and to think i saw it on mulberry street.......

went running friday night, down by the lake through the woods, sunset magic light hour.  two or three miles away from the nearest street or sidewalk, a man passed me riding a unicycle down the gravel path. keep running i say to myself.  going down the boardwalk over the swamp around the lake, three "somethings" roll off the bank into the water and begin playing with one another chirping at me for having spoiled their privacy.  paused my run to stop and watch these somethings.  they turned out to be otters.  i didn't know there were otters in east texas, but evidently there are.  at least it wasn't alligators. i really did wonder if i was dreaming. and if i haven't woke up yet,  let me keep sleeping. if i never wake up,make my epitaph read "he came, he saw, he typed".  short,sweet and cheap.

very bad poetry, history and technology.

This is second poem I wrote in my life.  Sribbled down in  English class sometimes in the last few weeks of 10th grade.(1986).  I went home and typed it up on my Commodore 64 with MPS-801 printer using the newly released GEOS operating system(cracked version...of course).  GEOS was a "macintosh-like" 8-bit overlay for the Commodore Operating System.  This is a scan of the original printout.  I've kept it all these years along with the other (mostly) horrible poetry I've written since.  This poem(if you want to call it that) obviously reflects the public's(especially 10th grade boys) fascination with "Vietnam War" movies at the time.  Think Rambo, Platoon, etc.  I had just read the poem "I Have a Rendezvous With Death" by Alan Seeger.  And ripped that line from his poem.  So not only was I writing bad poetry, I was plagiarizing too.

the woods

     it was the seventies, carter was president, there was a corner lot in the neighborhood so dense with growth it was hard to find your way out once you were in. we just called it "the woods".   it was a wednesday - the next day was thanksgiving.  a dozen or so of us were playing hide and seek.  i hid between two oak trees curled up in a natural hutch in the bottom of one of the trunks.  i watched the leaves spiraling down in the sun rays shooting through the canopy of the woods.

     nobody found me. nor did i want to leave my hiding place.  i remember thinking , "i'll just stay here and never come out-so quiet and peaceful.  nobody would ever miss me".  the other kids grew tired of our game,went home and left me alone while i must have fallen asleep because the next thing i remember is waking up shivering cold in the middle of the night to the sounds of voices and dogs, police sirens and flashlights through the woods.  all was forgiven and thanksgiving went on as planned without another hitch.

     here i am thanksgiving 30 odd years later- i go back and try to find my hiding place in the woods but discover it's now paved with concrete with 4 trailer houses on top. so it goes.

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handprints

cement doesn't last forever, but it will probably outlast me. the pavement fears only the jackhammer. the jackhammer is merely the pawn of the engineer, the engineer sits alone at his desk with pencil, paper and eraser making doodles of the psychedelic visions in his mind.  i remember a day when the cement hadn't yet dried. i fly under the radar of the wrecking crew.

the running dude

the most quiet place in the universe, your hometown, 5:30 am , sunday morning.  drunks are in their niches still sleeping it off, frat brothers and sorroity sisters in the dark dreaming of last night's big game, church go-ers still not shuffling about in their kitchen.  no frying bacon or sausage aroma permeating the chilly morning air yet.  the occasional possum , racoon or deer looking at me like I've invaded their domain.  just running down the road, complete silence.  no input from any external source.  just dealing with the internal conversation that won't shut off.  if I can listen to it and answer it correctly i can make it another mile.  i know what it must feel like to drift through the galaxy on an eternal space walk.

better a melancholic than an alcoholic

five thirty this morning somewhere between huffman and crosby texas, as about wide open and desolate as you can get in harris county, texas, usa, just pumping gas minding my own business, humming an old tune to myself, hmm...hmmm..hmmm. loddy doddy doddy dah.  but who should approach me, the jehovah's witnesses wielding their literature. asking me questions like "have you thought about eternity, brother?", "don't you want to be one of the 144,000 kings in heaven rather than one of the infinite in hell" 

well, there went 15 minutes of my life that i will never get back. at least the think they have the answer, and they are blissful in their hallucinations.   wankers...

i really am a happy guy, one of the happiest you'll ever meet.  i'm part of the system, there's no getting off now, this train won't stop.  it only bothers me in the 10 or 20 seconds every night before i nod off to sleep.

the alarm clock blows the call of colors at 4:00 am every morning.

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got it made

made it through another day, still have a job.  made it to the weekend, i just might get some sleep. made it to another pay check without going bankrupt first.  made it through my thirties without losing my mind.  made it out the suburbs, so where the hell do i go from there?