Tell Me Octopus

Tell me Octopus, I begs,

is those arms or is they legs?

What ever they are, such a tangle,

from your ugly head they dangle.

Tell me please, you I beseeches,

does you walk or does you reaches?

Questions now grow so much bolder

is them hips or be they shoulders?

What a sense of humor God,

to make this here Cephalopod.

Hey let me go, unhand (or foot) me…

has me now, well, how could that be?

Ooh, your head is soft and squishy,

such a rude and ugly fishy.

Question, please, my last one (could be),

why's your mouth where your butt should be?

Don't look at me with that big eye.

I’m leaving now. Let go! Goodbye!

No questions more as I retreat me.

I'm so glad you didn't eat me.

~ Dean Neighbors ~

In Early Dawn

I wrote this after going on a camping trip with my grandson's sixth grade class to a campground just outside of Yosemite National park. I started writing it at coffee, before breakfast and carried my notebook the rest of the day to jot down verses. The poem was in a drawer all these years (the grandson is now 25 years old). I forgot about it completely.

In Early Dawn


In early dawn my coffee cup,
before I wake young campers up...
enjoy the calm and silent camp...
the morning.

The morning senses, breakfast bells
with syrup tastes and sausage smells...
the clothes are clean the hair is damp
they're hungry.

they're hungry for the learning too
a meadow green and forest view...
a question and a sixth grade hunch
cathedrals.

Cathedrals in the puzzle pines
the students in their cabin lines..
a peanut butter brown-bag lunch
the Miwoc.

The Miwoc with their tribal tales
a child has died a marraige fails
eternal sadness, granite face.
Tanaya

Tanaya creek and mirror lake
or meadow? Is it some mistake
or mother nature's saving grace?
It's evening.

It's evening filled with campfire games
the skits with all the teacher's names
a snack and are they sleeping yet"?
and later.

And later with a refilled cup
I drink the friendly coffee up
they're still awake I'd safely bet
but peaceful.

But peaceful is a moonlight stroll
to comtemplate my latest role
at dawn I'll start another day...
tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and children go
I was a help. How do I know?
the smiles show me my just reward...
In early dawn.

Bob and Little Bob

A little Angel, hands o­n hips,
sings, loud and clear, the “sunshine” song,
and when the song has left her lips
she wonders how I sang along.

“My ‘little Bob without a curl’
my Mother sang that song. I knew
another Bob, another girl,
another Angel much like you.”

She doesn’t know “the rugged cross”;
your other song, (she’s o­nly three).
She doesn’t know she soothes my loss
with timeless magic; memories…

of mother singing to her boy,
of Bob and little Bob… and joy.

Echo From a Silent Heart

For Mom


Memories of memories
          imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
          a loss that others feel.

Photographs and traces of
          the one who was my world,
black and white reminders of
          a pretty little girl.

Questions ask me questions
           but answers don't reply,
the echo from a silent heart
           can never tell me why.

The gray and faded image,
            the mother she became,
what do we have in common now
            beyond our common name?

A tattered family bible holds
            a note penned by her hand,
pieces of another's past
            I'll never understand.

And if I ask the questions
            will answers that I find
restore the faded image in
            the bottom of my mind?

Memories of memories
             imperfect and surreal,
copies made of copies of
             the pain I'll always feel.

Away

Aweigh the anchor! Underway tonight.

I ride the changing tides of time to sea,
beyond the breakers, past the guiding light
into the depths of sweet serenity.

Away to find my purpose I depart
this port without a compass or a scroll.
Away to know God's presence in my heart,
to feel His gentle touch upon my soul.

As I embark on life's embracing wind,
so like a lover's touch, a velvet hand,
grant me, oh Lord, calm seas to journey's end
and grant my love a way to understand...

the drunkenness that seaward Sailors know...
this sweet intoxication as I go.

Words

Inspired by “The Story of English” by Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil.


Our words engulf us like the sea
and as the dark abyss will peak,
will ebb and swell with mystery,
so too the language that we speak.

The words we hold, perchance discard,
will differ with the where and whence
but language grows with each new card
homogenized by common sense.

On Dublin streets, in Kingston bars
the native sings his odd refrain;
the language bears its local scars
yet stays intact and shall remain

the sum of all that man has wrought,
his precious words, his common thought.

