A Prophecy

It has been said
there is a time
for everything.

Of course.

There are
shelves to be
built and
weeds to be
pulled and
checkbooks to be
balanced.

PTA meetings and
Girl Scouts and
family reunions.

But let me be
a prophet
and say
this:

There will
be a time
to sit and
weave a
daydream
and
Just Say No
to the
guilt of
Time Management
schemes;

a time
to pull out
that journal
you’ve been
squeezing in
between
dental appointments;

a time to
Just Say Yes
to shedding
your Persona of
the Practical

and slipping
into the
Persona of
The Painter
or the
Pie-In-the-Sky
Poet
or the
Priest of
the Divinity
of all
Creatures.

Who knows?
You may find
this to be the
most practical thing
you’ve ever done.

(Photo by Johnny Cohen; UnSplash)

 

Which Leaves Me To Wonder

I’m thinking of
throwing myself
a party.

I’d make it
a surprise party
if I could
figure out how
to do that.

A gift or two,
something
that shows
I put some
thought
into it,
something
that will
make me
exclaim,
“Oh, you
shouldn’t have.”

Of course
there would be
a card,
with watercolor
hearts
and a clever,
maybe bittersweet
way to say,
“I love you
just the way
you are,”
even though
that’s as corny
as can be.

Maybe all of
that is
nothing
but narcissistic
mirror worship.

Which
leaves me
to wonder:

Whatever did
Jesus mean
when he said,

“You should love
the other Ones
just like
you love
your Self?”

(Photo by Ali Abdul Rahman, UnSplash)

 

The Stash

I’m learning
to imagine
a little stash.

Mine has
maps of places
I have a yen
to see,

stories
I have an itch
to tell,
with oddball,
misfit
characters
I want you to
meet,

lists of
writers and
moviemakers
whose own
quirky
imaginations
I’d love to
sit down with,
on my shady
garden bench,
or my front row
sofa seat.

This stash
has a sacred
purpose:

If I am
being sucked
into the
Black Hole,
you know
the one,
where shame
or alienation
are wrestling you
into
surrender,

your Stash
can be your
lifeboat.

Trust me
on this.

(Photo by Alvaro Serrano, UnSplash)

 

Doorway

There is a
doorway.

On this side
of the door are
chore lists with
check boxes,
treadmills,
paeans to the
Puritan Work Ethic,
Codes of Conduct and
corporate
Vision Statements;
entire religions,
in fact.

On the other side
of the door are
songs that come
to the singer
in a dream,
stories that
come through
the teller
and wrap
the listener
in bearhugs of
feelings so
fierce
they contain
deaths and
resurrections,
pictures so
vivid
they rebuild
your eyes
from scratch.

Can we meet
on the other side
of that door?

I call it
The Mystery.
I’d love
to hear
what
you call it.

(Photo by Sean Thoman, UnSplash)

 

Perfect Crimson Blossoms

Imagine two
rosebushes,
planted by unseen
hands,

one in the
palace garden
of a storybook
princess,

one in a
cracked pot
on the crooked
steps of a
maidservant’s
hovel.

Each morning
the maidservant,
who loves the
princess,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind the
princess’ ear.

Each morning
the maidservant’s
barefoot daughter,
who loves her,
places a perfect
crimson blossom
behind her
mother’s ear.

Some of us
anxiously puzzle
whether we’re
more like
the princess or
the maidservant.

I like conjuring
the lesson of
the perfect
crimson blossoms,
and recalling that
a wise woman
said
“a rose is
a rose is
a rose.”

(Photo by Carlos Quintero, UnSplash)
(Wise Woman: Gertrude Stein)

 

The Tahiti Button

You know
that moment
when
you know
you can push
the button and
buy the ticket to
Tahiti?

Even though
you’ve believed
you couldn’t or
shouldn’t
a thousand times
before?

And then you
push it?

You know
that voice
that says
you’ve fallen
short,
you’re not
who you’d hoped
to be
by now?

The voice
you’ve heard
a thousand times
before?

And there’s proof,
right?
That towering
pile of
“coulds” and “shoulds,”
but you
don’t or won’t?

I’m starting to
wonder
what those
voices are
hiding.

I’m starting to
wonder
if there’s a
“do” and “will”
button
and

pushing it
is like
pushing the
Tahiti Button.

(Photo by Kristopher Roller, UnSplash)

 

Entitled

“Entitlement” needs a
press agent and
I’m applying for
the job.

Let’s start with
you.

In spite of
bad press
to the contrary,
you are entitled
to be
entitled.

Let me
count the ways, or
at least
a few of them.

You are entitled
to prefer a
motel bed and a
rundown dive
diner and a
waitress named
Beatrice

to a backpack
and a campfire
and a tent.

You are entitled
to stoke your
soul
at the
Spotted Cat Club
on Frenchmen Street,
listening to
Trombone Shorty
and
Leroy Jones,

instead of
hiking the
Pacific Crest.

You are entitled
to sit, alone,
on the business end
of your couch
potato patch,
waiting,
because you have
a poem to write
and
your Muse
is running late,

instead of
going to Roger’s
Super Bowl hangout, or
mowing the lawn or
re-ordering
the garage.

Or vice versa,
or all of it,
or nothing at all,
for a day or
a week or
a year.

You are entitled
to be
you.

(Photo by Vidit Goswami, UnSplash)

 

Pokemon Satori

Walking from
the car to the
Marine Science Center,
with the
grandsons,
eight and five.

Who have insisted
they must be
allowed to bring
Psyduck and Scorbunny,
their Pokemon
comfort creatures,
which they
clutch
with determined
ferocity.

I concede,
not wishing
to have my
grandparenting
license
revoked.
But
knowing
full well

I will soon be
the designated
carrier,
as the boys
scamper
in a dozen
directions
to view the
octopus and
other denizens of
briny tanks and
tidepools.

I lose sight
of them and
hope
grandma is on
tracking duty.

Now there are
looks askance
and
side-eyed
glances

at the old dude
who apparently
carries
stuffed animals
for security
purposes.

My heart throbs
with joy
as I realize
that being seen
as a man
who would
saunter about
brazenly hugging
toy creatures,
for mysterious
reasons,
and wallowing
in delight
about the
furtive attention,
probably means
I have attained

Pokemon Satori.

(Photo by Sue Gillard)

 

Luminescent Fish

I could be
mistaken,
I am not a
doctor of the
mind.

But I have
observed
that when
I am
sunk deep
in the dark
ocean of
dread,

that if I
drift lazily,
but eyes wide
open,
in a minute,
or a morning,

from the far
corner of
an eye,
I will spot

a luminscent
fish of
thought.

If I swim
for that light,

before long
I am floating
in a school
of thoughts,

just off an
island in
the Isles of
Mystery.

Now there’s
a sunlit
adventure
to be
daydreamed.

Would you
do something
for me?

If and when
this happens
to you,

paint a picture
of it,
make a movie or
a dance or
a song
of it,
or write a story or
a poem, and
let us ones
who sometimes
sink deep
in the dark ocean

see your light.

Photo by David Clode, UnSplash

 

Fractured Mirrors

If the you
that is aging
skin and
calcifying
boneworks
insists on
comparing
itself to
other
skin and bones,

do so with
a laugh,
preferably
at your own
expense.

Any other
comparing
is likely to
end in
a walk
down
a dark path
lined with
fractured
mirrors.

Comparing
is the
unimaginative
detritus

of the temporary
blindness
that strikes
you
when

you
get out of bed
without
remembering
to wake up

your
ageless
and
ravishing
incomparable
Soul.

Photo by Grace Madeline, UnSplash