Life Lessons

1.

Catch the sky
With an open hand
And pocket each cloud
You find.

2.

A penny saved is worth less
Than two birds in a bush.

3.

Step on a crack
And break your mother's back
But a ball bat
Is infinitely more effective.

4.

Time waits for no man
But it occasionally waits
For just the right woman.

5.

A fool and his money
Catches more honey
Than flies.

6.

Beautiful dreamer,
Light unto me,
Buddha is sleeping
With a wake up at three.

7.

Each day is a precious gift
To be shared and saved
But never hoarded.

8.

There is never enough time
So don't bother
Wearing a watch.

9.

All men are equal.
Some are simply shorter.
It's their destiny.

10.

Catch the sky
With an open hand
And chase the sun
Every day.

The Last Rave

Twilight's last gleaming
So turn on the lights
Before the dark age falls
And we stumble into night.
Armageddon is here
So get ready to fight.

Chorus:Economic meltdown
And global collapse.
Too much sturm und drang
Is gonna bite your ass

Four horsemen riding
From the gates of hell
Stopping at your town
And ringing your bell,
Spreading new diseases
Like a toxic spill.

Chorus:Economic meltdown
And global collapse.
Too much strum und drang
Is gonna bite your ass.

2012 is the target
For the world to blow,
And doom is the racket
That will fill the bill.
So run for the bunker
Before it close.

China Blue

The nature of your mystery
Is not the unknown contours
Of your mountains draped in mist.

It is, instead, the ease
With which you assume
So many forms
And still retain
A dreamer's sense of grace.

Your beauty is transit and elusive,
For a single well turned gesture
Invokes a thousand songs.

The Serpent Mounds of the Midwest

Connecting links and
Multiple lines
In stone and mud.
Earthen shapes
Tracing paths from
Stars to stones.
The meaning is lost
Within its riddle
(The riddle lost
Within its form).

Mysteries coiled
Like a serpent
In the sun.
Sinuous and suggestive,
Resting before it strikes.
From the snake
Came knowledge
As well as pain
(we are all united
In this single refrain).

The makers are gone
(Unknown, unmourned).
The meaning is gone
(Unknown, misread).
The culture is gone
(Unknown, quite dead).
Even the mounds
Are mostly gone
(Plowed and bled).

But nestled in
The warming earth
The snake remains.

How Do I Tell You

How do I tell you
what I feel
Each time your
simple kiss
Reminds me of our
passion, still there
Despite the many years.


How do I even begin
to describe
The elegant island
of your back or
The slender reed
of your neck.
The beauty of your eyes
and the joyous secret
Of your smile.

The Economic Report

The muddled message
of desert dreams
Crashing about
like an opiate fit
Thrown by the huddled masses
Just before
They dropped their chains
in fervent hope
(lurking deep in their hearts)
That they too
Could go shopping
(each day in the market place)
Only to find the shelves
going bare
While they fidgeted with
their last two dollars
Buried deeper than their
parents' graves
In the silky tattered
folds of moth balled purses
And there, as the chasm opened
to faith long lost
Did they finally cry
to some distant
Spot in the sky
where they heard
The wizard lived
behind fluted drapes
In a seersucker suit
selling ice cream
On the side.

Memories

Perhaps - Remember.
Remember what?
Aside from rambling thoughts
Confusion rampant like
A dreamy if languid fog.

Fragments like a broken bowl
Containing bits of wisdom
And fractured moments
Made of faded snap shots
Left hidden in the back of
An old paperback.

I have forgotten more
Than I had known
And remember less than
A tiny sum
Of where I've been or
Who I've seen.