He thinks my Southern’s sexy!
It really turns him on.
He’s always drooling at me
when I’m weed whacking the lawn.
He really kind of likes my Southern music drawl.
An’ he gets all excited when I say hey all y’all!
You best be knowin how he digs my squash pies from cushaws.
Yeah he really gets me!
He thinks my Southern’s sexy!
When life doesn’t go/
the way you want, change either/
your path, work, or dreams
Folks want to label/
themselves as some small group but
what if we’re just folks?
If you wake early,/
get busy and do chores. You/
might find some jewels.
How many mistakes/
must I make? How much must I/
wait? Or should I go?
It was too late
to think,
I think,
nor to read
what I should not.
But I thought,
and I did,
and now I can’t stop
thinking
the thought.
They play
like an ear worm,
the terrible tune
you hate to hear,
but once it blares
you can’t get rid of it.
I’m
not
hot.
Not in that way.
The things I “fix”
don’t stay
repaired.
And there are so many
now, in this new place,
that I can hardly imagine
trying
to catch up.
I don’t even write
or work at what I like
any more.
I’m a bore.
So I sit and binge watch
and pretend
it’s teaching me
about government
and choices
and I’m spending time
with her.
But our gazes
go forward
into a large
rectangular
black hole,
where we watch others
play out on the screen
and even panting
and depanting
and a black bra
only brings groans
of boredom
and remorse.
Then,
when we’ve watched
and thrown away
three hours
(or more),
we kneel
and thank Him
for us,
and ask
what we should do.
I don’t think that’s it.
And although I now feel glad
that I’m writing,
divulging,
creating,
it still feels
like I should go
cover the garden
against tonight’s frost,
fold up the electric cord,
and try to tidy up
the front porch
at least a little,
so maybe,
when tomorrow’s beams shine brightly,
I’ll feel like doing something
that will move the needle
at my house,
my home,
my refuge.
And I’ll remind myself
it’s not a contest
with the past.
If only
I could now,
at last,
believe that.
Her creativity,
this evening’s music muse,
wafts like a late autumn breeze
out her door,
down the hallway,
to my ears.
Peace.
My oldest creation,
son,
and his creation,
my granddaughter,
gaze,
smiling,
from my screensaver.
Joy.
Yet I,
creative meistro
sitting on a hickory’d hill,
fall’s colored leaves
glowing in the sunset;
bright moon and stars
gleaming in the dark
rural’d night,
haven’t written
for daze.
Weeks.
Blank.
Work,
government linguistics,
leaky doors,
amityville horror phermone’d bugs,
busted lights,
stalled furnaces,
all beyond the grasp
of my repair.
Guilt.
Gardens unharvested;
tall fall grasses
in the front yard
unburned,
failed wildflower experiments
where there once was so much
promise.
Melancholy.
All around me,
there is paper
and hundreds of shades
of different hues,
muse,
notes,
thousands of words
i could use.
Yet none come.
Funk.
What to do.
What to do?
Do.
Perhaps
creativity
will drop
like dew
when I do.
And I’ll rinse my face
and cleanse my soul
and refresh my heart
and free my mind.
It’s worth a try.
It’s always dangerous
to look back to the past,
especially when it’s not yours.
No matter how good
your present is,
the chance to find pain
is real.
Don’t gaze too long
into what is not yours.
Don’t think too deeply
about what you don’t understand.
Just keep your own happiness
and your present peace,
and rejoice.
She says she wasn’t/
creating anything good,/
but creation’s great.