Sometimes I feel like a man...sometimes I don't

It's like when you are deep into a discussion and you forget what you were talking about because some woman walks by and you wonder what she was like when the two of you were in high school but then you realize she wasn't old enough to get out of the crib when you were in high school and beside that you were an awkward geek with no life beyond the confines of Dungeons & Dragons.

It's like realizing that every TV show you care about came after or before everyone around you and you are not sure anyone if that means that you are too old or too young or simply just the weirdest person you have ever known.

It's like walking down the street and seeing your reflection in a store window, you stop and stare because while you know its you you can't believe that you got so old or fat or bald or all three and then you just decide to go back to your imaginary self because you can still outrun the torch carrying mobs and rescue the girl.

It's like talking to a group of kids and realizing you've read more books than any of them and the joke you just made is so far beyond their experience that the only one laughing now is you and you don't know if it is from your humor or the despair that you crossed the invisible lines between coolness and creepiness and you almost want it back (whatever "it" is or at least was anyway).

Sometimes it's liking some woman only to find out she is really a girl and then not knowing what to say except something stupid as I figuratively backpedal for the door or shore depending on how deep I was about to get.
Sometime it's like finding a book really enjoyable and then trying to talk about it my an elder who then looks at you and says "why are you wasting your time on a kid's book?"

Sometimes I feel like a man...until an adult comes along and reminds me that Men don't spend the time I spend, read the things I read, watch the movies I watch, play video games, dream about love and compassion nor yearn for the unrealized dreams that only I seem to have.

I know I am not unique and then sometimes I don't
feel like a
man.

At the End of the Long Road

I walked the long road alone. No one followed even as I followed no one in particular

There was a lonesome wind that wailed off into the distance beyond my eye sight

beyond the edge of the horizon, on the cusp of the morning light

I looked back to find that even my footprints faded in time to the sounds of my feet.

I looked ahead for something called hope, for someone I had hoped to meet.

I am alone I said. There was no answer not even from the dryness between my lips

I am alone I cried out there in the world as if something in my soul had died

it wasn't completely true, so even as I said the words I knew that I had lied

all along my journey, there was someone who walked unseen at my side

I look to my old friend now as we stand at the end of this long road

was it some unspoken agreement, so sort of honor or unknown code?

My friend looks at me and smiles with certainty of  the invisible smile

I have been with you since you were born, I am with you every mile

We two are as one, sometimes you lead, sometimes I follow

Something is inside you, something sad, something hollow

I feel the distance fill me with a sudden sense of loss, of sorrow

don't fear- my friend says- there will be a moon to walk under tonight

nor waste your tears as it will only be cloudy with strands of sunlight tomorrow.

Flat Batteries

My car wouldn't start today.
It sputtered and died, who really cares anyway
it's not like I can get a jump for it
its not like I should give up and quit
I want to use the F word but lacked any desire
beside I am singing to the freaking choir.

My car up and died this morning like a boss
I almost felt something about feeling a loss
it wasn't so much a lack of desire to scream
as a reluctance to make it more than it would seem
It's just an old car with an older battery
it's not something worthy of much concern
or anything I would take more as flattery.

I was late to work and it only mattered to me
that is all it is and then in this flippancy lies
the final irony.

What to write on Wednesdays?

It is a conundrum of the first order when I sit here in front of the this display
and confess with some dismay that I often come up dry on words to say
when faced with what to write on Wednesday.
I could blame Odin for this disaster, but it's only partly his fault for I must seek
to master the words to express my thoughts in the faces of smoke
and of plaster all the while looking for a way to find some words to
conjugate into a poem or haiku on Wednesday.
It is too late for the Japanese inspired verse, I have gone of my character
limit already to close to the point for it to remain adverse
so now I must recite my motto, yes even rehearse it over and over
again instead if admitting to the chaotic state of this my language
universe.

For Jordan, upon her Birthday

I almost never do this, I would like to say, this way I can cover up that
I almost always do exactly that, but now there's less dismay.
What is it, you may ask?
It is that I occasionally dedicate my poetry,
I answer without dropping my mask
of pure innocence and guileless devotion.
It is that simple- well almost as simple as counting the fish
in one of the oceans.

