I felt the slush and snow beneath
I saw the ice beyond;
The steamy clouds hung overhead
Beside the sleeping pond.
And thought, as water changes when
It cools or as it warms:
So I am daily changing into
My own ternate forms

When I’m at work, I’m ice
And not because frozen through:
But because math’s unchanging
And ’cause math is what I do.
I couldn’t very well decide
To go and change its laws:
I’m sure I would get fired, it’s
In some small contract clause

When I’m at home, I’m liquid
And it may sound sort of strange:
But with the other people there
I’ve had to learn to change.
To go this way or that way as
New circumstance compounds:
But still, while liquid, stay within
A set of family bounds

Now, when I write, I’m steam and mist
I’m free to float on air:
To rise up in imagining
And to go anywhere.
To look down from above on any
Scene I choose that day;
Or wander lonely, as a cloud
As Wordsworth liked to say

So as I see the scene before me
Silent in the snow;
I realize the unity
Above, beside, below —
As water changes when it must
From cold calm to hot strife:
So I must change my form, if I’m
To keep
A balanced
Life

(..)

Yes, I know how to spell that word.

But why?

But why?

Yes, I know how to spell that word, but why?

.

I’ll tell you how I know that word

Although it’s spelling’s quite absurd

And useless to the average bird

Or so, to me, it’s now occurred

Acetylcholinesterase

Some type of stupid hydrolase

I know, because it was the case

That my insipid teenage face

Was stuck inside a school.

.

A school, where as a gen’ral rule

We learned, if we were not a fool

How to become one, which was cruel.

The lunchroom served its daily gruel

To rebel and to suck-up tool

Who might inhabit. like a ghoul

The ghost of one once human.

.

And if I’d had, perhaps, acumen

I might have been a better crewman

And learned, in time, to be a true man

Instead of a flake.

.

But lo, I sat there like a rock

My brain benumbed as though in shock

By subjects that I thought a crock

And ran from, like a mouse, a hawk

But ultimately failed.

.

And so I learned, at last, to spell,

These lengthy words borne straight from hell

And perhaps, you did too, as well.

I hope not,

For your sake…

=  =  =  =  =

( … p r o m p t e d … )

we ate our frosted lemon cake,
it’s frosting was well swirled;
it was our time to take a break –
and all
was well with the world

we saw the flag of destiny,
it’s red and bronze, unfurled;
the end of what was you and me
and all
was well with the world

i’d loved you in the moments when
you absently hair-twirled;
you’ve done it since with many men
and all
was well with the world

we fell into the soundest sleep
well covered, tightly curled;
our shallow thoughts of visions deep
and all
was well with the world

[...]

Life is full of foolishness,
And most our time is wasted;
Existence is its own excuse,
So few the meals we’ve tasted

With all the relish we could feel.
And then one day we’re stricken
With signs of our mortality
The body, weak and sickened —

And suddenly, we wonder why
We spent our days so idly;
Why we let life just pass us by
And didn’t travel widely

We’re there, upon the precipice,
Of “It-Is-Way-Too-Late”
And know the Heraclitian truth
That character is fate

We make our choices everyday
And only now, we get it —
That if the world’s a noble fire,
It wasn’t us
Who set it

(..)

She told me that she needed a ride home
Because she’d had a bit too much to drink;
And I thought long and hard before I spoke
Struggling, in the moment, just to think

She didn’t need to drive, that much was true –
I knew just where she lived, and it was far:
So I agreed to do it, sheepishly
And we walked in the darkness to my car

She looked at me with loneliness, and said:
I understand you’re married. I don’t care.
I’m asking you to be with me right now.
I’m here and I need you to get me there…

But I learned something many years ago
When I was left behind for someone new:
You’ll never build another person up
Betraying those who’ve loved and honored you

I had to help her get into her house.
By that time, she’d forgotten what she said –
I helped her get her shoes off, and to fall
Into the arms of sleep in her own bed

And some there are who’d say that I’m a fool
For passing fleeting joys, forever gone:
But I decided I refuse to be
The sort of man that I’d despise
At dawn

= = = = =

Baggage Check

One: she strictly uses pronouns
Nouns and proper nouns won’t do –
So I haven’t got the slightest
Who she is referring to

Secondly: that gal hates Pepsi.
It is Coke or not at all —
It must be some deep south thing
Like eating grits or speaking drawl

Third: I love that she loves puzzles.
And some days, out of the blue
She will ask me what’s a word with
Just nine letters that means “chew”

Fourth: and you will not believe this:
Every night she makes the bed
Ten minutes before I’m in it
And that messes with my head

Fifthly: is my favorite strangeness
That I’ve loved since way-back-when
And that trait is most peculiar
That’s her bizarre taste
In men

(… oh the joy of prompts …)