© 2006 W.D. Neighbors



The words surround us like the sea
and, as the dark abyss will peak,
will ebb and swell with mystery,
so will the language that we speak.

The words we hold, perchance discard,
will differ with the where and whence,
yet English grows with each new card,
homogenized by common sense.

On Dublin streets, in Boston bars
the speech will sing its odd refrain.
Our language bears its local scars
yet stays intact and shall remain

the sum of all that man has wrought,
his precious words, his common thought.

© 2006 W.D. Neighbors

Mists of Autumn

Let me share with you a story
of a Kingdom by the sea,
Knights of old in all their glory
filled with pride and gallantry.

I have seen the moonlight glisten
on the lake at Camelot.
I have dined with the magician
and crossed swords with Lancelot.

Hear the story, dark and tragic,
of the King at Avalon
how the Kingdom lost it’s magic,
all the dreams of glory gone.

There came a King for all of Britain,
destined, he,  to claim the throne
pulled the sword as it was written
from the scabbard made of stone.

Gallant knights around a table
gathered as a bard did sing,
daring, battle-scarred and able
led by their forever King.

Guinevere, the fairest maiden
gave her hand but not her heart,
know this Queen was trouble laden,
never faithful from the start.

Mists of autumn never-ending
down the corridors of time.
mounted knights and horses blending
into beasts of war sublime.

Fields of battle, rolling thunder
bloody sword and piercing lance,
did he choose to die I wonder
was it destiny or chance?

Arthur, wounded, pale and bleeding
all his plans of battle failed,
with the force of life receding
did forsake the Holy Grail.

He was born to rule forever
but forever came apart
Cursed by love, in love forever,
love has stilled his broken heart.

At the lake while moonlight glistens,
Merlin ponders his mistake,
now he knows he should have listened
to the Lady of the Lake.

Gone for now or gone forever,
what will future poets sing?
For the wizard, deft and clever
named him “Once and future King”.

Oldest of One

I’m the youngest of seven, the oldest of one,
a paradox past understanding,
I'm.the oldest of five that I wed on the run
while fleeing the market street landing.

I’m naked inside like the eyes of a clown
and cannot believe what I've told you…
but such as this can’t keep the tongue in me down,
my ignorance needs to enfold you.

~Dean Neighbors~

Chronicle

So it's off to Omega I go
and, as future events I traverse,
it's a comforting thing just to know
in the end I'll come back in reverse.

My personal universe lives
as a chronicle written in rhyme
filled with hints that my subconscious gives
of my previous travels through time.

As I travel time's infinite scope
I'm aware that my passage is paid
with the tangible substance of hope
from which all human wishes are made.

Pecos Calvin Cline

Old Pecos Bill rode into camp
astride his grizzly bear,
he wore a hat of diamondbacks
and cactus underwear.
 
His shirt was made of alligators
captured by surprise,
which you could tell by lookin' in
their dazed, shirt button eyes.
 
His trousers were coyote skin
superbly cured and dyed,
but I believe the critters still
was livin' there inside.  
 
For boots he wore live armadillas
held there on his feet
by two old rattle snakes he'd wrapped  
around and knotted neat.
 
A cloak of angry timber wolf he'd throwd  
acrost his back
and I could see he had another
tucked inside a sack.
 
"You're lookin' good old Pecos Bill"
I said, as he hopped down.
He stabbed at me with beady eyes
and pierced me with his frown.
 
"A fashion plate, a man to envy,
Pecos Calvin Cline."
He stared at me a moment then
as though I'd lost my mind.
 
"What, this old thang?", said Pecos Bill,
"I got ta tell ya, pard,
I whipped this up this mornin' from
the critters in my yard."
 
And then a grin attacked his face and
conquered his demeanor.
"I had ta shoot my other suit...
the durn thing ate the cleaner."

Oceola

In eighteen hundred thirty eight
a painter, passing by
before it was too late,
used skill and artists eye

to gauge a noble warrior’s heart
to excavate his soul
to make a warrior torn apart,
appear, forever, whole.

The eyes of golden amber brown,
the face of mirrored dread,
a feathered plume, a crimson crown,
a race so nearly dead.

The “trail of tears” this warrior chief
could not, by choice, abide,
his Seminoles met sad defeat
bereft of hope and pride.

The warrior garb belied his pain
for life and hope were done,
he wouldn't live to fight again
as death had nearly won.