I almost never tell anyone I love them, it is often that way, since they
tend to freak out and read things and emotions into that simple
statement without delay.
Why is that, you might question me?
It is who I am or at least who I want to be.
I answer from behind that tree down the road, at the end of the lane
It is that simple- well almost as simple as trying to convince
the person I said it to that I am in fact quite sane.

I almost never write like this, after all what would people say
I also declare that I prefer the page and ink over this textual
input onto the liquid crystal display.
Who is it, you may think to inquire
It is everyone and someone that holds within the power
to drive my passions to fuel my fire.
It is simple as wishing for things that no one wants to understand
well, almost as simple as time and your expression might demand.

I don't claim to know anything or everything about you
if I was to be so bold, it would be clear that I am as untrue
as the rain when the sun is shining, as these words are
what will remain after I finish this poem that is only for you
with the little skill that is found in this my simple design
as complex as you construe my intentions try to define.

Finding Meaning in things with no Meanings

Where is the sense of things as we walk through this life?
here once was a man who sought out a single honest soul
in all of Athens, from what I hear he is there still,
dragging his lantern with it's batteries flat,
being trailed after by a bedraggled dog
with its tail between its legs.

If there had been any truth out there in this wide world
it has been sold and repackaged as something far more
appealing like twinkies or spam or freedom of speech.
If there had been a definition for practicality or even
a dogmatic sense of personal responsibility-
its been outsourced to a callcenter in Indiana
staffed only by dispassionate computers who
are two upgrade short of a human heart even
though no one has ever even gotten a patent
of such crap as empathy or compassion.

Have I found something to believe in that will
define my purpose in the grand scheme of things?
Then answer would be yes, I have but then
I would have to admit that maybe I was wrong
in believing that there was a purpose or meaning
anyway, what was the question exactly?

Oh you meant to ask me if I believe in Love?
then my answer would be, not yet, it has
not happened to me so far so I feel that
I am unqualified to quantify such a vague
and opportunistic idea besides I am still
busy trying to acquire the dream that the
world has insisted I should have pursued
all this time instead of asking such silly
questions like finding meaning in
things with no meaning.

It Always Rains on Sundays

It's like wondering if Noah is still getting a good laugh from that unpronounceable mountain

where the Ark might still be- because we are probably going to need it real soon.

Rain on Sundays are like God reminding the world that Saturday is really his day 

and that we have forgot that and just about everything else He told us to do

and be and be not.

It's like asking for change from a bored store clerk when there is nothing on TV

and going to the quick mart at midnight because you're afraid of going to sleep.

There was anything you really wanted to eat anyway and the coffee has gone 

stale beyond what sugar and creamer can revive or even a coke could resurrect.

It's like waking up alone in a bed that you were sure was just occupied by

someone that you loved or at least you were pretty sure you loved, that is-

of course, before the moment of realization that you have always been alone

and time has become meaningless with the certain understanding that 

the isolation is driving you crazy and it is something that even having a 

cat or dog won't solve.

It's like not wanting to leave the house in the morning, just go back to bed

and bury yourself in the pillows and sheets and defy the sunlight which is

not going to come out today anyway so what is the point of all of it?

There are reasons that life is this way but as far as you can tell you had

nothing to do with it or at very least are unwilling to admit that anything

could have been done to alter it in the first place.

It's like the chocolate being so sweet that it changes everything it is in

to some acidic miasma of disappointment and resentment that constantly

boils in your blood at the unfairness that consumes every waking moment

of your life and the only minutes of lucidity that you have is when you

stop long enough in the sunlight to understand that you are lost and lonely

and sad and since it is still raining you know that you are damned regardless.

It's like thinking the person that looks out from your dreams is crying 

until you realize that their tears are only raindrops running down the 

window pane separating you from their sanity.

It's like rain on Sundays, always raining, always.

Well, Technically it will be an Ode to you Adam.

