Mumbled the old man

We will never,
in our entire lives
forward lived
be listened to
like when we are
babies
and have nothing to say
that makes any sense
or adds up to experience
as in process
other than
the audible reaction
we have come
to refine.

And still, the old go unnoticed,
after all they have witnessed
in further thought
one should not ignore
repetition
because it looks the same
and never is
and sounds like complaint
but never was.

We predict
the firefighter from the fawn,
timid in the forest at first,
naturally, he will adapt.
We guess and check
and still seem not to heed
the final words
as they were said
carelessly,
as if it were possible
like alternate endings.


Artwork by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1513, Old Man with Water studies in Public Domain. 

Homelessness

It is an ordinary thing:
a baby looking over the shoulder,
a child transfixed,
because they sense mother-ness or homeliness
I guess.

Then the cats,
the felines that follow
nearly silently,
like the prowling puma in the wilderness
they all watch back from the bush-
paw prints have proven this-
And then the ways skittish strays
locate
remembering how to purr...

Nary a soul sees the magic in these,
except
the extraordinary poet
who thinks one blink, and it could all
change.



Photo Credit © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / ,via Wikimedia Commons at (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bangkok_Thailand_Stray-cat-in-Wat-Hua-Lamphong-01.jpg)

Anchors I weigh

When I showed up

I learned from living on top of time

I was not welcome anywhere,

but hospitality persists

itself like religion

everywhere

there’s room.

My timing not convenient.

A detour is never the fastest path,

unless the destinations are the same.

It is safer submerged, underwater

where whims wont push you around

I found

After holding my breath so long.

She could have killed me.

I know she tried, more than once,

placing her baby bundle on the bow

rock-a-bye, like they do,

rolling for the wake to take me back

Her bare hands would be too brutal

and accidents are blameless

What doesn't kill you

lets you live exhausted

torch smothered.

Insisting on myself

I remain

S.O.S.

tethered to the life raft

that was never attached

to Her. 

Composed 10/24/15.

Image by By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.