forgottten...
cant remember not or nottin..
are my verses crying STOP or shouting GO?

To late ago, I dis remember...
is it May, or late December?
is my heart forever pinned there to my sleeve?

Am I nervous, am I wary..
cause I've lost my January?...
my wasted youth is something
I don't really want to grieve.

i am lonely and distracted...
my common sense is counteracted
by the fact that i don't really want to leave ...

But the earth is over peopled
and people mostly over steepled...
and I'm not an extra ordinary guy...

Suicide is not an answer...
no I'd never be a dancer...
and i must confess I've never wondered why.

Wait.. what was it i was saying?
.. could it be that this is praying..
not just writing down the static? It is odd...

I'm a poet, not a teacher..
and I'd rarely trust a preacher...
guess I'll chill and touch the living mind of God.

the end!




~Dean Neighbors~

No Roses

No crosses mark the ocean waves
no monuments of stone,
no roses grow on Sailor's graves,
the sailor rests alone.


His tributes are the Sea Gull's sweeps,
forever wild and free...
and teardrops that a sweetheart weeps
to mingle with the sea.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

 

Pieces of Thought

I build them with pieces of thought that I’ve found without much revealing the meaning. While formless appearing they’re really quite round so I seldom send them for cleaning. They’re aren’t any chalk lines defining my field so I always swing for the bleachers. In spite or redemption, I harvest my yield, the finest I brew for my teachers. They stumble, my sonnets, my ballads take trips, my "ambics" have too many digits. While some are off honing with diamond tips I’m home building whatzits and widgets… with meaningless phrases and bits strung along... like old Dr. Seuss wrote a Bob Dylan song. ~Dean Neighbors ~

Tugs

Tugs

I write a manifest, a boatswain's list,
a log of all the promises I've made
to no one but myself. I raise a fist
defiantly to life. But I'm afraid

of weighing anchor, getting underway,
of challenging Posiedon under sail
of running with a squall at break of day
while praying that the rudder doesn't fail.

Yet, I will use the navigator's art
to plot a course through islands of despair,
and I will trust the compass of my heart
to choose a heading caution wouldn't dare.

The promise of a voyage yet to be
will tug the weary sailor out to sea.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

One Potato

 One Potato

One potato two potato 

three potato four,

eat a spud before you sleep, 

feel better than before.

Find the covert sugar that

is hiding in your food.

Learn how serotonin works

to even out your mood.

Two potato three potato

four potato five,

heat a spud and eat a spud

and you will feel alive.

Rid yourself of clutter

or your life will go to heck.

Lull yourself to dreamland

with the tryptophan effect.

Three potato four potato

five potato six,

Read the doctor’s book

and you can learn the doctor’s tricks.

Four potato five potato 

six potato, more …

The economy of Idaho 

will, soon, begin to soar!

Keep up with your journal

It can change your life for keeps.

Try to break the habit of

the little yellow peeps.

~Dean Neighbors

Adjacent Possibilities

In adjacent possibilities,
the doors we've yet to choose,
live the infinite examples
of our iterated muse,

where exceptional is common,
ingenuity abides
in a syncopated ocean
of reciprocating tides.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

Nermalsquat Thevesoil

Nermalsquat the noisy thief, 

the unsuccessful lout,

He (squeaky) snuck around at night, 

lurked (trippy, fall) about.

Oh woe was him, 

his chosen field, 

was (stumble, bangy) spoiled.

 If only he had (thumpy, thud) 

essentially been oiled.

From the Glass

A chilly evenin’ wind was blowin’
down the Texas street.
He hadn’t thought of what to say,
not knowin’ they would meet.

He touched his hat and touched her heart
with memories of “when”.
With sadness in her eyes she led
him down that path again...

her how and why, her need to grow
beyond their childhood vow,
to move along another path,
but still he wondered how…

just how it was that hurtin’ him
could come to mean she grew,
and why did growin’ sow the seeds
of findin’ someone new.

“I’m leavin’ this town anyway
so it don’t matter, girl—
I thought I’d give Vaquero life
in Mexico a whirl.”

He searched her face for any sign
and saw the bitter end,
the dampness in her eyes, he thought,
is only from the wind.

She offered up a hand to him,
he felt a little lost,
then smiled and tipped his hat as if
he understood the cost.

The cowboy walked away at last,
her prisoner no more,
reflecting ever smaller in a
distant plate-glass door.

Reflections held her tears until
she’d watched the moment pass,
he reached the corner, turned and stepped
forever from the glass.

Mother's Milk

Mother's Milk

Our first addiction is to Mother’s milk,
a flow that, every Mother knows, must cease.
And never is the weaning smooth as silk,
and ever does the child fear his release.

As one is  being weaned from perfect meals,
consuming as we are, ourselves, consumed
we learn, to some degree, how dying feels
and realize that paradise is doomed.

