Whenever we were all together
seldom had we different faces.
Deeper was the understanding
wanting, needing, blessed traces,
sharing comfort—never moreso—
without end and real forgiving.
Breathing for the sake of others
who were all around us living.
But now we sleep and we are one.

In the advanced, civilized world, proper evaluation on aging is: Not only are we the final frontier, but it’s often where tomorrow’s gold is found. Beware the Grays!

If for some reason being mistaken for someone else is good enough for you—it’s not.

You may regret not having been a unilingual anglophone; while at the same time, you don’t need more than English to pinch your bloody  blackheads.

What did i ever do to you? When did i bend you wrongly? After all, my being forced to sit through show tunes all night long—including endless “Sondeim”—while you hungered for some other knee, more fragile and a prettier sight than mine, i plead: “Where be that knee tonight?  Yes, in the world of knees, where be yours please?

Oh, pretty please! Oh, knees!”

Bravo. He made it. I bet there’s nothing like it. Took him long enough. That’s how it is! They don’t even have time to explain how they do it. Maybe they forget how they did it. “Hey! How’d you do that?” “What’s it taste like?”

Can’t hear me. He’s smiling, though. But he don’t know why. Still, he wanted it, and he got it. It took him over the top, and kept him there. And best of all, he  doesn’t need friends because they’re down here, where we are. There’s no room left up there.

“You going to eat that?”

. . . while he enjoyed a modest amount of tattered acclaim—costumed by a well-rehearsed degree of modesty convincing only to the family dog, who had become increasingly demanding of his familial credentials—he could fairly say he was capable of treating wrong numbers in the same lilting voice he used with a mistaken, seemingly long-lost ex-best friend.

I spent a day on Easy Ridge
Not nearly long enough for me
And in my way, I waited
For the light so I could see.
I need no rock to rest upon
I need not be at home on time.
No need to sing my distant song
In any other time but mine.
Confusing how my childhood
Comes around again and round again
And no amount of strangers now
Can take what I had then.
I’ll know when I am somewhere near
When I can see their faces, then
I’ll spend a day on Easy Ridge
And never quite again.

I’m not sure we want to know much more about our delicate durability on this planet. I thought we were fixed in place forever—told so by contented mothers and by a fairly healthy inherited intransigence against drunken traffickers, unprincipled  baby-sitters and poisonous elements such as returning bullies who never stopped looking for cracks in your character to drop their laundry at.

Lately I’ve surrendered myself to a state of dependency on all others’ dominant opinions on anything, which has become lazily accepted, curtailing any pliancy of my natural-born, soul-satisfying survival thrust.

Oh shit! Look what time it is!