Tag Archives: acceptance

What Good to Grieve

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What good to grieve a faded hour?
The sun has long since filled the sky
and led to moments come and gone
as filled with life as that passed dawn.

Besides, to mourn what has now ceased,
too long, is to remain in black;
and while the new day’s wedding feast
is still a revel, see its shroud.

What good to dwell on might-have-beens?
One action to another leads,
and just as likely finds the course
that from another deed was dreamed.

Besides, the marrow of the past
makes for a poor and somber dish;
it is a ghost of this day’s meat,
and does not fill up or nourish.

What good to grieve a faded hour
when minutes live but to expire,
and, in their brief and fleeting flower
of seconds, spend no time in tears?

Besides, who would deny the dawn
and cling to shadows that must fade,
while life remains today unlived,
tomorrow’s sorrows yet unmade?

20 NOV 2007

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Let Vain Cassandras Moan

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Let vain Cassandras from their pulpits moan,
decrying what velocity the world
has chosen for its obvious descent;
and in their sermons, demonize each day
that dares to start as sunrise shattered dark.

They make the Word a flesh that only rots,
its destiny disease and graying bones;
and would deny what lies beneath such text:
a corpse that with its dying, brings new life.

Let these harangues of fire and brimstone fail;
they seek to reap by fear what love has sown,
and would for glory’s sake destroy the world
to prove their theories worthy of what gods
they cast in their own image of despair.

I will not preach the ending of the earth,
nor advocate an abstinence so strict.
Instead, I seek to understand myself;
and feed another’s body when I go.

14 APR 2007

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You’ve Had the Blues

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If you’ve been down and out
(and you know what I’m talkin’ about)
you’ve had the blues:
if what you’ve lost and left behind
has made trouble in your mind,
and you seem to find the road under your shoes;
if you can’t get nowhere
and nobody seems to care
and your membership is nothing but the dues;
if the people that you meet
see you and then cross the street
and the cold from their eyes pierces you straight through,
you’ve had the blues.

If you’ve been on the losin’ end
(and you know what I mean, my friend)
you’ve had the blues:
if you sit awake at night
and try to make it right,
but it don’t get better either way you choose;
if you’re always on the run
from what you should and could have done,
and the past just turns today to bitter hues;
if the whiskey and the wine
just taste like dirt and turpentine
and the morning only seems to bring bad news,
you’ve had the blues.

If you’ve been run through the mill
(if you don’t know, someday you will)
you’ve had the blues:
if you’re out there all alone
with no one to call your own
and it seems until you die you’re born to lose;
if you try to see it through
but no one really cares for you,
they just smile and want to tell you what to do;
if every day is just the same,
just one more motion in the game
and you’re just killing the time until it’s through,
you’ve had the blues.

10 MAR 2007

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What Really Matters

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Could be bitter; what’s the point?
Each generation must anoint
its own legion of heroes to cut down.

Complaining they did not pick me
this time around seems to be
another way of sinking in the ground.

Between the cracks sometimes you fall;
you’re lucky to be seen at all.
So many live and die without a sound.

So what that no one knows my name,
that somehow I’ve eluded fame?
despite all that could be I’m still around.

What really matters, after all?
You get right up after you fall
without expecting some reward each time you do.

What really matters, in the end?
You find some truth, maybe a friend,
because the only thing left to become is you.

Could be bitter; what’s the use?
The world needs pointless self-abuse
like it needs one more song about the rain.

Insisting some conspiracy
must be to blame, and woe is me,
just sounds like an excuse for being lame.

Between the headlines that you read,
you find the news you really need
or else you don’t learn anything at all.

So what that no one sings my praise
then tires of it, in a few days?
The headlines make the other print so small.

What really matters, after all?
You get right up after you fall
without expecting some reward each time you do.

What really matters, in the end?
You find some truth, maybe a friend,
because the only thing left to become is you.

22 FEB 2007

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Don’t You Diagnose Me

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You know, so much of what we’re sold is happy horseshit
designed to soften our resistance to a lie:
that you are where you are because that’s right where you belong,
and your life will all get better, bye and bye.

Once you’ve swallowed that first dose, the rest don’t matter;
they’ve got you hooked on the sedation of their choice.
Big business, and the government, the churches do it too;
each one has their own soft, seductive voice.

But sometimes lately in the wee hours of the morning,
in that stretch of dawn before the nurse rolls through
I’ve found myself awake, and thinking its a big mistake
to let the system get its greedy hooks in you.

And If in the name of normalcy, you’ve got to play the part
of the blissful happy fool, then I refuse.
Just because I choose to see the glass sometimes as far from full,
Doctor, don’t you diagnose me with the blues

22 DEC 2006

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The First Day

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If this is the first day of what life remains,
who cares if there’s sunshine or thunder and rain?
Both have their own virtues, each pleasure and pain;
though different, a good deal the same.

If this is the first day of what there is left,
what good is my grieving, or acting bereft
because things so far haven’t all gone my way?
What matters is always today.

Yesterday’s always a moment behind,
tomorrow a moment too soon;
hold on too tightly, and you’ll only find
January turns into June.
Each brand new morning is unto itself,
it needs not a calendar name.
Waste just one moment, and your life is past
with no one but yourself to blame.

If this is the worst day to happen so far,
what good is me blaming some unlucky stars
or looking for answers where none need be found
beyond my two feet on the ground?

If this is the best day that will ever be,
what good is it to keep it locked up for me
when part of the reason it turned out that way
is saving tomorrow for after today?

Yesterday’s always a moment behind,
tomorrow a moment too soon;
hold on too tightly, and you’ll only find
January turns into June.
Each brand new morning is unto itself,
it needs not a calendar name.
Waste just one moment, and your life is past
with no one but yourself to blame.

If this is the first day, and what’s come before
is just one more wave on an infinite shore,
which part of creation should I try to blame?
The end and beginning are one and the same.

30 NOV 2006

for James Taylor

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Inappropriate Happiness

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Maybe sanity’s a side-effect of living;
some folks get it, while some others never do.
It’s just a minor irritation that can do no lasting harm;
you can shake it like a slight touch of the flu.

Besides, in a world that’s gone a little crazy,
it’s not mark of great success to learn to fit;
and to have it all together isn’t much of an achievement
when all you’re taught from birth is how to live with it.

Being well adjusted isn’t everything, you know
Keep your medications up there on the shelf
The price of high is sometimes you must be a little low
Who cares what is inappropriate for anybody else?
Make your happiness by just being yourself.

Maybe happiness is never inappropriate,
It just breaks apart the stretches in between
When reality goes on and on and never seems to quit
its insistence that we should know what it means.

Besides, in a world that’s gone a little crazy
It’s a marvel we have happiness at all
We all act so damned surprised when it sneaks up in disguise
like a parachute that interrupts free fall

Being well adjusted isn’t everything, you know
Keep your medications up there on the shelf
The price of high is sometimes you must be a little low
Who cares what is inappropriate for anybody else?
Make your happiness by just being yourself.

31 OCT 2006

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