When Catlin ceased, his eye fulfilled,
his painting graced a hall
to show the world a warrior, killed,
could live to haunt us all.

A link to the George Catlin Portrait of Osceola and his story.

When Life Invented Love

Love is but a state of mind we choose,
or not, depending on a want or need--
a bet we make, a pot we win or lose.
It's not a magic process. Nor indeed
is happiness a right we’ve earned because
we've paid some youthful dues, accruing debt
to be collected under nature's laws,
a charged potential, not extracted yet.

By all that’s right in life, by all above,
be earnest in your choices, humble too.
The best intent can bring the best of love
or bring you back to earth to choose anew.

All such was understood before the time
when life invented love-- and lovers rhyme.

A Tail of Two Sisters

Oh, Cali the dog is a long one

with hindquarters narrow and far,

her nose sniffs around in the pantry

while her tail is out dusting the car.

Her muzzle is noble and wolf-like

she wears four white socks with a smile,

she’ll bark at intruders politely

but “watch dogging” isn’t her style.

Short Boxy, the wonder pup fuzzball,

ferociously growls as she scoots,

the fantasy squirrels all around her

take cover and shake in their boots.

She climbs to her perch on the sofa

and curls in a ball for a nap,

one eye is half open and watchful

for a treat or a welcoming lap.

The girls, of course, aren't truly sisters

although they would challenge that call,

young Cali the big family sweetheart
and “A.K.A. Lucy”, the small.

Circle Circle

Oh why, dear muse, has this pen been forsaken?
Does verse not slake your ego when you thirst?
Perhaps your taste in wine I have mistaken,
a sour grape for muse? I have rehearsed
the motions of the quill I made before
but little seems to flow. The verses should
be pooling on the paper, not the floor
like blood or wine. If only poets could
turn on and off the muse through force of will,
extract the feelings deep within the heart,
I’d wick the fear and love from pot to quill
and scratch them on a page. If I could start

perhaps then, muse, you would restore my knack
and let the magic circle, circle back

OF Fairest Face and Midnight Hair

When tempted by an evil
bearing legendary fruit
did hunger conquer innocence,
can history refute

this tale of human weakness that
has passed from ancient times.
Is this a song of simple truth
or fodder for our rhymes?

Evicted from her garden by
a knowledge never sought,
was she villain, then, or victim
in a play that time forgot?

A woman, real, or issue of
imaginary birth--
of fairest face and midnight hair--
did Snow White grace the Earth??

© Copyright 2005 Dean Neighbors

The Snail and the Sports Car

A tiny sports car sputtered in,
a snail was at the wheel.
The gas attendant, with a grin,
said, "Snail, are you for real?

I 'preciate your right to cruise
and that red color's swell...
and naturally I can't refuse
to serve you here at 'Shell'...

but, I must say it's odd enough
now, snail, you must confess...
for such as you to drive and stuff...
say, why'd you paint that 'S'

there on the door, the driver's side,
in glowing shades of blue?"
The snail rose up with stately pride
and said, "Hey you would too...

I'm tired of hearing people say
'there goes that lowly snail'...
and night by night and sunny day
you know, they'd never fail...

to laugh at me, my lack of speed,
until I bought this car,
but, see me now, my soul's been freed,
I'm pretty near a star!

They teased and snorted; mocked my pace,
my life was filled with woe...
but now, they shout, as by I race...
look at that S car go!!!"

© 2004 Dean Neighbors 

Owed to Bureaucracy

~Inspired by a bad day at work~


What tedium comes with bureaucracy,
what great waste of time is entailed,
intrinsically fraught with hypocrisy,
before you begin you have failed.

In heaven they process efficiently,
“perfection” and “timely” are norms,
to handle your transfer proficiently--
just die and then fill out these forms.

Interval

~ Interval ~ 3/10/02. This grew out of a discussion with my wife about the linearity of time. I was trying to convince her that I was her first love even if I wasn't because time does not run in a straight line in hours and minutes....but by the importance of the event...therefore, the first thing that happened in the history of time....the most important... was our first kiss. Makes sense right??? Well, it does to me.

 

I see the truth unfolding in my dreams,
that love exists as interwoven time...
and time is just as simple as it seems,
as basic as the meter in a rhyme.

Our time together doesn't have to play
into the universe as now defined,
for time's a mere division of the day,
to universal pendulums confined...

but, linear, kinetic, all askew,
arrayed in any manner that may be,
no matter how defined, my love for you
exists in every moment granted me.