Our Mother lost we need to love again
and often search, in vain, for a reflection
of Mother’s love. We choose a mate and then
we imitate the ultimate connection,

The “I-am-you-are-me-is-she-is-we”,
I am the milk, the Mother’s milk is me.

~Dean Neighbors ~

Consider

 

Consider if you will our flying friends,
recipients of nature's greatest grants.
Imagine just how dull Earth might have been
had birds not struck a bargain with the plants.


Consider if you will a simple seed
whose embryo and sustenance combine
to give the feathered traveler his speed
and pay the fare for those that drop behind.


Consider if you will the quest of man,
digging up his world in search of power,
his universal, superficial plan
is clearing skies of birds and Earth of flowers.

Consider now the miracle of Spring--
suspended from a petal and a wing.

~Dean Neighbors ~

SILENCE

Can I go, quietly, away...

let my friend have the final word?

Can I control the things I say

like some tweetless breed of  bird?

Can I leave well enough alone…

keep my imagination mute??

Can I turn off my smarty phone,

become a stringless kind of lute?

You know I AM a simple man….

of cotton shirt and denim pant….

Be quiet…..yes…...I think I can!!!!!

But you know better……friend…….

I can’t!!!

~ Dean Neighbors ~

The Book

The Book

She was the book he couldn’t close ...

a deeply hidden ache.

Though time forgets the heart still knows

of love for loving’s sake.

She was a dream from long ago

and, true, the years have worn,

but in his heart and in his soul

her beauty lingers on.

The autumn leaves, his mind can bear,

and too, the winter's rage ...

if it is true that love is fair

and passion doesn't age.

~Dean Neighbors ~

Circle Circles

The circle circles roundabout
and finds a way to, neatly, close
without a pause or any doubt.
You’re smiling Mother, I suppose,
for now it’s mine to hold the hand
to soothe the ego, slightly bruised,
to wipe away the tear drops and
repeat the phrases often used…

“My little one, ignore the pain--
tomorrow brings another dawn.
No rose can grow without the rain.
Until the fear and pain are gone

I’ll hold you thus, encircle you
as circles must--- as father's do."

Example

A lie is hiding spot between the lines

of wisdom etched in sleek iambic stone,

deceit subliminal in metered rhymes

that’s known to harried bard and bard alone.

The knave constructs his fiction full aware

he’s deigned it just to serve a mottled beat

Convinced that readers very seldom care,

he tosses back his myth and whiskey neat.

With frequency the victims are deceived

by lovely words subverted to a goal

designed to fit a frame that’s preconceived

to keep the versifier’s meter whole.

A boundless sea of gall do writers steer.

I cite the wretched case presented here.

Diz

For Diz… My friend's name was Denise... Denise Gurran. We met in an online poetry group....where, one day, she mis-spelled her own name via a typo.... she was "Dizzy" and then she got shortened to Diz. I never met her but I grew to know her through her poetry and personality. She was a teacher and she lived in New Zealand...never saw her...never heard her  voice...but I heard her "voice" anyway.....through her verse...... rest in peace my friend.

For Diz


We lived a world apart. We didn’t know
that we’d be friends when all was done and said
but friends we were in time …and space, although
you lived a world away, a day ahead.


I never heard your voice but heard your song
You wrote the part and parcel and the whole
I learned the theme of you, the Lat and Long..
you shared your muse and more, you shared your soul….


They say your song is done, forever mute
I’m told your voice is gone forever... done…
But there’s a legacy death can’t refute.
your verse is living still, the day is won….


You’re just ahead of me, it never ends
beyond eternity… forever friends.

~ Dean Neighbors ~
 

Balls to Four

This one needs lots of explanation. Jack Tar (also Jacktar, Jack-tar or even Tar) was a common English term originally used to refer to a seaman of the Merchant or Royal Navy, particularly during the period of the British Empire. By WWI the term (usually "Tar") was used as a nickname for those in the U.S. Navy. Both members of the public, and sailors  often used the term to label those who "went to sea".

As to the title: "Balls to Four" refers to the "midwatch", the midnight to 4:00 A.M. watch aboard ship. "Balls" (or Four Balls) = Midnight, which in the military’s 24-hour timekeeping system may be written as "0000," although writing midnight as "2400" is perhaps more common. So, "Balls to four" doesn't have the connotation some of you might think...although, legend has it that the term originated with Admiral "Bull" Halsey who, by all accounts, was a crusty old salt...so....you never know.

"Haze gray and underway" refers to the color and the status (underway = at sea) of your U.S. Navy ship.


 It was “haze gray and underway”,
a mantra from my youth,
that turned my mind to retrospect,
to lessons learned, in truth.

