Old Man With A Time Machine
An old man with a time machine
Once pulled me aside and said
Five simple words that changed
My life, my view, my perspective.
Words spoken from the vantage
Atop the mountain made tall,
Towering high on the pile
Of a lifetime’s squandered seconds,
Misspent minutes, and dissipated days
All spent searching for something
He could never ever recover.
His voice was equal parts
Timbred with authority
And tinged with regret
As he spoke the lines
He had spent all his years
Forging on the anvil of experience:
“Don’t chase memories.
Make memories.”
September 16, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Whenever I come up with an idea for a short story, I put it into a Word document that I’m building for an eventual collection. The idea that I had was of a sad young man in a bar who wished he had a time machine. An old man sitting near him said not to wish for that, and the young man shouldn’t chase memories, but spend his life making them. The story would turn out where the old man was a future version of the young man and implied that he wasted his life trying to chase and perfect his past memories instead of living his life.
As an aside, the word “timbre” is fine, but why not, “timbred?” For some reason Word thinks it’s misspelled.
Throwing Godrays
Despite the sun’s seasonal shyness
The light seems more accessible
Freer and more dramatic
As it sits and radiates
Throwing godrays like a child
Piercing the clouds and the leaves
While dutifully dimming the day,
Silhouetting the hill and the trees
Just in time for a faster sunset
An earlier evening
Punctuated by
The cooling chill and breeze
September 17, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I’ve noticed that the sun is not only setting earlier, but the light seems more dramatic, like it’s trying really hard to be noticed.
Seismograph
At a local restaurant
Ringed around a bar
Voices rising and blurring
Like a low fog of noise
Filling the room
Impossible to make out
Any one conversation
Just able to discern
The emotions,
The highs, lows,
And general feeling
Of those surrounding me
Like a seismograph
Tuned on and focused in
To the frequency of people.
Were it twenty years ago
There’d be a layer of smoke
To add to the mental picture
And make it more real
The times have changed
And so have the people
But their actions are the same
Drinking, eating,
talking, enjoying
The Friday night
They are immersed in
September 21, 2012
Rutland, Vermont
Maybe I have bad hearing or something, but when I go out to a busy place all I can hear is a swirling din of chatter.
Tail Up With Swagger
Eating breakfast this morning when
Orangey movement caught my eye
I looked through the window and saw
My very old indoor cat
Walking on the lawn
Tail up with swagger
Surveying her new land
I gave her a minute
While I ate my eggs
And later joined her
For a short walk
Before scooping her up
And returning her
To her familiar
Confined kingdom
Of the inside
September 23, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Zoe has been one sneaky cat as of late. I don’t know how she keeps getting outside, but she really loves it.
Before Shot
When doing anything of note
Grab your phone
And take a before shot
Where you started
And how far you’ve come
September 23, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I did something recently and wished I had taken a “before” shot, so I wanted to write myself a reminder to be better about this.
Schism
Our house is deeply divided
By a sociopolitical schism
Each side telling the other
They’re to blame
For our problems
Neither side working together
Only working to thwart one another
Delaying, blocking, preventing,
Riling, inciting, provoking
Doing anything but
What needs to be done
We can’t afford to think this way
The cost is too high
And, in the end, one
None of us can pay
September 23, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Thank God I don’t have cable, because I already feel like I’m being inundated by constant political coverage each morning on NPR. I don’t think I could handle any more.
After Dinner Walk
After dinner walk
In the way-far backyard
Dog trotted before me,
Pretty much nothing of note
On my impressionable mind.
The ground was mostly dark
Bathed in twilight blues
iPhone out, flashlight app on
Leading the way, past the trunks
Shrouded by the absence of light
I stopped, pressed “off,” and looked,
My eyes, following them up
Skyward, splitting, and branching out
The tip tops of the silhouetted trees
Reaching and touching
The pale-ish rusty white
Blending into the navy above
Dotted with bright speck-like crumbs
Leading to an almond-shaped moon.
I stared and appreciated this fleeting time
Nestled between the halves of the day
Until a wet muzzle nosed my hand,
Brought me back to Earth,
And the field in the way-far backyard.
We moved along
In the almost-full dark
The paleness on the horizon
Was long gone
Replaced by the pouring of liquid night
Extinguishing all traces of light
We returned to the house
Both successful in our endeavors
September 25, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I took my mother-in-law’s dog, Puppy, for a walk in the back field and this is what I observed.
Saved And Exited
Finished writing something
A poem
Emotional and heartfelt
Just in time
As the sound
Of intrusive tire crunching
And the light
From a set of headlights cutting
Swung into the driveway
Interrupting my thoughts
Breaking my concentration
Signaling the arrival
Of the family, home
From a long day out
My presence needed
I saved and exited
My documents
Went downstairs
And carried in the groceries
September 25, 2012
Benson, Vermont
This actually didn’t happen, yet. They’re due back at any min
ute, and I got to thinking of how I would have to switch gears from being all introspective to being sociable.
OCTOBER
Glom
Everything you know about them
Is a complete invention
Their outward persona
Is a cloak of fabrication
Double-stitched with lies
Their troubled past
Is middle-grade fiction
Designed to pull your pity
When you’re emotionally open
Is when they burrow deep,
Increase the pace,
And glom onto your life
A thread comes loose
And the inconsistencies start showing
Which calls into question
Everything they’ve said and done
But by then, it’s too late for you
And it’s too hard to remove
The emotional barnacle
Without causing damage
To all involved
October 5, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Glom is a very unattractive word, but then again, so is the action and pace it describes.
