(7:32 am)

No clouds, not even
Threats of clouds;
Just green, red, gold,
And blue

A few leftovers
From last night,
And nothing much
To do

I pull out of
My driveway and
Then choose east, and
Not west

To be decisive,
It’s a strength —
Now aren’t you all
Impressed?

---

(7:48 am)

I pull into a parking lot
To clean the garbage from my car;
My diet’s like a ten-year-old,
With donuts, chips, and candy bars

With how I drive, this car is like
Another house I live in —
But garbage bags don’t judge us, they
Just take what they
Are given

---

(8:35 am)

You lost yourself when you were at this school.
And I, attentive parent that I am,
Saw only possibilities and hope
While you saw something very like despair.

If love had been enough, then you’d be fine:
But love is not enough, it never is —-
For there is more to life than force of will,
And wishes never saved a life
Or soul

---

(10:01 am)

The actual me (I rarely show up here;
I cultivate an image, not a face)
Has stopped to buy a drink, and get some gas,
A spend a few short minutes in one place.

How beautiful the morn has been so far,
The horses in the barns, the cows at meal —-
But why it matters that I drive, and look,
I couldn’t say. It’s simply
How I feel

---

(11:42 am)

 

Who is it that you love?
How is it that you live?
Why do you speak such words?
What reasons could you give?

Where is the heart that died?
When was that fateful day?
And why do children cry at night
While justice turns
Away?

---

(1:09 pm)

Cotton fields,
Where garments come from,
And pecan farms, sources of
Pies my wife
Politely turns down

---

(1:31 pm)

I pass school buses
Hibernating for Thanksgiving
And contemplating their next set
Of hapless victims

---

(3:08 pm)

We’re all the same
We’re everywhere the same
And life’s been telling us,
If we have open eyes and hearts
To see it

The ravages of time
Hit rich and poor,
Hit rich and poor alike,
The ravages of time
Hit everyone

We’re all the same
We’re all of us the same
Our fragile vanity
We’re everywhere alike, but
We don’t see it

---

(3:52 pm)

The roads we never drive upon:
They sit and watch us, every day –
Like doors we never open, or
The other paths along the way

That promise life we’ll never see,
But we just pass them by —
As kids, we were so curious:
We’re not now.
Lord knows
Why

---

(4:43 pm)

Behold! A classic Quonset hut –
The thing must be quite old —
Not only is it rusted, but
I just employed
“Behold”

---

(6:22 pm)

A day, a moment – what are these, at last?
Just one more thing to go through, or get past.
I drive around and wonder, aimlessly,
Although a few stray thoughts I have amassed —

To write a song, you need a melody;
To tell the truth, you need some clarity.
And I have neither, now, just weary eyes
And poetry disguised as parody.

A day, a moment – what are these but rain?
Like habits we once loved, but now disdain,
Or confidences kept to no avail,
Because, at last, we just could not refrain.

Just one more thing to go through, or get past:
As autumn days once clear, grow
Overcast