20170430.0829

The storms have come.
The storms have gone.
We're still here; we carry on,
Though we're none of us wayward sons.
In blue skies, we see the sun,
And we know that we have won
Another day that much was done,
Perhaps one that saw some fun,
But now, we are on the run,
Plunging headlong forward.

20170429.0749

Work needs always to be done,
And that thought is not much fun,
But I know I have begun
To be a bit free from it.
As I shift my focus, I
Realize I will not die
From starving, that I will not lie
In streets from a lack of it.
I need not labor so much, now;
I can rest and value things somehow
That I've not often done--and how,
Now I'm not buried in it.

20170428.0448

I seem to have been paid today,
But the money has all slipped away.
I should have known it would not stay,
But I was glad to see it.
I've seen the money come and go,
And of the latter more, I know,
And I know it's often so.
I easily see it.
The thing is that I need the cash,
Lest my life become quite a hash,
And some others'. Thus, I stash
Some where folks can't see it.
Someday, it might be enough
To get past times both smooth and rough.
I think I might well be so tough
As to get to see it.

20170427.0452

Work presses on me again.
I am having trouble making time to write.
I know it is only temporary.
I know everything I do is.
I do not look forward to some endings.
I do look forward to beginning again
On my writing
More sustained things
Than short bursts of verse.

20170426.0455

I still fight to charge ahead,
Knowing where my path has led,
But I move forward with less dread--
Not none, for I'm trained to it.
But as I've run, I've fouled a shoe,
Stepped in something prompting "Ew."
I know what I need to do;
I simply need to do it.

20170425.0449

The bastards are trying to take my money.
There's little enough for them to find,
But that doesn't mean I'm happy to lose it.
It doesn't mean that I don't mind.
So I'll get it handled, and I'll do it soon--
The banks are still closed right now--
And I'll hope my efforts have not been in vain.
I'll get things handled somehow.

20170424.0448

I'm pressing on with trying to write,
Although I'm unsure that I'm right
To do so as a morning rite
And start the day with rhyming.
For I often line up words,
Gather them into their herds,
While I sit and drop my turds;
I worry for the timing.
Coincidence does not make cause,
But the timing still gives pause,
And plopping is hardly applause;
It's not approval's signing.

20170423.0745

Sometimes, I take a bit more rest
That I may better do my best
As I proceed along my quest,
Whatever it actually is.
I'm not sure that I always know
Where it is I seek to go
On earth, above, or far below,
Or what my object is.

20170422.0524

Today, I seem to run behind,
But I think most will not mind,
Caring not or being kind,
And I can use the latter.
For many, yes, such will be true,
And of those many, some yet do
Some things that they greatly rue,
And so might use a ladder.
But lest I'm thought o!, much too cruel,
Joking of jumping from a stool
While wearing spin-offs of a spool,
By people in a lather,
I say not what should be done,
Say not that by such thing is won
Such race or game or fight begun
As people find may matter.

20170421.0450

Pay day has come once again,
So a work-week's set to end
And I can try to pretend
I live a luxurious life.
The days I can do such are brief,
But they still offer some relief
From the constructed work-week's grief
And any workplace strife.
Of course, I will do it again.
The need for money finds no end
So long as any still pretend
To have an easy life.

20170420.0447

As ever, I am plowing on ahead
With work that comes and ensures I am led
To paychecks used to keep my family fed.
I begrudge not the work that I must do
To bring in money; I know it is through
Such agency that I can now accrue
That which I need to many debts redeem
And to provide what I well know may seem
A life no more than that which those who teem
As rats all racing have and then bemoan
Because the striving leaves them all alone
Despite the families they have at home.
Yet other paths have closed to me all been,
So on this one I have started again.

20170419.0455

I continue to struggle, to do what I can
To find a fair way to get 'cross this land
In which we all struggle, in which we all stand
To lose what we long for, to fail out of hand.
This is not the path I had thought I planned,
And how I got on it, I don't understand.
But now I must bend to another's demand
And work now, and ride as if for the brand--
At least, I well must, lest I get canned,
And in so doing too many leave damned
About whom I care. Them, I'd not strand.

20170418.0451

In the States, Tax Day's today,
And I had thought to write a screed
To chide in verse jackasses' bray--
But that's not what we need.

20170417.0456

There have been much of Sturm under Drang;
They woke me in the early morning,
And I could not get all the way back to sleep.
I hope that what they brought with them was worth it.
I have to be up many hours,
My task-burden to upkeep.

20170416.0749

Today is a holiday, it seems,
And I will be spending it with my people.
It should be good.
Tomorrow will see me back to work
As is to be expected.
Today, though,
I will spend with family.
It should be good.

20170415.0630

I've somehow seemed to lose my sense of time,
So I worry that my meter and my rhyme
Will be disordered, too, as seems to be the case.
The strange adjustments that have happened to the place
Have left me out of sorts. I know not why
They would. No guess will venture I
About the reason I'm discombobulate.
I'll guess instead how I'll to normal get.