Off The Desk Entirely
Absurdity is necessary
The times when you don’t think
And just act
In a manner inconsistent
With everything you’ve done
Previously in the timepassedly
Good or bad
It pushes the envelope
Either an inch
Or off the desk entirely
People may balk,
Not understand,
Or get angry
But that’s fine
If new ground has been
Dug, tilled, planted
Anything that grows is an improvement
To the uniform grass sitting there before
And one thing
Those people with
“Perfect,” uniform
Chem-lawns fear
Is a neighbor not fitting in,
By trying something new.
Pay them no mind
You’re not creative for them,
You’re creative for you
October 6, 2012
Benson, Vermont
All too often people are more concerned with what other people may think instead of focusing on what they want for themselves. I tend to be like that, but am trying to break free of it.
The Bridge In My Wake
A million things I want to write
1440 minutes in a day
Not enough days in a year
The chasm seems impassable
Spent almost two years writing
Comparatively, it’s like tossing
A rock into a river raging
And trying to attempt a crossing
Undaunted, I still press on
Hoping that when I do cross over
I can look back with satisfaction
At the bridge in my wake
October 6, 2012
Benson, Vermont
It’s been more than a year and a half since I started writing Emily Dickinson, Superhero, one of over 40 full-length novels I have planned. During that time, I’ve come up with at least a half dozen more book ideas; the ideas keep coming and I am forced to jot notes, file them away for the future, and keep pressing on with my current project. There are so many stories that need to be told which force me, like a compulsion, to keep writing.
Value Tradeoff
Quality or quantity
Sometimes the value tradeoff is
Something to deeply consider
Not to worry
This poem has neither
October 6, 2012
Benson, Vermont
We (or at least I) spend a lot of time analyzing the value tradeoff of things. If I spend more money on this better quality bag of chips, will I get more out of it than if I went with the cheaper, less tasteful ones? At the supermarket today, my wife asked me to go across the store and get something she forgot. I went to that section and spent five solid minutes comparing the local, organic version to the mass-produced factory farm version, which was more 40% more ounces for half the price. It was a really hard decision to make because the practical portion of my mind kept saying, “There is no way in hell that we’re going to spend that much on so few ounces of that product when there’s a cheaper alternative right here.” In the end, I chose the local one.
Long story short, this poem was partially inspired by my indecision at the grocery store.
Haunted Hayride
Sunday morning cleanup
For the town-wide haunted hayride
A heavy silence blanketed the scene
Missing is the joy for an event gone well
As the incident replayed in their minds
While trying to terrify and entertain
They had a horror of their own
When a tractor pulling the spectators
Accidentally ran over a ghost
Nearly making the player into one
The decorations down and gone
The skeletons put away in storage
But the scariest part is yet to come
When the investigators and lawyers
Threaten and frighten all involved
October 7, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Our tiny town’s volunteer fire department puts on a very popular annual Haunted Hayride. We live across the street from the staging area where hundreds of people were taken a mile away on a dirt ATV trail that was all set up with spooky scenes and scary apparitions. Friday night went very well. Saturday night, about halfway through the event, an ambulance sped past. Over the next hour, the large tractors that pulled the huge hay carts filled with 30 passengers each, sat empty and idle. Then, they announced that there was an accident and had to close. They would refund the tickets for everyone who hadn’t yet gone. This morning I saw online that one of the “role players” was run over by a tractor and airlifted to Albany Medical Center. Those people taking down the barricades, decorations, and other hayride-related things seem to be shrouded in a palatable sense of sadness and dread.
Scientists Call It Instinct
Raking up the leaves in the yard
Watching geese wedging their way south.
Many of them have never flown the route
Yet, they somehow know the way
So they can return to the same place
Generations upon generations
Do the same thing every year.
Scientists call it instinct,
But I say God cheated
By pre-programming
Some of His creations
Which is completely fine
Since you can do what you want
When you make the rules
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
I’ve been noodling this one for a couple of days now.
One Letter
Ryan Adams
Bryan Adams
One letter makes
A world of difference
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Drop the B.
Through The Vent
Through the vent
The noises flow
Heat and silence up
Happy sounds down
And heard below
For some reason it’s never
The other way around
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
Note: It’s a few months later and I must report this poem has been rendered moot by the noises rising up through the vent.
The Changing Face Of Friendship
I contacted a bunch of friends,
People I’ve known for two decades
Or thereabouts.
I asked for something
As simple as a click
(and even provided the link)
But out of twenty
On
ly three came through for me
This isn’t reason enough
To redefine things
With a defiant stance,
But it was yet another
Addition to the pile
That grows taller with every
Unanswered email,
Unresponded question,
And unrequited card.
As the years pass on by
I’m more acutely aware of
The changing face of friendship
And how every one of us changes;
Some for the better
Some for the worse
But most stagnate and fade out
Dulled by decades of living
Which seem to make them
Too tired to compose a response
Of any sort – so they don’t.
I shrug and assume they’re
Too tired for friendship.
Or, something like that.
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
This is something that’s been going on for years and years. Maybe the people I have labeled as friends are just busy with their own lives. Or, maybe they’re mislabeled, and I should think of them as acquaintances. I don’t know.
Seasonal Exposure
The leaves and vegetation are gone
Revealing so much which was hidden
More importantly
The natural visual fencing
Separating us from the neighbors
Is gone like the leaves,
The warmth, and the greenery.
This seasonal exposure
Is making me feel vulnerable
Under the neighborly gaze
Of persistently nosy eyes
October 22, 2012
Benson, Vermont
We have a lot of trees on three sides of our property. For the last six months, we’ve had a wall of green separating us from everything else. Now, our natural curtains have become an orange and brown carpet, and it seems like there are all sorts of people around. I liked it better when I couldn’t see anyone else.
A Pointed Reminder
The moon’s sharpness is piercing
And surprising
Despite looking like a cosmic hook
One problem:
It’s not quite at a good enough angle