This is not a list of what you should know about on turning 40.
This is more from one man to another, from one with virtual success
rather than actual success. So technically it will not contain sage wisdom
about how life could be or even should be as it is not much more than
finding out that life and the last 28 years has only made you less of
a stranger to me.
This is not a parcel of advice where upon the attainment of adulthood
mirrors anything more than the doctrine of understanding and peace
that could change only the small things that have happened across the
vastness of the Atlantic Ocean between what was and what is- as far as
you or I can see from a brief intersection at a school out in the world
far from the things we have understood.
Is it some Galactic irony that we, who were strangers from our first greeting
should find ourselves together again in the field that makes us similar almost
the same were it not for the insane need to laugh in the apparent face
of destiny which shouts out to us- NOW SEE HERE! I bring you a unity of
purpose in the very medium that you two are once again meeting!
I cannot pretend to know you from the data that is stored in our similarity
nor can I pretend to understand that we might even share in the plainness of
our common mediocrity. If you don't have the common ground that surrounds
us think in empirical terms of technology and the world wide web that laughs
at our collective fates, with such hilarity
I could try to spell it out for the sake of my idiosyncratic etymology
but then the effort would have be wasted in the words that I am writing
in your honor to say that we turned out somewhat more similar than any-
thing I could have ever guessed possible at our first meeting in the school
from which we both sprang and reconnects our cables like packets of small
bits and bytes making up this poem's mythology.

I would that I had known you much more than probably is better
but then it is not in our cards, or expansions slots to betray this
little idea of mine down by a code to the everlasting letter.
I might have this- all of that to say
although I doubt it would have fit
into the box provided on this your
40th birthday.

For Adam Egdall (you asked for it).

Superheroes are Hard to Find

Out in the Darkness far above the street lights

we are the shadows, moving like ghosts into the night
we all want some measure of justice that we define
when life and death are at stake, when we cross the line
between good and evil to find the moment of truth
like when boys leave behind their ideals from their youth
like when we stop to gaze upon all we have done
down onto the actions that matter, those that we shun.

Choices are to be had, decisions that have already been made
do you stand out in the strength of your convictions
do you question the laws that everyone says must be obeyed/
Are you the hero of the moment, a matter for depiction
or are you something more than this our present fiction?

Run in the Shadows or Run in the light
this is our struggle, this should be our fight
Will you right the wrongs to be found
or will you wait until there is no more bravery
or even the freedom to say I can stand my ground

Take up your cause and wave it like a war flag
for it is the glorious combat that make what you
carry more than just a honor, more than just a rag
Stand up and be counted one of the brave and the few
against the world's expectations, be something original
be something new

Because if you don't, if you get left behind
you will become just another wannabe hero
that lacks any metal, or steel or even a mind
It is true when they all stand together and tell you
that Superheroes are hard to find!

There was a time once

There was a moment when the Sun broke through the clouds and light fell upon
the world like it does a thousand times since I have begun to walk upon this my
mother Earth.
There was a day, when I looked for a puffy white cloud floating in the sky like
some fantastic dragon lazily gliding by as I gazed up at her passage from the green
grasses upon which I lie.
There was something in the way the time passed that was as if my memory came
to life around me and I saw friends and family that normally I would never have
a chance to see.

It was on a day like this, so many days gone by that the years have faded like
sepia painted photographs pressed into a dusty unopened album taken off the
old wooden shelf to be revealed to a descendant that has yet to come to be.
I saw my ghosts and illusions of the loves and losses come drifting by under the
sun, under the motion of the birds moving like dreams upon the winds
of what I find to be true in this my mind's eye.
I called for my mother as she came running through the swirling leaves
in and out of the dandelions and rose petals that obscure her response if there
was one and then she is gone by.

I looked for my father but he never came to me in this vision of summers
to be and summers long forgotten yet not completely past.
It is like lemonade poured fresh from a silver pitcher on a hot Sunday
afternoon, ice cold, fresh bittersweetness on my tongue
It is like jumping from the rock over the mirror shining brightness of the
swimming hole of my youth soon to plunge into the chilly depths or awake
to the evening, the moon and her silent yet melancholic song.