I cannot find the gate. I’ve lots of time,
but get deflected over and again.
Too many passengers demanding prime
attention, crowded concourse, hurried men.
I seek Two Thirty Six, but first a yen
for candy stops my steps – I won’t conceal it.
But I can’t find a free cashier, and then
I pick a pack of sweetness and I steal it.
We’re complicated creatures, and we might
have made our species talk so we can lie.
Some good do bad. Some evil gets it right.
So many plots are driven with a sigh,
frustration mounting to a speechless height
and simply cause a character won’t try.
If you would search for someone you can trust,
then make her love of self-esteem your must.
There lives a sock monkey with me,
handmade once to aid charity.
I bought him myself
and he rules from my shelf.
He’s now paper-crowned regally.
They correlate the numbers, and assign
a risk of heart attack with mindless screen.
Cholesterol (read “LDL”) looks fine
to me, consistent with the numbers seen
in tests as far back as Two Thousand Nine.
And if we input better values, clean
and low, the threat remains, because their gauge
is weighted heavily by patient age.
At least for now, I’m done with feeling old.
I slipped two months ago, and tried to bow
to age advice as daily ache unrolled,
at least for now.
Improvement stalled, increasing creasing brow.
And signs of weakened eyes and ears foretold
diminished sense, but I had voiced a vow,
and rested on. Impatience took its hold
at last. I’m dancing and I’ll not allow
decrepit point of view. I’m gently bold,
at least for now.
A bit adult at 5, when I was 8
and he was born, he seemed so young to me,
that 6 and 60 years don’t decimate
a first impression that’s especially
enhanced by his abiding friendly trait,
that kind and playful personality.
So his collapse last week, though passing brief,
has knocked us both to geriatric grief.
I seldom value compliments as much
as others seem to do, or you advise.
Perhaps I’m skeptical, or not in touch
with graciousness, or maybe I would prize
cooperation more than words. My tries
at humble gratitude seem too reserved
to please. But I’m consumed with sweet surprise
when kids express the praise I’ve well-deserved.
The flip side of anxiety appears
to be imagination. What so leaps
to fret, before a threat or peril nears,
can be engaged to spin an anecdote,
a narrative produced in hemispheres
that generate unchecked uneasiness.
A harness might be woven that adheres,
and overwrites the nervousness that keeps
you up at night. Make art with proto-fears.
The window job is not complete, and won’t
be finished for a half a month or more.
My guy is taking off a week I don’t
begrudge, and then he’ll start on every door
with soggy threshold (sadly, there are four),
while staining, trimming, making windows right.
For now, I’m pleased and able to ignore
disturbance, as I welcome back the light.
Most public servants aren’t competent;
effective doesn’t seem to be a goal.
So I don’t think we’ll call it accident
when red team fails to carry out its goal.
Their players don’t appear intelligent.
Their leader lacks sufficient self-control.
Such comforts me, renewing hope and nerve.
If wrong, their vision’s what I might deserve.
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