The Worrier, Or Ever Have One of Those Days

In fourteen billion years
The universe will die.
At least that’s what some say.
It makes me want to cry.

Eight billion years from now–
Give a day or two–
The sun will explode
In a great hullabaloo.

Maybe the moon will drop
Into an ocean or sea
Or maybe a volcano
Will roll lava over me.

My stocks have all tanked.
There’s a war in Ukraine.
Inflation’s through the sky.
And Congress is insane.

I’m broker than broke.
My tires have gone flat.
The rent’s coming due.
And I’ve lost my hat.

But I’ve got a cat.
Her name is Fred.
She snuggles on my lap
And sleeps on my bed.

When she crosses the grass
She’ll give the sun a little dance.
Cause she’s the queen of purrs
Zen master par excellence.

Older Things

For Poetry Month. Inspired by the poetry of Jim Harrison

I have of recent years fallen in love with older things:
A bicycle lock key in an old business card box,
Bobby Thomson’s Topp card folded and passed from wallet to wallet,
a Cracker Jack whistle carried on my keyring, prized like an Olympic Gold Medal,
a Leaves of Grass on the window sill,
a laminated red maple leaf bookmarking Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.
On a bookshelf nearby my mother’s photograph.
I wish I had known my Mama better.

These are but a few of the older things
gathered in the graveyard of my memory,
a place where things go not to die,
exhibits in a Hall of Fame of Older Things.

I make my way through the exhibitions
like some gondolier along Venetian canals.
Here’s a small black rock a college friend gave to me.
She said it was a meteorite come roaring out of the sky.
I loved her. She had other plans
than marriage. It was the call of an explorer’s life.

In a beat-up wooden box somewhere in a closet I have letters
she wrote me way back when she was in Antarctica.
Then, like some Michael Rockefeller, she disappeared.
When I received the news, I was off to bed for a week.
Her life, a piece of parchment shredded into tears.
She was a Cape of Good Hope,
a Shambhala, a nightingale garden.

Outside the sun. The birds chirp their spring songs.
The sun sets in the West as I stroll
through the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
my mind wondering if Nebuchadnezzar was happy.
Did he walk through these same gardens and fall in love
with older things?

Pantoum

For Poetry Month

When he was a lad and a wee wee fellow
very very young and very mellow
when the leaves turned orange, gold and yellow
he hid under the branches of a willow

very very young and very mellow
for he was not brave but afeared enough
he hid under the branches of a willow
waiting to take on some of that grownup stuff

for he was not brave but afeared enough
and there he did lie under those branches
waiting to take on some of that grownup stuff
in those days afore he was a-taking chances

and there he did lie under those branches
when the leaves turned orange, gold and yellow
in those days afore he was a-taking chances
when he was a lad and a wee wee fellow.

Why I do lyrics

For National Poetry Month. 

Some people quilt. Some crochet. Some play cards. Some play music. Some build things. Some solve puzzles. Some take up gardening. My stepfather rebuilt grandfather clocks. Or if you’re my former neighbor, you wash your car and spiff it up. Me, I write lyrics.

I’m talking hobbies, of course. We don’t do it for the cash although occasionally someone is able to turn their hobby into a profit-making venture. No, we do it for the pleasure of it. We know it will never pay for itself but we do it just the same.

Now where I came by this desire to write lyrics I will never know. There is no songwriter in my family that I know of. Yet I’ve been writing lyrics and poetry all my life. At least as far back as to the time I was nine when I wrote my first poem, “Chewing Green Corn”. Even now I look back on that three-stanzaed sucker and wonder what made me do it.

It was a long time gone before I could create anything that I would call a decent lyric. One that was worth showing anybody and calling it mine. Mostly it was about love or the longing for love, the rhyming of moon and June. Liking Rod McKuen in those days did not make me better at the craft of creating a good lyric. In fact, I found myself picking up many of his bad habits.

Then, sometime in the seventies, I began to write lyrics about things other than love. My God, hearing “Feelings” for the five millionth time would cure anybody of that habit. Somewhere along the way I learned I could write humorous lyrics as well as the other stuff.

Once I get that opening line it’s just a matter of gardening. I start planting roses and pretty soon I have tulips. Then I’m in there doing some weeding and out goes the inessentials. Along the way occasionally I get lucky and come up with a line I really like. Like the one from “Shoes Done Me In”, “Separate closets and shoes get lost.”

Now you know why I am partial to certain musicians like Mark Knopfler, Ellis Paul, Gene Clark, Bob Dylan, Dan Fogleberg, Ian Tyson, Gordon Lightfoot, Cole Porter and Bernie Taupin. There’s nothing like a good lyric to get my attention. When I hear one, I am surprised and in awe of the talent that created it. I always feel like I’ve learned something new. It may be a phrase or a way of saying something that I had never heard before or a feeling that was imparted through those words.

As I say, it’s just a hobby. No reward but the sheer magic and pleasure of birthing something that never existed before. Guess I’ll keep doing it. Who knows. I might win the lottery and hire Ellis Paul to write some music for one of my little ditties. You never know.

Do you have some kind of hobby?

In the Throne Room of the King

Happy Easter y’all.

Handshakes and a smile
And an open door
Into the throne room

Of the King.

Wooden pews
And stained glass windows
For the audience

With the King.

The forgiven
And the about to be
Waiting for the appearance

Of the KIng.

Yellow, white, and red
Flowers bend and bow
Before the altar

Of the King.

A choir and a song
Alleluia they sing
Alleluia, alleluia

For the KIng.

Scripture and sermon
Confession, prayer, and praise
And peace be unto you

In the Name of the King.

The bread and the wine
That was and now is
The Body and the Blood

Of the King.

Once dirty shoes
Now new hearts and clean souls
Go forth from the throne room

Of the King.