And only God himself could grant us this...
the universe begins with our first kiss.


~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

Albert

A patent clerk of Bern, in early morn,

would catch the crowded trolley and would go

to work and back. But, like no other born,

he thought of things no common mind could know.

He saw that as the trolley moved along

the working folks onboard would then perceive

the next preceding lamp post (“am I wrong?”)

before a man afoot. “I do believe,

said Albert to himself, “reflected light,

since we are moving to the lamp,

would be arriving early to our sight”.

He mopped his brow, it being rather damp.

No magic but the magic that you make,

enfolded by the thought of what must be

divided by the trolley that you take

and factored by what Albert knew as “E”

Lullaby

In yesterday’s clutches she trembled,
recalling her previous role.
The feelings, recaptured, resembled
a wind stirring leaves in her soul.

In soft ocean breezes of hindsight
our hearts chose a course of release
and love sailed away in the moonlight
embarked in a vessel of peace.

A lullaby sung in a whisper,
a yesterday saved with a smile,
in passing my memory kissed her
as clouds tumbled by single file.

Circle Circle

Oh why, dear muse, has this pen been forsaken?
Does verse not slake your ego when you thirst?
Perhaps your taste in wine I have mistaken,
a sour grape for muse? I have rehearsed
the motions of the quill I made before
but little seems to flow. The verses should
be pooling on the paper, not the floor
like blood or urine. If one only could
turn on and off the muse through force of will,
extract the feelings deep within the heart,
I’d wick the fear and love from pot to quill
and scratch them on a page. If I could start

perhaps then, muse, you would restore my knack
and let the magic circle, circle back.

Mother's MIlk (symbiosis)

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

As you are being weaned from perfect meals,
consuming as you are, yourself, consumed,
you 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.

To Touch a Star

Falling through the sky, in scintillation,

refracted starlight strikes a random eye.

Transiting in timeless propagation,

an instant, just, to cast its beauty by.

Light travels the galactic arms that lie,

in ancient paths of stasis strewn afar,

imperfect, insubstantial as a sigh,

yet perfect in the wonder that we are,

incredibly, allowed to touch a star.

To Feel

I, light of foot and dark of thought,
give in before the tide
and clutch the pain I, “sigh”, forgot,
the dread I feel inside.

Embracing fear that’s still around
from heartbreaks out of mind,
I bare my chest. Of truth, I’ve found,
I like the naked kind.

Love is a loss I’ll reinvest,
I’ll wager soul and shirt.
To feel the love, I find it best
to reinstall the hurt.

Bluewater Ink

A deep water Sailor
with far away dreams,
his lover of flowers
and cold mountain streams,
moved nearer to heaven
the closer to be.
Their river of love runs
away from the sea.

Where eagles go wheeling
with power and grace
o’er shimmering aspens
in meadows of lace,
what stars will they reach for,
what thoughts will they think
on high mountain paper
with blue water ink?






Posted by Dean Neighbors at 4/14/2005 09:45:00 PM

Reflections (for Marty)

Having spent time with my "rock hound/UFOlogist" brother in law and his family...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In darkened desert peaks
imagination seeks
to find the ancient faces in the stone…

and “want to see it eyes”
search water-mirrored skies,
in wonder, for reflections never shown.

An object in the lake,
in helpless double take,
escapes from unidentified to known...

the visitors from space,
in alabaster lace,
are beams the moon has spilled for you alone.

Jacob's Ladder

“And he dreamed,
and behold, a ladder set up on the earth,
and the top of it reached to heaven;
and behold the Angels of God
ascending and descending on it.”

~Genesis 28:12



An adolescent fool, I made mistakes
and, each time, thought that I was the inventor.
A talent for disaster’s all it takes
to gather damage fore and aft of center.

I suffer with the best. My broken heart
is permanent. With each new scar I crow,
“I hurt, therefore I am”… not quite Descartes,
but accurate enough as slogans go.

I’m older now, and wear my scars with pride,
they represent a mortal Jacob’s ladder.
No Angel, I ascend, eyes open wide
and choose to be the wiser not the sadder.

The sum of all those scars stands, strong, before you.
So, “shrink” me if you must, I’ll just ignore you.


