Life On A B-I7

_ Poetry Challenge Day 78 (Tue Dec 21)_

Ya,
I know,
I’ve said it before,
this is not poetry.

But you are not going
to fault me for trying,
are you?

_ Poetry Challenge Day 77 (Mon Dec 20)_

Tommy James and the Shondells
Crimson and Clover.
It was eighth grade, first love.

Every time I heard the song
the thought of Shannon
invaded my mind.

When I thought of her
my heart would race,
I was consumed.

When, I discovered
she used Crisco to tan,
I thought that strange.

When she announced
she did not like Crosby, Stills, and Nash,
it was over.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 76 (Sun Dec 19)_

Imagination.
That’s my problem,
I don’t have one.

Oh, I can think shit up
all-right,
but nothing hangs together.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 75 (Sat Dec 18)_

America is sliding into Autocracy…
Why?
Part of me is shocked, part is not.

This has been coming…
Why?
We are a divided people.

A divided people in need of…
What?
Something to bring us together.

A unifying principle to unite us…
What?
How about a war?

Something much better for the world than another war would be preferred… I think the real story here is that we as a people have lost some of the common threads that held us together us a nation and a people since the country’s founding. This has manifested in my lifetime — I think it stems from the movement espousing “unrestricted personal liberty.”

_ Poetry Challenge Day 74 (Fri Dec 17)_

I can’t imagine
life without my love.

She is the perfect complement
to my soul.

Oh, I would survive, somehow,
but life is so much better with her.

I hope she feels the same,
but what if she doesn’t?

I guess I just can’t
worry about that, right?

_ Poetry Challenge Day 73 (Thu Dec 16)_

I just want to get in my truck
and go see my friend.

How can you be sure
you will ever see each other again?

I do not know the answer,
but I do know…

he is a constant in my life
that I am thankful for.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 72 (Wed Dec 15)_

Something about a wind chime,
unpredictable,
soothing,
but slightly disconcerting.

Like life I suppose.
You can never be certain
exactly
what will happen next.

Like the neighbor
you dislike,
bringing you a beer,
simply because you asked (jokingly)…

While,
I might add,
I was hanging Christmas lights
intended to shine in her window.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 71 (Tue Dec 14)_

In Central Oregon
men wear Wrangler jeans,
so do their women.

I try to fit in,
but my relaxed-fit stretch jeans
are a dead give-away.

There are other signs of my displacement,
I worry about my pronunciation of “Terrebone.”
(You try it.)

This could be much ado about nothing.
despite the strangeness at times,
I like it here. It’s beautiful.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 70 (Mon Dec 13)_

Together let’s end Covid,
please vax up.

Together let’s ski faster,
please wax up.

It’s ski season, I can’t help myself…

_ Poetry Challenge Day 69 (Sun Dec 12)_

I voted for Richard Nixon,
I was too young to know any better.
I did not vote for Donald Trump,
experience is a great teacher.

I hope some day everyone will be able to agree with me on this point…

_ Poetry Challenge Day 68 (Sat Dec 11)_

You can’t stuff a crowd
through a door,
but you can nudge a single person
towards the opening.

I’m not quite sure what I was thinking about when I wrote this. Sometimes I just write stuff down and it seems crystal clear to me in the moment, then when I look back later I’m baffled. I suppose in retrospect I’d have to declare that this is about leadership. Caveat, here I’m talking about good leadership. We all know that the worst kind of leadership is perfectly capable of getting a crowd to do almost anything.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 67 (Fri Dec 10)_

I, me, we, us,
you, she, her, he, him,
it, they, them, that,
which, who, whom, this,
these, those, myself…
alien.

I look at preferred pronouns
as the height of vanity.
The noun in that list might
describe me the best.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 66 (Thu Dec 9)_

We have to forgive slavery,
We have to forgive segregation,
We have to forgive Jim Crow laws,
We have to forgive lynchings,
We have to forgive mass incarceration,
We have to forgive voter disenfranchisement,
We have to forgive inadequate representation,
We have to continue to forgive.
Continue to forgive,
Continue to forgive,
Continue to forgive,
today, and every day
to this very day.

We have to forgive, so our white brothers and sisters
can pretend the world is a fairer place than it really is.

This poem was inspired by the words of Roxane Gay. Her premise is that black people have had to continuously forgive the transgressions of whites in order prevent the black plight from becoming worse.

Prior to the Civil Rights era in the 1960’s, there was a lynching ever four days in the South. The victims were often tortured before they were lynched. You could lose your life for something as trivial as a side-long look at the wrong person.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 65 (Wed Dec 8)_

I love the way my cat ignores me
when he’s trying to get my attention.
He will bump my head and
swish his tail in my face.
Sometimes he will turn his butt to me…
I’m not exactly sure what that means.

I imagine he wishes he could talk to me,
when I whisper in his ear he seems to
regard this with confused indifference.
I don’t think it so much communicates,
as it does tickle…
His ears seem very sensitive.

