Happy Death Day

I should like to die today
I really would
Don't think I'm kidding

The day is spectacular and to boot
(for purposes of kicking the bucket)
I've never felt more fit

By dying today,
I might be spared dying decrepit
on a grey and dismal morning.

Additionally, today's my birthday.
What then's more fitting than to celebrate
a happy birthday on a happy death day?

In Suicides

In suicides, I see one thing
someone's gonna pay for my hurt
someone's got to hurt for my leap off the bridge
which sure as hell ain't no leap of faith...

or maybe it is!

Drawings

Inspiration is a tease.
Jot it down before it gallops distant.
Saddle up the Mongolian pony.

Poetry is wishful thinking, mainly.
Its risks associated with senility,
give pause to us to reconsider.

Draw, therefore, your blanks. When before a writer's block,
sledgehammer it to pieces or dig a moat around it.
Minimum force is almost always preferable.

Friends and  fellow poets, I leave you now to find
the odds and ends of perfect timing, to wander,
the right at birth of restless souls.

Seek Ye First

A fountain might pose a greater difficulty
in explaining what a drop of water is

than the study of a drop of water to the understanding
of  the underlying principal of all fountains

In minutiae there is revelation
Seek ye first separation

Sometimes Paper

Outside of thoughts, words,
notations, speculation
reality does not exist.

There is only is
Is stands by is-self

Thoughts are tags;
words, initials
carved on trees

Punctuation
sometimes paper

Who Would Think

The swimming universe is sensed
in things centered, nailed and fixed
in e mails crazy that fly the distance
in rust, in dust that gathers on tables
in the idiot's idiocy, in genius simple
vase with flower

Emasculation

Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn...
If you're my age,
these names might be familiar to you.

It was a glorious time in America when our women
had handsome, husky voices,
almost  manly voices.

This started to change with Elizabeth Taylor
Even as she played Cleopatra opposite Richard Burton
her voice had a distinctive harpy quality.

Richard's voice
was a tumbling highland creek.
He was Welch, as to be expected.

Taylor was the forerunner to today's typical, screechy,
overbearing TV anchor woman.  In contrast to them,
too many of our guys sound like whining wimps.

These ball-less, pathetic creatures
have I seen,
trailing their wives in supermarkets.

Yet, far worst it was for us
when we, wee brides
had to starch and iron our husbands' underwear.