Just on My Mind

 

What’s that

on my mind?

A whoitswhatsits

playing the

musicalioustrumpetus,

on repeat.

 

A summer evening café,

glowing in the dimming

of a setting sun,

a mind left to wander,

to find a seat

and order a drink.

 

Not that I mind,

that it’s on my mind,

and never mind the

minding of it, or

to whom should mind,

or when.

 

It’s an absent minded

tune being piped into

the stereo speakers,

of my mind, that blasted

musicalioustrumpetus,

trumpeting.

 

Although I don’t mind

the toe tapping beat,

or the hip moving rhythm,

or how it makes the ladies

dance so I can see their

underpants.    

 

That whoitswhatsits,

sitting so proudly,

sipping un café,

cigarette dangling,

knowing that I am trying

not to mind.

 

It’s on my mind,

that caviler whoitswhatsits

playing that musicalioustrumpetus,

while there’s so much

that should be on my mind,

but I’m lost, watching the ladies dance.

We Do Not Break

 

It’s always trying to break you.

Life, that is.

By being a jerk.

Always trying to get you

into the ground in some

way, like a greedy, planet,

feeding off the dead.

 

Which I suppose it is,

once we shake off this

mortal coil, we do

mostly end up in the

ground some way,

to be recycled into

whatever.

 

But the ride along the way,

is both beautiful and brutal.

Life’s leg always kicking out

in your pathway, trying to

trip you, and laugh at you,

and make you look foolish

in front of the other cool kids.

 

And yet, through it all,

we do not break.

We stay on our pathway,

or find a new one to traverse,

we keep going, because

there is no backwards,

and only one end forward.

 

We do not break.

We bend,

we writhe,

we wriggle,

we struggle,

we fight,

We do not break.

 

 

Jarred Expectations

 

The Jar of Expectations,

sits neatly sealed on a

high shelf in the fruit cellar

of an old house at the end

of a desolate dirt road,

defended by brambly

bushes, wild coyotes and

the rumor of a Witch.

 

Expectations, sealed away,

because having them too

close, or even open, is far

too tempting for my fragile

self-esteem to handle,

plus, I seem happier without

that jar, mocking me, making

a fool of me.

 

Wants, expectations, leading

towards disappointment,

should be avoided if possible,

and if that means putting them

in an old mason jar and hiding them

away in a rundown, reclusive,

hidden away farmhouse,

then so be it.

 

Ambition however, that’s an

open can on the counter of

my own home, flowering brightly

with attainable dreams and the

can-do spirit of determination and

realistic possibility.

It was so easy to open too

and not cut myself on the sharp lid.

 

Just a quick spoonful and…

wait a second…

This label… this label is wrong…

This is the wrong container…

This is…?

This is…

Expectations.

Damn generic labels.

 

  

Sugar Coated

 

“What’s that sweetheart?”

A mishmash of words

we thrust together to

convey how intimate

and oh so close we

are with one another.

 

“Say again Honey?”

As if we forgot their

actual given names in favor

of some sugary platitude

that actually does sort of

express how we feel.

 

“Yes Darling.”

Shouted through hallways,

up staircases, from room

to room, these nick-names

and saccharin monikers

echo throughout houses and homes.

 

“Sweetie, did you hear me?”

We smile and nod with

curious pleasure hearing these

teasing nick-names roll from

the mouths of lovers in the heat of

the moment or warmth of a kiss.

 

“Babe, of course.”

Absent is the weight our natural

names carry, so heavily on our

sore and worn shoulders, replaced

playfully with the gentle coos of

pet names from sugary lips.

“What did you say baby?”
“Say it again, sexy.”
“Don’t call me Daddy.”
“Papi?”
“No.”

On for the Ride

 

There’s always so much

happening on the World.

 

“On” the World.

Seems like the right way to phrase it.

 

We are not “in” it,

we are on it.

 

Hurtling through,

Space and the Universe,

 

At blinding and incomprehensible

speeds.

 

With only the grace that a Planet

can seem to muster.

 

A grace lost for those of us

on it. Barely registering the whizzing.

 

The stretching flash of the void,

through which we pass.

 

So much on this small World,

inconsequentially meaningful in the most profound way.

 

“On” it.

And “of” it.

 

But not “in” it.

 

 

Angels of Absent Thought

 

A lot of scattered thoughts

this morning as I was getting

ready for work. My brain was

firing on several cylinders,

just not together.

 

A random smattering of a

collection of half-baked,

half woken thoughts all

jumbled in the Boggle

Cube of my brain.

 

Do parachutists have

like, regular jobs?

What was the first word I actually

read and understood?

Who did put the Bop in the

bop-she-bop?

 

Who put the ram in the

ram-a-lama-ding-dong?

Where am I going with

this? As I walked through

the house with an empty

Coke can in my hand.

 

I put it in the recycling bin

and went back upstairs,

were I had left the shower running

in the bathroom.

“Where is my mind today,” I asked

as I almost stepped into the shower

with my clothes on.

 

“Jeeze…,” I said, “I am a mess today.”

I undressed and got in the hot

shower where I again was carried

away on the wings of absent thought

angels, who snickered at my

befuddlement at how quickly

ten minutes had gone by as I just

let the warm water run down

my body.  

 

“Damn it,” I said.

Moving quick to get out the door

for work, but still wondering about

that time in third grade where I made a fool

of myself.

And if Parachutists have real,

ground based jobs.

 

Sometimes all the noise

in my head seems to have

noise in their heads.

Bees in their bonnets.

Who handed out bonnets?

 

A parachutist?

At a farmer’s market?

Hmmm…

 

(Shakes fist)

As an Angel's wing feather

drifted down in front of my face.

I Don't Mind the Dancing

 

I get in my own way,

tripping over my own feet

and my intentions.

It’s a delicate maneuvering

around the impasses

I put out for myself.

 

A skip, or hop, a jump,

a twirl, a duck and dodge,

a little limbo, a lot of

two steps, just to avoid

the pitfalls I’ve placed

in my already precarious path.

 

Sometimes it’s with a partner,

whose moves I don’t know,

to swing around these dangerous

and seductive curves in twirls and

twists of misunderstanding, understanding,

patience and playful dalliance.

 

Mostly alone though,

tip-toeing through mine fields

of self-destruction,

flicking cigarette ashes everywhere

with each new contortion of the body

and misinterpretation of the mind.

 

Waves of passions and emotions

flooding this way and that, across

a treacherous landscape designed

with murder and malic in mind,

like walking on the Moon in sandals

with just enough air for a one-way trip.

 

A sadistic bandleader, lips curled with

gleeful sadism, as they meter out the

unrelenting time signature for a mambo

that no one seems to really know,

through the broken glass of shattered dreams,

spread across the floor.

 

I don’t mind the dancing though.

I sort of like the dance.