I signed the checks & credit cards

Went quite a long way but was not moving nearly fast enough to actually notice

Did not make a bazillion on the next financial fad like those Masters Of The Universe

Passing on my accumulated eco-debt thru to whatever dispossessed generations might follow

Did not file any patents or copyrights and no inventions are held in my name

Was unable to attain spiritual enlightenment or even enjoy any lasting peace of mind

Won’t find my name credited on any scientific research papers

Found it difficult to obey every order given by the great generals of the consumer field

Did not uncover any new and beautiful mathematical relations

Lost my senses and grew weak just like all those great ones from every field

Was not a member of the all-star team for many years in a row

But, I no longer remember their names just as well as they never heard of mine

Could not find it in me to produce even a single page of deathless prose

Signed the checks & credit cards and was OK always spending more than I earned

Held the spoonfed opinions of others quite strongly but never learned to think for myself

Walked with a proud independence as I navigated by the bobbing tails of the herd

Did not have a pop hit and then grow fat and doped up out in dusty-neon Las Vegas

Pretty sure I almost won the lotto at least once or twice

Was not ever elected to any office since I never had enough vanity to run

Had a couple surgeries that I would be happy to talk with you about for hours

Got a son who lives up by Portland and a daughter out in Phoenix

Did not save the bug-filled rainforest or protect whatever greasy salmon

Let the quiet lakes and rivers grow filthy, passing by them daily, on my way to work

Could not draw too much sustenance from my predigested holiday experiences

Wound up growing morally thin and drawn out on my half-baked and spoon-fed beliefs

Did not finish my masterpiece because I thought I kept on starting over

Never saw any great circle or felt some spirit in the sky from outside our modular

Once I took time to roll down the windows and smell the roses as we were driving by

Could not notice how, when I thought I paused, that I was still being swept right along

Appear to be finishing up now but I cannot step back far enough to really tell

That is, think I might be just awfully close to that Happily-Ever-After once again

Going to sum it all up and make my peace here in just a little while

Did not volunteer my time but I still like to think I most likely would have

Got no wisdom for my kids but they come sit by me sometimes, just the same

There’s that ex-wife out in Fresno and a brother in Denver who still hates my guts

They laid me off and defaulted on my pension so then I also pissed away all my 401K

But I’m making my peace and seeking forgiveness and just maybe I’ll get buried green

Just Seconds To Go, But I Never Knew

My time becomes more precious the more I realize just how very little remains to me

After so much wasted racing towards unspecified and forgotten goals, I must pause to look about

At last I can refuse foolish siren calls to empty work and mindless entertainment

More precious still these moments as things grow ever more serious at every important juncture

I am forced to look behind the curtains and beyond the well-dressed entertainers

I have to forget about the next sports season and peer into that empty but everlasting void

Though others stand beside me, we all know I follow this course quite alone

There awaits an event that will never end for me and so very little time remains

I look up to distant galaxies or my gaze falls upon an ancient fossil, and I am already gone

I close my eyes, hold my breath, stop my thoughts and I am filled with all that I will ever know

Memories buzz around like pesky flies but they, too, will disappear right along with me

Dreams come to me in waking hours and I stare blankly into the dark of night

I realize now how the effects of any action quickly fade into that cosmic background noise

But I have not spent 1% of my infinitesimal time slot on what might really matter

With only seconds to go, I am way behind and have no way to stop the clock

At least the incessant, foolish prattling of our daily lives can finally be ignored

For now all I see in their ads and entertainment is just a hiding from the truth

All the short-lived satisfactions of the fads simply mask the onrush of that vast unknowable

Our small victories in our petty squabbles reflect but our mere nervousness as we stand in line

My mind fails in attempts to imagine the unavoidable eternal dark unconscious

So soon our species short interlude on earth won’t be discernible from my own lifespan

Just seconds to go as my finite heartbeats toll in a cold and mindless countdown

And in a much, much shorter time this briefest chirp will cease again, once and for all

My dead senses will no longer feed my lifeless brain the data it has always craved

From this perspective our routines dissolve into wanton, pointless fools play

Yet in the irresistible current, near the vast dark abyss, I grasp futilely for simple normalcy

So quickly there will be no one to read such words as these, which exist no longer

Circling My Drain

I lay struggling and kicking on my mother’s breast unable to tolerate her good milk

even as they rolled my wrinkled, speckled body over to change the soiled sheets once again

I waited in a red jacket for the yellow bus on that first sunny day of kindergarten

simultaneously, at last I could no longer grasp the wriggling glyphs on any printed page

The older generations slipped away continuously in front of my children’s eyes

but, they too touched bottom at last, stood up and began slowly to emerge

I asked him of his plans and he recounted some of his more vivid memories

they were, as it turned out, actually willing to sacrifice for a future they would never see

Voices on the airwaves mingled with the live stream inside my head

in the land of dreams at least, I accepted these things without their having to make sense

I always felt I was growing nearer the happily that came just before the ever after

putting him in the ground I watched from a huge leafless oak as others lowered me as well

The times tables were like rhymes to me so I learned to sing them all quite well

he asked me how many fingers he held up but I could not really be too sure

I spent a lot more time with the people who had left me behind, the older that I got

no, I never returned to the homeland where they still walk me in the medieval courtyard

Later on I found it much more difficult when I tried to learn how to crawl once again

my chubby bow legs did not yet effectively support me so I waddled with uncertainty

I know that I am totally invisible in the purple lilac bushes of that sunny garden

as a starched nurse approaches I pull the stiff, rough sheets up and think that I am hiding

I have a recurring nightmare where I wake from a good dream that I can’t quite remember

awakened again that night, for the first time I understand when Mom tells me it’s not real

My life seemed as short as the years now seem after now having seen so many

in third grade I was sure that June would never come but that summer would last forever

For many years I returned with worms I had dug for the trout flashing under the old bridge

my uncle showed me how to bait the hook and told me I must intently watch the bobber

When I was 4, one day I thought back as far as I could and finally came to nothing

the older I got the more I saw how fast the void rushed at me, from all directions

I finally realized that things whirled around me much more quickly than I ran

holding my thoughts, I can take a long cool dive down into the dim, green past

After breakfast, we just stayed out by the lake for long summer days on end

I should apologize to many I no longer remember and thank the many more I never noticed

Sometimes my father disappoints me with an unexpected glance from an unseen mirror

I remember her dirty flip-flops and how she cried when she could not see the eye chart

I keep crossing my own tracks but it looks like they all lead off to nowhere

They got me cleaned up and just well enough to go and spend the night at grandma’s

All things were possible as I set off with my dad early on those Saturday mornings

often I hope we have enough time for the sun and snow to bleach our bones together

We wrestled savagely for what seemed like an hour in the side yard by his house

looking back now there is no way to recover that path I took to get here

I gave thanks that god had made me a boy and not an old lady or even an adult

groping in the darkness for direction, we did not describe straight lines

Staying below the superheated smoke we dragged the heavy firehose

the doctors found it difficult to treat the burns on an infant as small as myself

They could understand my words but we could no longer have a real conversation

I kept on trying as they helped me to evolve my first attempts at language

They performed an elaborate Christmas ritual which I have completely forgotten

they carefully placed the birthday cake on my chest after managing to sit me up

I floated like an astronaut with a lifeline plugged into my belly button

as my consciousness slipped away I felt myself rising at last, far up into the stars