Once More Around the Sun

 My girlfriend and I had our first date a year ago at her sister’s annual Halloween party. It’s been a year so I wrote her a song. 

Hidden Nativity

 Ordinarily I am insistent about one holiday at a time. I'm frustrated and irritated when I see Christmas decorations in stores before Halloween, but... 

I spotted this Hidden Nativity this morning while I was out walking in the rain and it gladdened my irritable little heart, so I took a picture of it. 

Living in a Springsteen Song

This Death and a Thousand Others

 

We are only a breath away, a breath away from disaster. The wind, the wind is blowing. Can you hear the word of the Lord?  We are breathing, yes, but with great difficulty with all the smoke in the air, the chemical haze, the particulate matter thrown into the air by the fires and explosions in Des Moines.  

This death, and a thousand others, have I suffered. And have you suffered? Are you satisfied yet? But now I will live my life anew. More than death. More.  How much more would you demand of me?

I sing along with the radio, all the stupid love songs that I used to know. But I don’t feel like myself anymore. I’m pretending to be who I am. I am a stranger even to myself.  Why are you still here? Why are you still here, when you were never here before? I have a memory – a memory of someone I never knew.

It was the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard. Suddenly the lights in the city dimmed and blinked twice before humming back to light. Then the lights blinked out and left us all in darkness.

I will leave speculation and all experiments in idle philosophy. I will leave all chemical persuasions even though I am still exhausted. These are the shared phobias and weak hearts of unloved children. Leave them. Leave me.

 

One of These Days

 

One of these days I will work out my own destruction,
studying my notes – an incomplete thing
- not yet happy, and nowhere near excellent.

I am moving farther and farther away
from great sorrows
and cruel flesh and blood.

It happens to me sometimes –
mostly when I’m alone
against the secret machines.

I am innocent, but not all right.