As I lay sleeping just now
A tiny force of life
Snuggled up beside me
His warmth And comfort
Charming and trusting
Brought forth
A visceral memory
Of contrast
My beloved Stardust
Charming and trusting
With the loving hands
Of my little family
On her thick black coat
The warmth of our love
Our hands, our streaming tears
To no avail
As she assumed
The temperature
of the now icy room
Roadwork
Even the detours have detours.
There is no such thing as a straight line anyway.
The GPS is hopeless as the geography
and the the topography morph away
the familar forms from fading memory
Where was I?
Why am I here?
What is to come?
All the big questions
brought on by roadwork
Guilty Leisures
The moments between
and the things unseen .
the life unlived
when locked to the screen
isolation in density
neutral propensity
to fill all space
and avoid the intensity
Of talking to strangers
no wishes, or ideas
no solitary peace
a template for living
laid out by others
distraction without release
remote notions by strangers
Recycled ideas and
seemingly profound
Psycho babble philosophies
And jokes and memes
Creations unstarted
the Books unread
the beautiful things unsaid
Between living organisms
In public places.
The living dead
the private voices inside our heads
That lead to discovery
And art
muted by this digital dementia
This craving for entertainment
And distraction.
not to mention the postural disasters
challenges of future chiropractors
as the stooped screen tappers
can’t let anything go un glimpsed
As the scenery and the weather and
Chance encounters in the analog world
go unsiezed
Pan Of Dreams
I made Cherry Squares today
The legendary recipe
(Doubled)
I only ate one (to test, it of course)
Enough calorific value
To power a generator
Or keep me awake.
When we were kids
We could honk as many squares
As we could get away with
Avoiding my mom’s wooden spoon
Flailing at us like some
Pathetic scarecrow
Doomed to failure.
I thought maybe the smell
Might bring her back
Or maybe the taste
Or the pride in seeing them disappear
Down the gullets of her loved ones.
Make this broken house a home again.
My mum is gone now, almost two years
And that’s just her body.
She started leaving several years before that.
Her Cherry Squares (the legendary ones)
Aren’t the same
Without her around.
Now I can eat as many as I want,
And I only had one. I only wanted one
A lot less fun. A lot less magic.
A wee bit tragic. No strategy to beat
The sentry. No sentry, free entry
There they sit in the fridge
Waiting to be coveted
Waiting to be fought over
Waiting to be honked
Nobody here to honk them
It said “guard with your life”
On the recipe
Maybe that’s why i can’t sleep.
My family is all apart now.
We come together for
Weddings and funerals
And talk on the phone
Less and less often.
Too busy.
“If you bake Cherry Squares, maybe they will come”
Pan of dreams.
Better stolen
Written in 2013 when things were darker.
Made them again today for my brother and sister
