Pick up and leave

Where should we go today?

We’ve paid the bills and have a surplus.

We could drive till our asses hurt.

Leave endless Nebraska.

Drive across the Rockies.

Through Independence Pass.

I’ll catch us dinner.

We can roast potatoes.

Sleep off the highway.

Maybe find a wild hot spring.

In the morning we’ll continue westward.

Stopping for lunch in the sunlight.

Nap in the heavy shade of a tree.

Get up and do it all again.

Laughing.

Worry-free eyes.

Reach the coast.

Watch the sun set the sky on fire.

I’ll catch us dinner.

Stay as long as we want.

Sewel Makes Room for Them

Sewel Makes Room for Them dies at 25 due to cardiac arrest.

He sat at his kitchen table, a folding card table covered in a plastic floral sheet and a small watering can filled with silk geraniums. His jeans, torn white at the tips, cradled his black tie-up boots. An eagle feather hung from his wide brimmed hat, and his long black hair, black like a raven’s belly, laid across his shoulders. In 1973, he fought the trickster hiding in a bottle deeper than any warrior could swim out. Down at the bottom, he road out to the creator looking for answers.

Sewel Makes Room for Them whispers his discovered secrets on the winds that wash South Dakota, and he makes room for them.

In my car

I write in my car because…
the scenery is always moving and for some reason that makes it easier to daydream.
the bumps in the asphalt give my words rhythm.
stoplights and traffic are boring.
I can’t always wait until I get to a notebook and desktop.
I’m afraid I’ll lose the words somewhere deep in my head.
sometimes thoughts hit me so hard I need to capture them.
it breaks up the drive.
I’m a safe driver, and I can handle writing and driving simultaneously.
songs on the radio can spark and emotion I don’t want to go away.
I wonder how my thoughts change throughout the year.
I’m in the rain, but I’m dry.
I don’t have time to write anywhere else.
It’s my secret office.
I don’t know what will come next.

Broken Bones

When I was younger, I saw my brother, I used to wonder
Would I grow right, in his eyes, would I falter?
So fast, it goes, before I know it.
I’m old, he’s gone, I’ve blown it.
I can only hope he’s smiling on the inside.
Through the stone, he’s yielding, stirring ice
In a tumbler of bourbon, heat on the horizon.
His worry lines and serious eyes are illusions.
Back to the driveway, a blood-stained pavement.
Running for mother to show her what happened.
I never told her it was my fault, my plans.
Let it go child, its over, it happened.
My poor brother, took that one on the inside.
His gut is torn up. I see it in his eyes.
These illusions.

The Tables are Turning

Deep down, buried in the dirt, dwells a tangled mess.

Of a past long forgotten, covered up and rotting with the rest.

We kicked it under the welcome mat, but the more we drill and dig

The more our past comes raging back, the more our backs they break.

Do you know what your world’s about?  The tables are turning now.

Well why not? Pass me a shovel.  Everybody, hey, come out and help.

Start the digging, there’s no trouble, until our brow start to glisten and melt.

Do you know what your life’s about. The tables are turning around.

And soon young women and men, they will grow old.

They skin will be leathered, and their sight will start to go.

The things they buried will work their way on up. 

Exposed and rotting our lives it will begin to haunt.

Do you know what your world’s about? The tables are turning now.

Now in our empty homes, we’ll hang our dusty coats.

The day’s work is done.  This disaster we’ve postponed. 

But soon the future, it will come, that old tax collector.

Demanding us to pay on up; the day in the sun is over.

Do you know what your world’s about? The tables are turning around.

Do you know what your world’s about? The tables are turning now.

The tables are turning around.

The Sleeping Zebra

Well, not so much now.

I’m afraid my typing has brought you up from the depths.

Napping in the crook of my elbow,

You’ve rested 

And, no doubt, you’ll have the energy

To blaze through this apartment’s serengeti.

So you want to play now, do you?

Well grab your mouse on a string and lets go.

I’ve never been a cat owner until now,

And you seem like the feline for me.

1984

consciousness equals existence so long as you control the thought process
freedom eludes those who follow the currents of their Big Brother
denial leads one headfirst into oncoming traffic
to abandon your lover in the cross hairs of your greatest fears
and finally realize, 2 + 2 = 5
or 3, or cotton ball
or whatever I tell you it =