The mists of time hang round me now
in never ending lines
from cotton sacks at 5 years old
to 10 paseta wines,

with tapas but without a thought
in stand-bars near Cadiz,
I'd naught a clue to where I was,
what ghosts that I drank with.

The Pinta or the Nina crew
may well have hoisted there
before they sailed with Cristobal,
but I was unaware.

The moments of my life sail past
like frigates leaving shore.
Jack Tar was I, a swab by day,
a helmsman balls to four.

~Dean Neighbors ~

The Eyes of Time

When first we met at heaven’s door,
when all was endless night,
I fell in love by touch before
the Lord invented light.

A lyric of the universe,
our song is sung by choice,
a syncopated line of verse
in every Angel’s voice.

I look into the eyes of time
and see myself with you
from eons past and out of mind
to futures not in view.

When death has come to clam his prize,
when dark and light resign,
the darkest Angel we’ll surprise,
as your heart beats does mine.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and

Myths and Rainbows

The truth will wear the clothing of a myth
to teach the common hero how to dance.
The Philistine that David battled with?
If truth were told, he never had a chance.

Our writings and our stories manifest
the spiritual and mystic sides of Man.
They summarize the truths that we have guessed
along with all our dreams since time began.

The essence of the ocean's in a drop,
the mystery of life within a flea
and words connect the bottom to the top
so all the wonder circles back to me.

And as ye seek then so ye shall be told
of miricles and other pots of gold.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

A Musing

A Musing

The bards desire, a whiter shade of muse,
requires that deep depression be attained.
A genuinely somber tone, the blues,
must permeate the soul and be retained.

You're better off, a human, being sad
as lack of hope intensifies the senses.
The muse will be obscure when one is glad.
Embrace your pain. Oh poet, build no fences!

A weary writer soon divines the well
and draws his muse from willful deprivation
of sleep that he may conjure bliss or Hell,
exhaustion is a path to inspiration.

Exhaustion's good, depression's better still...
if you can manage both you're almost Will.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

~El Alma del Caballo~ (the soul of the horse)

~El Alma del Caballo~ (the soul of the horse)

The old Vaquero rolled a smoke
and spoke of unseen forces;
the awful toll that war requires
of soldiers and their horses--

how some believe that war cures war;
of lessons known and told,
why men can’t learn a truth their heart
has not the shape to hold.

“Caballo hearts, old soldiers know,
reflect the hearts of men.
This fact was known when Moses fled
and Pharaoh learned to swim.”

“The horse and soldier share a bond”,
the old hand told the young,
“for Horse, like Man, enjoys the taste
of war upon his tongue.”

“None but a man who’s gone to war
and felt its mighty force
while clinging to a saddle, truly
understands the horse.”

"A mount was shot from under me
in battle near the sea
and death revealed the nature of
the horse’s soul to me."

“All horses share a common soul.
I’ve seen this thing, it’s true--
if you know one, a single horse,
then all are known to you."

The old man tossed his cigarette
and filled his coffee cup
and as he did another there,
a Gringo boy, spoke up.

"If what you say is true, old man,
one day, when men are gone,
the soul of Horse must perish too,
what point in staying on?"

The old man laughed, “You are niave
my cowboy friend. Please try
to open up your heart and mind
and I will tell you why

the words you speak, they make no sense,
I tell you here and now,
no horses in the world? This thing,
our God would not allow."

~ Dean Neighbors ~

He Couldn't Say

My father passed away last Thursday...after a long, full life of 94 years.,,,.. I visited with him in October and wrote a poem about him at that time.... I sort of .."folded" parts of that poem into this one. Dean Neighbors....12/31/2001 Pleasanton, CA

John was born a farmer’s son,
and learned to work the lands,
in rural Oklahoma where
they made life with their hands.

He learned to tell a story well,
and all the family knows
of model Tee’s, depression days,
and silent picture shows...

of wagon trips and cotton crops
and playing country ball,
of dough-boys who went “over there”
and lived to “bless ‘em all”...

of one room schools and butter churns
and following a plow
behind a team of stubborn mules…
he still remembered how.

The oldest of eleven then...
what could the schoolboy do
but read his books behind a plow
and pray his rows were true.

John married young as some men do
and raised a family
of seven children, seven strong
with quiet dignity.

They moved to Colorado
to find a better day.
He learned to raise another crop,
to live another way.

Then out to California
a blue pacific dawn;

the war was recent history,
the grapes of wrath were gone.


John lost his love one dreary day
but kept his stubborn pride
and lived another forty years,
though half his heart had died.

He didn’t share his hopes for life,
I didn't know his dreams.
I didn’t know I didn’t know
until today it seems.

But I know faith and honesty,
he carried them inside
with dignity, humility
and unrelenting pride.

And I know well integrity,
he lived it every day…
and in the end I came to know
the love he couldn’t say.

~Dean Neighbors ~