20170414.0700

Sometimes, I think to get ahead,
To get the needed reading read,
To get the needed saying said
In print and mouth to ear.
I therefore take the time to do
What I need done, to carry through
Some tasks so I can face tasks new
And make some time come clear.
I've done so now; I have some time,
Since I have pre-written this rhyme,
To with my family some joy find
Because I hold them dear.

20170413.0457

There are some times I sit and think
About the time that I have wasted
Sitting on my too-thin laurels
After I have success tasted
And I wonder why I did
And why it is I did not more.
If it's true that life's a game,
Why got I not a higher score?
Now I'm in a higher round,
And there's far more for me to lose
If I discern my paths a-wrong
And, seeing ill, the wrong way choose,
For I play not myself alone
But am a member of a team,
So serious is what I do,
Although it still may playing seem.
If I falter, I will fall,
But I can stand again with ease;
The problem is that my lapse
Will take the net from their trapeze,
And so abrupt an ending pleases few.

20170412.0456

The work goes ever on, of course,
Since it of money is the source,
And we to act with funds are forced
By practice long enduring.
And so I spend much time away
From wife and daughter every day;
I little with the latter play,
Less get the first's alluring.
As I work, I keep in mind
A thing I heard in early times,
A thing said true, if said unkind,
And it is me immuring:
Would I rather hug my girl
Or see her drifting in the world
In tatters, flag too long unfurled?
And so my work's enduring.

20170411.0507

I am wearing too many masks.
I know I need to switch between them,
Take one off and don another,
Shifting them around so that my true face never shows.
But it seems that some of them never come off.
Whether they are tied too tightly
Or they are stuck with spirit gum,
They adhere,
And offing them tears at me.
I pull off more than the mask,
And I already lose too much to doing so.

20170410.0515

It is all too often expected
That laughter is by sage neglected,
That mirth by scholars is rejected,
That weighty matters are inspected
By those whose lives are introspected,
And that the doing thus perfected
Of joy does not admit.
Yet it's joy that drives the looking
For the ways the world is cooking
And the universe is working
Such that searchers, near-berserking,
Find themselves the public irking
By away their notions jerking--
And learning's funny shit.

20170409.0940

I was glad to seek my sleep,
But now I have to earn my keep,
And I can't do so 'neath a heap
Of blankets piled high.

20170408.0612

Another day is well begun,
And I'll be working to help fund
My wife and daughter having fun--
And I may even join them.

But, still, there's always something wrong,
And I know it won't be long
In coming, though I but sing songs
And do nothing to prevent them.

What's worse is I don't truly care.
Did I, I'd be over there
Where troubles are--but I don't dare
To place myself before them.

But I know I am not alone
In sitting, as if on a throne,
While other in harm's way are thrown--
I would, at least, preserve them.

For if I would not myself go,
If I would not my people throw
Into such places, I well know
I hesitate to throw them

Who have offered up their lives,
And bodies when they do survive,
Where I would not myself arrive.
Perhaps it matters to them.

20170407.0515

I wonder why I track the time
When I sit to write out rhyme
And why I work to make lines scan
When I well know that I can
Write in blank verse or in free
The words I would have others see,
And still they will see them.

I think I am so schooled in verse
That follows forms I have rehearsed
That I cannot from them depart,
And I have to think that art
Is in knowing when to go
Along with forms, or to say "no"
When called to go 'long with them.

20170406.0516

It seems to me that every day
Sees a little slip away
Of how I had meant to portray
Myself as I would be.
I had some plans that were long made,
And I for them a steep price paid,
But that investment's been betrayed,
As now is clear to me.
So I go to do new deeds
And answer different masters' needs.
The change from what I was proceeds.
The results, we will see.

20170405.0521

I find that I'm still working away,
Pushing myself through day after day
And doing it since I need all the pay
That I can get my hands on.
I feel like a time that's pushed 'round the board,
While the ones who are pushing gather their hoard
And, in their doing, come to be adored
Whatever square the piece lands on.

20170404.0518

There's always something going on,
And I worry that it's wrong,
That, if I'm in it, I belong
Somewhere else.
I know such is paranoid,
So I seek much to avoid
Acting on it, not upbuoyed
Or somewhere else.

20170403.0459

The work I've done continues on
As ever it seems to do,
And a new adventure will've begun
Before the day is through.
So things will go as they must go
As I happily forge ahead.
Where they'll lead, I do not know,
But I'm glad to be led.

20170402.0957

The heavens opened, the rain came down,
Thunder rolled as lightning flashed 'round,
Winds howled and gyred, and hail did pound
On roofs and cars, sent trees to ground.
Yet all the while, I lazed abed,
Lounged in comfort, felt no dread,
Knew no harm would find me,
For small I am, and small remain.
From great matters, I abstain,
And so great things don't mind me.

20170401.0622

Hit is nat wyth shoures soote
That Aprill doth gyve Merch the boote,
But rather joye and merryment
Wyth which the month is away sent.
Or so the words are often said
As some will, maugre others' head,
Do make their japes wythouten stent--
And wonder where hire frendes went.
If jest ye must, then jest ye well,
And list to what you others tell,
For making japes turns sour soon
Yf ye not shape them to the room.