Unbeknown to his doctors
and his family
Brian was deeply aware
his blank stare
a mask
he wore everywhere
inside
he could hear and see
reality
confidentially
-30-
Riff: Deeply Aware
Category: awareness
I Just Want to Be
I want to be the next Gary Larson and exist on The Far Side
of the moon
I want to be the young Paul McCartney
and have all the ladies swoon over me
I want to be Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and reinvent poetry
I want to be like John Candy
and make people laugh until they pee!
I want to be Peter Lorre starring in a movie
that’s a classic mystery
I want to be P.T. Barnum making history
with his revolutionary use of publicity
I want to be Howard Hughes known for his eccentricity
and living on the periphery
Most of all
I just want to be
-30-
Loss of Empathy
No mercy in the Age of COVID planet wise
when empathy dies
each day with thousands of deaths becoming data
for bean-counters and politicians
on secret missions
hospitals full of victims dying alone
in an ICU zone
it becomes hard to bear
hearing about millions dying
and the survivor’s despair
and some who just don’t care
and have no empathy
to spare
Don’t Look Back
when you hear the cry of wild wolves behind you
don’t look back
when walking on a dark forest’s floor you hear a roar
don’t look back
when unwanted memories haunt you
look ahead
don’t look back
instead
plow ahead
with your dreams
who knows what the future brings?
***
Dad’s Fading Away
Like leaves falling off of trees with the advance of winter
my Dad’s memories are caught up in the winds of change
as he struggles to remember my name
I watch his eyes wander off to other times
back to the “good old days”
when he was young and viral
a proud Marine and father of three
he will always be
my hero
sometimes his eyes are clear and when he looks at me
I can see the man he use to be even though he’s ninety-three
sometimes suddenly he talks rationally
but those days are fading away
as I watch him every day
waiting for a miracle to come his way
I wait
and pray
***
A Dime for an Epiphany
If I had dime for every epiphany
that I’ve had
it would add
up to a lot of money
however
remembering
those moments of inspiration
when something became clear
never lingered long enough
for them to physically appear
alas! my fleeting epiphanies
will never persevere
**
The Colors of Curiosity
A kitten’s proclivity
to curiosity
comes in shades of tabby
black, brown, gray, white
some tall and some small
all hunters at night
curiosity
gleams in their agate eyes
multi-colored felines
who like to fraternize
curiosity
in every slinky movement
nothing is left unexplored
or spared their amusement
***
Trapped in a Dream?
I’m ready to wake up now.
It’s been fun surfing on monster waves in Hawaii in weather so beautiful it was post card perfect. Those two beach bunnies were a nice touch. Literally. Heh! heh! Everyone was real nice to me, and smoking pakalolo with those two Philippine fishermen was a cool experience, but I want to wake up now.
There must be rules.
Nothing is wrong with me. I’m healthy and happy. Just sleeping. So why can’t I get up? Shakespeare wrote,
“Are you sure
That we are awake?
It seems to me
That yet we sleep,
we dream”
In The Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This quote haunts me because I’m sure I’m awake, yet somehow dreaming at the same time. It stirs instincts from other lives that were hidden from my consciousness and are now scampering about like free rabbits in the wild.
What am I doing wrong?
Is it possible to forget how to wake up? Is that little piece of information in code somewhere in my unconscious? Did it grow tired of waiting for me to open my eyes and shrivel up? Way too many questions here. I have to pull back and not panic. I appear to be stuck in a nightmare. As soon as I get the right neurons to move from my cerebellum to the cerebral cortex it will go away.
I’m waiting.
Maybe I’m having the mother of all daydreams. Daydreams. That’s it. I’m having the most intense daydream ever experienced by a human. I don’t know why I was singled out for this dubious honor, but I’m over it. Time to move on. I have a life to live. Is anyone out there listening?
I‘m still waiting.
The end.
Words
wallup.net
Words are birds
that take flight
with everything you write
they ride the wind
all free to fly
in the blink of an eye
into the blue sky
words travel as far
as the north star
and as fast as a race car
civilizations built on words
by nerds
who believed they could fly
like birds
***
Purple Nights and Green Days
Northern lights and purple nights
aurora borealis colors in the night sky
a palette for the gods to paint
and beautify
and
forests and plains forever green
the most beautiful day ever seen
flowing fields of verdant grass
grassy knolls en masse
under the sun’s brilliant sheen
lies a blanket of emerald green
***
The Creative Chronicles of Dave Stancliff 