I know what he wants.
He wants me to feed him.
Most of the time I do,
but occasionally I will surprise him…
by getting something to eat for myself.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 64 (Tue Dec 7)_

// Poetic voice calculator in Golang
package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    const eecAgeAtBeginning, eecAgeAtVoice = 8, 22
    const meAgeAtBeginning = 67

    // Based on the experience of e e cummings...
    // 
    fmt.Printf("I will be %v years old when I achieve my poetic voice.\n", 
        eecAgeAtVoice - eecAgeAtBeginning + meAgeAtBeginning)
}

You can cut and paste this into the Go Playground at golang.org, but I’ll save you the trouble (or the effort of doing the math yourself)… it will print: ”I will be 81 years old when I achieve my poetic voice.”

_ Poetry Challenge Day 63 (Mon 12/6/21)_

In Golang,
the only True value is true
the only False value is false.

That kind of attention to unambuguity
is refreshing.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 62 (Sun 12/5/21)_

e. e. cummings,
a.k.a. Edward Estlin Cummings
wrote a poem a day
from age 8 to age 22.

He makes my efforts
to do the same
for just 365 days
look ridiculous.

I’m quite sure that is
what made him great.
Single minded pursuit
of a single goal.

I probably will not live long enough
to experience that sort of
dedication and passion
to a single desire.

If it takes 14 years of practice
to write a good poem,
my efforts here are not likely to succeed,
but I think I’ll try anyway.

I have extended my admiration for Billie Collins to include a deep respect for e. e. cummings.

Poetry Challenge Day 61 (Sat 12/4/21)

My favorite saying simply says…
“Do Epic Shit.”

_ Poetry Challenge Day 60 (Fri 12/3/21)_

I saw a sign the other day,
it said “The Constitution is the law.”
I guess you can’t disagree with that,
since it is the law, by definition.

What strikes me as interesting about this
is what the sign really means.
Roughly translated, I believe it means
“my” view of the Constitution is the law.

This ignores the fact that our founders
created a living document, subject to interpretation.
A document cast in the light of a single purpose or view
will fail in its’ attempt to govern justly.

Originalism is a joke.

Now that we are facing a critical time in our Nation’s legal history, the removal of rights previously granted by our Constitution, this little bit (written a month ago) seems all the more important.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 59 (Thu 12/2/21)_

I’m reading a book
that is profoundly disturbing.
The history of race in America.
It’s something we have been conditioned to ignore.

I don’t know what Critical Race Theory is.
I haven’t seen a good definition,
but I know that if this book were taught in our schools,
within a generation or two our attitudes would be changed.

My eyes have been opened.
So what am I going to do?
For starters, I challenge you
to read this book as soon as you can.

”Caste,” by Isabel Wilkerson, Random House. 2020.

Poetry Challenge Day 58 (Wed 12/1/21)

Oh,
What a lucky man
I am.

I’ve never worn white lace.
I’ve never slept in linen.
I’ve never fought a war.

Oh,
I’m still a lucky man
I am.

I have found love.
It doesn’t get much
luckier than that.

Naturally my apologies to ELP. One of the best anti-war songs of the ’60’s along with “For What It’s Worth,” by Buffalo Springfield.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 57 (Tue 11/30/21)_

All things considered,
I couldn’t be happier.

Sure, I could be sitting in a tree house
in the Cascade Mountains right now,
or sitting in a front row seat
at the World Series.

But I did sit in the third row in right field
at Red Sox stadium,
and I’ve watched my share of
“Tree House Masters.”

So…

All things considered,
I couldn’t be happier.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 56 (Mon 11/29/21)_

He knocks on the door.
They let him in.
She hides in her bedroom.
He talks to them.
She doesn’t come out.

I’m not really sure
when she came out
but she finally did.
If she hadn’t,
I wouldn’t be here.

_ Poetry Challenge Day 55 (Sun 11/28/21)_

Lynching postcards.
Horror unimaginable.

Even the Nazis did not sell
souvenirs of Auschwitz.

You can avoid the Post Office ban
by putting your postcards in an envelope.

That’s what people did.

As a 14 year old boy, Henry Fonda witnessed a brutal lynching of a Black Man in Omaha. “It was the most horrendous sight I’ve ever seen.” In the movie The Ox-Bow Incident, his character warns a crowd: “Man just naturally can’t take the law into his own hands, and hang people, without hurting everybody in the world. Think about that the next time you feel like taking your AK-47 to a parade to help provide “security”…

_ Poetry Challenge Day 54 (Sat 11/27/21)_

Billie Collins is my hero.
I love the way he writes.
The connections he makes are so
marvelous and unexpected.

I would love to write like he does,
but then people would say
you sound just like Billie Collins.
I could probably live with that.

My daughter told me that after a year
of this nonsense, I would find my voice.
I doubt that her prediction
has the chance of becoming reality.

I’m going to give her the
benefit of the doubt,
largely because I would love to hear someone say,
“you sound a lot like Billie Collins…”