All hail the dawn,
Harbinger of new
And open chance.
Get out there and go.
It lighted you up
Now a clear road calls.
Predators watch,
You speed by.
Reaping, passing
What you'd thought
Others had.
Swirled air behind you
Trees wave
In the Lit Golden Open
Nothing holds you back.
Green jig
Silver spoon
White jig
Full moon
Live shad
Frozen shrimp
Wieners bad
Line limp
Big Red
Corn Flakes
Treble hooks
Boat wakes
Game Warden
Big lie
New beer
Stringer tie
Ice chest
Water dump
Line check
Sore rump
Clouds clear
Moon glow
Lake calm
Bats.
Air still
Bad joke
White bass
Chair broke
Dove coo
Coffee cup
Line yank
Drop cup
Grab rod
Fish jump
Hand numb
Head bump
Rod down
Hold tight
Blue cat
Good fight
Pink dawn
Turtles sun
Night fishing
Great fun.
An empty echo
Follows a bullet trace
And life exists, but with a peering blue eye.
Sound heard slower than life.
These grass stalks will be here
Whether we're here or not.
And there stands an old man,
So smiling with thumb up.
Another whip, an echo,
Made from a bullet, sent from uphill, downhill.
"High left!!!" Thumb down.
Standing there over the target.
Black sticker placed on a hole....
"OK Go!"
Another whip, then a boom.
A smile. A thumb up, Amidst the stalks, his stalks.
Commotion ensued up the hill with buggies and trucks, all coming down.
Binoculars just weren't enough.
A hole on orange. Dust and grass in the air with gratified validation.
Beers drunk, overwhelming the pending matter of the morning hunt,
And all excuses removed.
Scents hold the time, everyday early.
Stir those old visions.
Tall marble, wool and silk and perfume,
coffee, makeup, paused impatience.
Brass clanging and used with full purpose.
Milk cartons, cups and subdued polite yelling.
Passing, coming and going and staying.
Back again, here again.
A creased hat holds pace for the queue.
And a name called with a wink moves the room along.
Permission it seems is given to this place.
To wait to start a day.
Early smiles are not the norm, we're in this together.
Toes tap and steps lift...
Scooting through a glass door paper chalice in hand.
He admitted he was quite perturbed with himself by by swallowing that minnow.
He thought it was just like the worm he stole last week.
When I reeled him in and pulled him up he said he was glad my hook was only on his lip. He didn't take it personally. Said most of his friends had been so rude. They pushed him and everybody away just to get the first bite and then they would just leave and not come back.
But now it was just him.
Lo and behold, and God forsake he'd been tricked by that hook.
He was croaking with disgust.
"Take it easy man" I said. "I'm here with my kid and I don't have my license with me anyways. I just want to show you to her".
"Ah, OK well then let her hold me. I'll keep my fins down but I can't help the slime. Don't let her drop me. By the way, can you dip me in the water again please?"
I did, then with both hands I eased my grip and slid him over to the palms of my daughter, and he calmly laid still. I could see the wonder on her face.
A few moments passed. The toils of the day made to make this present moment possible shone to me like a ray from heaven.
"Let's name him Bob" my daughter said.
"Yeah that's a great name" I said, "Let's let Bob go back to his home now." And with outstretched palms I hold Bob again lower to the water.
In the midst of the tranquil, a dart of an eye caught my own and a sudden wrath of flop and fin covered me with water and slime.
"Screw Yoooouuu!!!"....I could hear it in my mind as Bob somersaulted back to his water, his home.
Thanks, Bob. You were great and I'm glad I caught you.
Please come back again.
Whatever the vast expanse around me I feel says or does not say,
It has not removed me, I'm still here.
There are too many trees to shade me from an unyielding and burning sun.
What I can see takes in the Earth and all its God-hewn forms.
I love them for what they are, and I'm thankful too, God don't forget that.
But I'm on the lookout for a sign.
Maybe you can't tell by my third eye peers through all.
It only opens with a tell, a signal, a lie, a truth.
And I don't need to try because what I need to see just appears on its own.
Having this is a thing which either keeps me aware that too much exposure can burn,
Or it can show me the light.
Either sight saves.
In the meantime I'm glad to be among trees,
Trying to save myself from working too hard at saving myself.
I'm on the open plain, it's so silent here.
And where the sound of my surroundings once held my senses,
Now quiet resonates.
I hear myself more than I used to.
My own head is louder than the prairie.
And dove seem to keep my attention from my ever growing thirst,
And I care more about birds than water.
When realization comes that time whips through stalks of grass,
I pull a blade and bite down.
The thin distance of what I can see is as blur of purple and blue,
My eyes water.
With all what I knew yesterday blown away,
I squint to see while wind tells me things I should have heard all along.
Fireflies mark the lines where neat cut st. augustine lies.
In front of what you know to be...
And bees are moving in the hollies working blossoms gently,
Using the sweet and heavy air.
Where the girth of the oaks has gotten wider than you remembered,
And dim lights glow to you while standing at the curb.
Come in, you're home.
The current and shade won't let me see you,
Down there where I know you are.
And I crouch here on the bank with my eyes held still.
Knowing you're down there, looking up.
So, I jump in.
I can't breathe but I soon figure out how.
And our world flows over, and tries to carry us away.
In an exchange of ideals and wills, we make a trade.
All while we've caught each other and given up the world we had.
To let it wash away while water fills our lungs.
Around about now I know to know what to do next.
But the next thing I could do is not the next thing.
So I need to do what I should do next first.
It's never really easy to do next what I should do.
And it’s not the next thing someone else would do.
Because what I should do next isn't what I would do or could do, even if I had the choice.
And what I will do next isn't something I couldn't do.
In fact it's something that's never been done before, at least not not the way I'd do it- Not yet, not anymore
The next thing I'm going to do is the next thing to the best and last thing I ever did, at least for now.
Because the next thing I'll do might be better than before.
When you are born without something
That you should otherwise normally have
Then you are.... special.
The world is full of these people, like us.
We don’t talk about it, unless asked.
We live out days full with perception.
Our brains active with compensation.
Out in front of every conversation
A sight that could not be seen
A sound not fully heard
And a brain busy with the tasks of
Seeing and hearing without eye or ear.
Would you be able to spot someone like this?
Such a depraved person,
Who’d never had complete sight,
Nor hammer, anvil, or stirrup.
So sharp would be the measure of all taken in,
With the one set had left,
they’d best us all.
This gun is smoking.
Whirring sounds above my head didn't sound like what I'd expected.
I'm in my foxhole, and I'm scared.
When I was young I'd think about this.
It was simple to come to a conclusion, about living, about dying.
And might and sharp cunning skill carried the day and adulation,
and fruits of all endeavors toiled at the surpassing of others.
But I have shown myself what I can do.
And I'm in my foxhole, now and again.
I'm scared, because nowadays I level my gun and pull the trigger,
They die, and I do too.