© 2003 W.D. Neighbors

The Music

Poetry's the music
that was playing in my heart
right at the beginning
of the ending from the start,

long, cascading verses
to express a single thought,
freely given secrets for which,
once, I would have fought...

philosophizing, prophesizing,
boldly telling lies,
romantic inspirations
wrapped in wishes sealed with sighs,

memories of miseries,
imaginary love,
wanderings and wonderings
and magic from above,

prejudices, urgent kisses,
honesty and myth,
pain and pretty, joy and ugly
whipped until they're stiff.

Poetry is equal parts of joy
and primal fears,
half completed verses
seen through veils of poets tears,

brightly painted shadows
from the dungeon known as me,
imaginary imagery
that's absolutely free.

WIllows

I hope this isn't too cryptic for everyone but me.... When first I conjured magic with my tongue, for Wednesday morning rain and afternoon, I tried to save their innocence. But, young, the words confused as ears were out of tune. I warned of hidden dangers and, in truth, I preached from under trepidation’s veil, that blame may get a pardon while in youth then, older, serve a term in private hell. The worst was this, my crystal, clear and true, would prove to be a seer lagging none. And, yet, with final curtain now in view my truths seem little matter, lacking one, as sure as willows bow in troubled wind… I've loved my children well from end to end.

1-8-04

Watermarks

this is what happens to me when I am having trouble coming up with things to write about...... I get all crazy and turn out stuff like this...

So blocked you are again a fool,
personifying down.
A graduate of nothing school;
a makeup without clown.

So write what down inside you lives,
though hard it is to do.
Write verses your behind you gives,
a little past of you.

If share you do your broken dreams,
a healing you will know.
Much better pain not hidden seems,
be not afraid to show.

Release emotions from your head,
like pistons from a steam.
Escape they will if held instead,
like poets from a scream.

Write backwards if it calms the rage,
face gallantry with fears.
The watermarks upon this page,
they be the poet's tears.

Dateline

The Scholars made a circle out of time,

divided it in pieces like a pie.

Assigned to it a rhythm (not a rhyme)

and threw it, like a net, around the sky.

But Earth does not a perfect circle make.

Imaginary lines do not lie true

so pieces of our lives we must forsake

to hold it all together as we do.

For time will push against a Sailor's bow

when heading from tomorrow on his way...

and when he sails the other way, somehow,

it steals from him a piece of his today.

Lost my Nerve

Lost my nerve though she seemed willing when I kissed her on the cheek. Even so I found it thrilling, I was giddy for a week.
Our next date I acted distant, thought that I could be reserved, But her kiss was so insistent,
...once again I lost my nerve.

Epitaph

The poems form a universe
within the writer's mind,
totality in metered verse,
infinity defined.

The poet gives his soul away
in portions he decides
with thoughts that ebb and flow to play
emotions like the tides.

He writes of love and other things
he may have found in me,
of broken hearts and Angel's wings
I've lost and found at sea...

of parenthood and common sense,
of brothers on "The Wall"...
revisiting their innocence
and other ports of call...

An honest bard, he re-ignites
the glaring torch of truth...
with wells of bitter ink he writes
the epitaph of youth.

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 they drop behind.


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

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

© Copyright 2002 W.D. Neighbors 

Gibberish (read it quick before I come to my senses and toss it)

Some of the people who live in my head
are dirt loving tree hugging freaks.
Then there are those who drive battleship cars
that smell of petroleum leaks.

Christian-like beings in radical veils
made of conservative shroud
woven in ignorance spun on a loom
with no thread of reason allowed

coexist madly with liberal hacks
consuming with plasticized spades
the ugliness flowing from factory farms
while wearing their rose colored shades.

How is it possible reason prevails
and lucid thoughts flow from my pen?
Could it be this is just gibberish and
I’ve thoroughly fooled me again?

When

When all our anger’s overturned
and innocents are free at last
from bloody sword and hellish burn,
when war’s a relic of the past,

when Man’s uncertain enmity
presents, in breach, from evil’s womb
and love becomes our legacy
as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb,

a marble, gilded monument,
inscription etched with golden rhyme,
will sing the dirge, the grim lament
to chronicle, to rue the time

when eyes beheld what souls abhor,
when children slept in arms of war.

Ego Eyes

A mirror image piece of mind I seek;
a shade of deepest shadow that I might
portray the picturesque from pots of bleak;
construct the bright of day from dark of night.

