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Discrepancies are what I think really inspires my poems. When things look like everything
is right but there is something that is terribly amiss. Or the opposite, it looks like everything
is all wrong but there is something that is so right and so beautiful in the mist of all
that mess.
"The Road Not Chosen" Sometimes we choose a road
Sometimes it chooses us Or some part of us we are born with makes
the chose
A missing arm A twisted face
A flailing gate
An inborn talent A flawless face
A brilliant brain
A doting or neglecting parent An altered perception we can't reprogram
An instinctual desire for our own gender An involuntary loyalty to logic that foils
faith
We learn soon enough that snakes lie across our path
Spider webs always claps our faces And spiders cling to our hear
The lights too dim or too bright We aren't fools
Our feet refuse to walk the safer route And that makes all the difference
Well sometimes social issues come up and I wrote this poem when I worked for a while
at this factory putting automobile mirrors together. And I wrote a poem about that. For
me it was a part-time with supplementing early retirement income. And it was a good deal.
Even though I was only working part-time. I already had health insurance it was good
for me. But I saw other workers that it wasn't good for. They had no freedom, they had low
income. Some of them were my age or older and having to work to pay medical bills. And
they weren't really healthy enough to be there. There were young people starting out that
were going to be stuck there forever. And I wrote
"Automobile Mirror Assembly Line"
All we want is time to live Do those things we haven't enough hours for
Catch a fish, enjoy family, paint a picture Breed a different flower
And all we have to buy time with are our lives Who's worth is measured by minimum wage
Every right hand mirror I place in the press is imprinted
"Caution objects closure than they appear" Looking in my own rear view I see that is
true My past is tailgating me
But windshields should have a warning too Objectives are further away then you have
gas to go
I always knew when I was in High School, I knew that I would someday write a book about
the foibles of public education . I had read "Up the down staircase". And we had a Vice
Principle who would announce the end of the school day each day, by saying "the bell has
rang" (with a southern drawl). He was a former English teacher, even though he was making
that grammatical error. And I was going to use that as my title. Well I finally got around
to writing the book though it turned out to be a book of poetry instead of the fictional
story that I thought I was going to write. And It occurred to me that a lot of people
probably would not recognize it as a grammatical error. And those who did would think it was
mine. (laugh) Despite putting quotation marks around it. So I came up with the title "Schooled"
and put a picture of a school bus on the front and the back. And I regret I did not take
the time to put on the front of the school bus a little figure of me standing there smiling
and innocent like a little kid going off to school. And then on the back a figure of me
looking like I'd been run over by a school bus. Because that would have kinda given a
clue to the contents.
A lot of my poems are interpreted as being negative or sad or dismal and dark. Even though
I am a very happy person.
"Natures Kind Indifference"
The morning after my lover died, April went on with life
The breeze tempered the sun to comfort warm Lilac scents softened the air
Bees hummed in apple blossoms A Mocking bird in a new leaf maple top melancholy
declared his space And in so doing told me I too must go on with
life
I think it is mostly that I see dark as part of the whole. And I can't seem to ignore it,
it's there and so I write about it. And I guess I don't write about happy things as
much because I am happy. I just doesn't seem out of kilter to be happy or see a bird and
get all excited, it doesn't inspire a poem. Because I see that every day or every few
minutes those things happen and make me feel so good. And so they don't inspire poetry
so often.
"Sometimes Beauty Comes in emptiness In turtle less shells
Dried seed heads Winter Trees Cloudless skies
With inconvenience of a Rinds nest in a needed basket
The long wait behind a laughing infant in a checkout line
Of Ice snapped power lines and snow drifted roads
Sometimes it's just the thought that won't go away or sometimes I see a or hear something
on TV or comments someone makes or some event that just gets my attention. And keeps it.
A lot of writers try to write everyday or follow a schedule. I don't do that. I don't
think I could do that. If someone gives me a topic sometimes I can write about it sometimes
I can't. But usually I don't write a poem unless something just hits me and I just got
to write about that. And it happens at very inconvenient times. I've had to pull off on
the side of the road sometimes and write down an idea. Nearly be late somewhere because
I've got to get this idea down or get some notes down.
"miles along most of us can see we really do belong here we see the benefits and learn
to see the beauty of snakes and spiders. Glimpses of soft feathered owls and fearless orange
foxes others never get to see. We're glad our feet made us walk this road. But now and
then a yearning comes. A longing to be part of the normal comforting crowd."