Two Minute Warning

 

 

 I remember in the seventies reading so many tales
    of what the future would be, but I do know that
    past me never gave a minutes thought to future me, now
    present me has to wonder why I give that brat
    so much control
    all the time.

        Dear dairy, I had a moment today when I saw
        the death of everything real and good or at least
        it seemed that way at the time as it almost always
        does as no moment is ever
        frozen, except maybe those
        that rattle around in our skulls and
        get stuck on a sharp edge and
        decide they are going to stay
        right there, good or bad
        for the full run.

    In the seventies cyberpunk sci-fi caught on big.
    The future, guys and gals is the end.
    I saw “A Boy and His Dog” in the theater and
    yes that brat enjoyed it very much.
    These days the images that fill my head
    are so much scarier than that.


        Dear dairy, I think it will be fire.
       

Everything That Can't Be Seen

 What if, on some star lit lonesome night, you went walking
    with only the memory of love in your heart and nothing but
    years of confusion in your brain and you began to admit that
    you were actually here without anything to figure out, nothing
    that you could see or feel or touch anyway, would you worry
    about dying suddenly without finishing so much of what you
    started or would you leave it all to chance, trusting that you
    lived and loved as fiercely as you believed anyone ever could?

    Would you lay down under the tall trees and stare at the stars
    And tell them who you are so they can remember and hold
    your light until the day they all burn out and collapse and the
    universe starts all over again?

    Would you, could you, remember to breathe?
    And if we could see Shane again,
    the big red setter with emerald eyes,
    then perhaps you could reason why I edit
    so much out without the need to understand
    the most of everything held within.

Visions Of Truth

 There was a time when he thought

 that he began dying at age five,

 long before he fully understood

 that none of it mattered; because living and dying

 are simultaneous pursuits that only

 seem unconnected or looped to those that deny

 the visions of truth to ever enter

 their event filled, but strangely empty lives.

 

There was a time when he thought

 that he could never find a lover

 that would understand what was trapped and

 frame-less within him. He was still harboring

 such thoughts long after he met the one who held the key.

 

 There was a time when he lived with no fear,

 loved without fear, wrote with no fear,

 but now he could not say which was the biggest fear:

 those days long gone or their return.

 

There was a time when he thought

 he held some secret power,

 a force to change the world,

 a way to make them listen,

 but the more he listened to what they said,

 the more he read what they wrote,

 the more he watched what they did,

 the more he understood that what he held

 was neither secret or power, simply something

 they would never understand.  

 

   MJC

On the Occasion of Turning 17 Plus 45

   You,
    you looked so fine in that uniform
    you could have been a sailor,
    but we didn’t change the world
    quite fast enough for that.
    We failed only at staying together,
    star-crossed, not stardust,
    not golden,
    more like hardened steel
    slowly rusting, yet
    still shining 45 years later.
    We already knew at 17 that life
    was a series of survivals.
    I wrote of you often that year,
    you were on every other page.
    I know this,
    I was happy when I turned 17,
    my happiness was you.

    This is the world we live in,
    separated,
    lived,
    loved with others
    all the while the age of 17
    never forgot.

    You,
    you look so fine.