Futurelawyer

#PoetryFriday - A Serious Man

A Serious Man.

He was a serious man.
His days were spent,
brow furrowed,
arguing about serious things.
He was never idle,
and didn’t tolerate those who were.
His time was spent
arguing about serious topics,
and thinking about serious things.
He made lists of things that needed doing.
He attacked them with dedication
and resolve.
No one could say that he was derelict
in fulfilling the duties assigned to him.
He had no time for fun.
Life was too serious for that.
He demanded that everyone
treat life as seriously as he.
He avoided those who frolicked
and spent time in useless inaction.
He would not waste his life
that way.
We all knew that he was a serious man,
not to be trifled with.
He got things done.
He never blinked.
He never swore.
He never was seen
to smile.
Smiling was a waste of time.
Things needed doing.
He was just the man to get them done.

When he died,
no one mourned his loss.
No one came to the funeral.
No one smiled at a memory of him.

But, everyone agreed
that he was a serious man.

Carpe Diem - Seize The Day

Good friend, Bob Burguieres, posts on Facebook today, and reminds us of the need to live each day to the fullest. The Herrick poem, To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time, is an early exposition of the philosophy, stemming from the Ancient Greeks:

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
    To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
    The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
    And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
    When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
    Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
    And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
    You may forever tarry.^[1]

^{I suspect that Herrick was just trying to bed a girl; but, the principle applies across human actions. Don't wait to live your life. Don't ask permission of someone else to be who you are. Never fear the consequences of a decision, even one made in haste. Soon enough, there will be no consequences at all.} 

#PoetryFriday - Challenge

I was challenged today to write a poem about ice cream. I always accept challenges. Here is my entry:

Ice Cream.

As the melting chocolate ice cream
traveled down her chin
and found a resting place on her shirt,
he tried to remember a time
when the three of them
sat in the parlor
laughing and enjoying the moment.
Ice cream had defined their happiness,
and its ephemeral goodness
was the outline for happier times.
Sometimes, he remembered that she was still with them.
Her smile moving from him to her daughter,
and her eyes twinkling with delight.
He wondered whether spirits watch
as mortals play games
and eat ice cream
and wander in and out of the stores
and malls.
What would her spirit tell him to do
with a little girl who only had her dad
to eat ice cream with?
He felt a tear roll down his cheek,
and, at the same time,
her ice cream became a dribble
that reminded him of heaven.

#PoetryFriday - Sand On The Beach

Sand On The Beach.

He walked on the beach
and felt the sand
with bare feet
while the sun fell from the sky
in bands of gold and red.
When the dark succumbed
to the lights of the buildings,
he knew that another day was over for him.
He didn’t want to walk to the car.
He didn’t want to face the reality
that the day was over.
He didn’t want to live another night
in a house alone
without happiness and life.
He didn’t know what waited for him
on the other side of midnight.
Would he awaken in an empty house,
trying mightily to move old bones
that wanted to stay still?
Would the ghosts that haunted him
survive and thrive in sunshine
and follow him around
another day?
He knew that he should be grateful
that the sun came up again for him.
He struggled to smile at strangers,
who had their own struggles,
and kept them to themselves.
So many strangers.
So many struggles.
So much pain.
Everyone hid their pain from him.

When the day ended,
he went back to the beach
and felt the sand
with bare feet
while the sun fell from the sky.

Poems For Lovers - Get Your Copy Today!

Poems For Lovers. This is a shameless plug for the most recent poetry collection. If you have been enjoying the poems online, you owe me. You can buy a copy for around $12 at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other locations online. You can get it in paperbook or Ebook format.If you can't afford $12, let me know and I will send you a PDF copy free. Poetry is life. Get yours now.

Miller Willams Was A Poet.

Miller Williams Was A Poet.

Miller Williams, American poet and my professor in College at Loyola University of the South in the late Sixties, passed away recently. I was thinking recently about my writing, both poetry and otherwise, and remembered what he used to say: "Every word you add dilutes the meaning". He believed in simple, conversational tone, and realized that most meaning derived by a reader comes from their own heart; not from a bunch of words. He also was a gentle soul, and hated war and violence. We once spent two weeks analyzing a single poem, Randall Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", the last line of which stays with me today: "When he died, they washed him out of the turret with a hose". Miller Williams didn't teach me how to write. He taught me how to live.

#PoetryFriday - Laughing All The Way

Laughing All The Way

I cried when I saw the damage,
and I frowned when I saw the broken hearts.
I fidgeted while I watched the parade,
souls looking for another way out.
I wanted to run
when I saw the weapons,
aimed as they were
at other human beings.
Clubs and chains,
attacking the fences,
guarding those who guarded us.

They were laughing
as they tore into the cars
parked on the street
and smashed windows
and doors.
They had better armor than the police.
The police were missing in action.

When do we get to make them stop
laughing?

#PoetryFriday - I Know Why The Aquarium Fish Are Smiling.

I Know Why The Aquarium Fish Are Smiling.

The fish swam aimlessly in the tank,
unaware that I was an audience,
watching them as they darted in and out
of fake coral
and fake rocks
and fake caves.
I provided food,
and they ate it greedily,
not knowing if it would ever come again.
I wanted to send them a message
that they were in the matrix,
and they had to make a choice.
Should they swim happily
in a tank without predators,
totally dependent upon a human being
who might not come tomorrow?
Or, should they jump out
into the unknown environment,
not knowing whether they could breathe
or swim again?

I am happy that I am on this side of the glass.
I might drown in there.

#PoetryFriday - Zen And The Art Of Spring Cleaning.

Zen and the Art of Spring Cleaning

As I push the vacuum around the house,
and clean the counters,
scrub the debris of a week
from the shiny surfaces,
and discard
the used up trappings
of my life,

I think of you.

Every now and then,
I need to adjust the inventory,
and remove the extra baggage
from the carousel.

Otherwise, it will go round and round
forever.

The simplicity of physical labor
allows me to concentrate
on the complexity of my feeling
toward a new woman in my life.

In the ordinary running away
I do, every day,
In the meanderings
and gallops
of my thoroughbred anxiety,
I sometimes
stop
and listen
and look.

I get hit by fewer trains that way.

I love the way
you free my mind
to think about
the future.

I love the way
you free my mind
to live
in the present.

It's Monday In America. I See Dead People.

Reading obituaries on Monday morning is not recommended. Being reminded that there are dead people younger than you are is fraught with mixed emotions. But, some habits are hard to break. 

Dead People.

I started reading obituaries
when I had to write one.
It occurred to me
that reducing a life to a few lines
of newsprint
was totally insufficient
to describe a life.
These days
I read the obituaries
to discover only that more
dead people
are younger than I am.

It is a mysterious comfort
to see an age
younger than yourself
in print,
black and white,
on a piece of paper
that will soon be a repository
for the droppings of a parrot.

I like dead people
because they have left more room for me
to live.