In hiding from my self-inflicted pain;
I tuck away the truth; I would protect
the cloth of my umbrella from the rain;
my fragile self from trial by retrospect.

A self-protective sheath, I realize…
a double-cross entrendre, metaphor
would only serve to catch my ego eyes
and focus on the pain I would ignore.

I seek a way to die yet live in death;
a blade to take my life but not my breath.

© Copyright 2004 W. D. Neighbors

Etchings

What was it took the babies off to war…
the adolescent wonder-fools, at best,
who’d yet to learn the fo'c'sle from the floor,
who couldn’t tell the study from the test?

They nursed upon the warrior code of Duke,
a hero of the legendary screens,
but never saw him scared enough to puke,
and never heard him grunt behind the scenes.

The military called them to a man
except the golden children in reserve
whose Daddies knew the secrets of the plan
and all the students grading on the curve.

Opposed were led directly to the blame,
the dead were on the news before us all.
Survivors had to live or die with shame
for not becoming etchings on the wall.

34

The first ship I served aboard in the U.S. Navy was an Essex class aircraft carrier (USS Oriskany). We (the ex crewmen) tried to save her as a museum, not enough money. She narrowly avoided the scrap heap several times.

But, after a long and valiant battle to stay alive, she was to have an ending fitting to the american naval hero that she is. A burial at sea. She was sunk as an artificial reef with an appropriate monument nearby etc. The final deployment of Ex-USS Oriskany CV/CVA-34 was completed on May 17th 2006. Despite early concerns that she had landed on her starboard side, she was found to be sitting perfectly upright in 212' of water, with the flight deck around 135', and the top of the structure at 69' in the Gulf of Mexico, 22.5 miles offshore from the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, FL, Coordinates - N30:02.542 W87:00.374

For more see the MBT (Maximum bottom time) divers website at mbtdiversers.com/

34

A call has come we can’t ignore,
the bells of glory chime…
to gather on a distant shore
a crew from out of time.

We come to grieve the many dead,
the shipmates lost back then...
and as we hear the tributes read
our thoughts return again…

to ports of call in foreign lands
a distant, brighter day,
when life was held in younger hands,
ashore and underway.

We listen to the bugles call
and wipe away the tears
as names and faces we recall
across the many years.

And as the circle draws an end,
forgive the tears we weep
to see our gray and weathered friend
committed to the deep.

~ © 2005 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go In Harm’s Way."

John Paul Jones to M. de Chaumont on 16 November 1778.

The Bard

The board has booked the sage
and poetry speaks in the park
to earn a living wage.

The poems speak to all
and yet they wait with bated breath
for other shoes to fall.

The barb has hooked the sage
as bait for all the hungry sharks
he bleeds upon the page.

To Antigone and Beyond

A few years ago I took my first college course (English 102) in 26 years. I was at mid-term and learned that I had a B plus going at mid-term despite the fact of the 26 years and despite the fact that the average age of my classmates was far less than half my own (sorry, I am proud of this)….so I was all giddy and excited sitting in class-- supposed to be taking lecture notes and this is what I wrote.

To Antigone and Beyond


I'm shaking, squirming, out of sorts,
incredibly befuddled.
I'm taking notes in fits and spurts
my concentration muddled.

Antigone was on my mind,
and then, her lovely sister
Ismene, but then I find
she’s wed an anarchist--er.

Approaching writing full of fear,
my inner diction airy,
I start my poem late in March,
I'll end in February.

Statement: Sorry, I didn't say it was any good.

Question: What’s wrong with me?

A Meatloaf Kind of Night

If it’s a meatloaf kind of night,
a gravy laden day.
the green bean of delight,
a fluffy cheese soufflé…
don’t grab a ketchup bottle,
and shake like a beginner…
first none and then a lottle
squirt forth to ruin your dinner.

A Little Boy

Reflecting on the rows of life we've sown
in proper furrows, simple fields of hay,
the mind will turn to troubles that we've known,
to knowledge lost and found along the way.

My life has borne a crop to feed the years,
a bounty for the soul, the food of life--
from joy to discontent, from bitter tears
to children with a strong and loving wife.

The muse begets a lyric, frank and terse,
a harvest of reflection. Rows of time
are gathered to a journal bound with verse
a complicated life in simple rhyme--

from fields of thought to rows of scribbled joy--
an aging man, a youth-- a little boy.