Kayaking the Wandering Stream

The wandering stream of thought
that runs through your mind
is ever flowing,
and ever changing.
Leave it too long,
and you may not recognize it
when you return.
Its altered course,
its newly carved channels,
its deepening pools,
may cause you to wonder,
“Is this really me?”

The evidence of erosion
may frighten you.
Fond memories drifting away
within translucent ripples
my cause you to chase along the shoreline,
trying to hold the stream still in your mind.
But the stream will not hold still.
You must hold still.
Chasing the stream to its end
where it pours with all others
into an ocean of memories
would surly cause madness.

Sit instead on the sandy bank
in the calm of morning,
and observe the flow.
You will soon understand
that the stream deposits
just as much as it washes away.
It sustains life within its waters,
and along its meandering path.
It turns time with its steady current.
Oh, if we could only stop it,
but we cannot,
and we should not try.

These wandering streams of thought
that run through our minds
ever flowing,
and ever changing,
are for each of us alone
to kayak upon.
And the best we can do
is paddle in the present,
trying not to drift
too far into the past,
or paddle too quickly
into the future.

RLJ - 06/12/2015

Going to a Funeral (A poem about life)

I got up this morning

to continue my journey.

It’s a long goddamned grind it is.

The trip to my funeral I mean.

I’ve been at it for as long as I can remember,

and even before I can remember,

when I didn’t realize where I was going;

when I was a toddler wandering aimlessly;

and later riding my tricycle

half the time in the wrong direction,

away from my funeral,

and toward something else.

Toward something I can no longer recall.

Toward something that became

just the memory of a memory.

Toward something that once was

an audible and visual recollection

that repeated itself again and again

in the back of my mind,

and then slowly faded away.

It was a recollection from another life.

The recollection of the end of that life.

The one before this one.

The one in the wrong direction.

But I’ve been pointed right now

for almost fifty years,

walking the zigzag path

toward my funeral,

knowing full well that I’ll likely drop dead

a few days before arriving.

But with the help of the living,

I expect to show up on time.

RLJ - 2015

God on the Rocks

A man is just a skipping stone.

His fate delivered when he’s thrown.

He measures time in skips and beats.

In skips and beats each year repeats,

with each one shorter than the last,

until they’re coming way too fast.

And though some lives fly far and straight,

some others meet a different fate.

Some to the left or right will dash.

Some lives are but a single splash.

And God is just a boy on shore,

with a pile of rocks, and nothing more.

RLJ - 2015

Cursing Hitler

House lights and street lights flickered and dimmed

as the din of air raid sirens flooded stone corridors,

like ice cold blood rushing down from the hills.

Soon every light went black, and every sound went silent.

Every breath was held, and every hand was clenched.

Even the iron hands of the old town clock seemed too afraid to move.

Time stopped, and the people of London stood motionless.

But on this night, instead of the hum of airplane engines approaching,

the coarse scratch of a wood match against a concrete wall broke the silence;

and the flickering face of a withered old man cast its shadow across the room.

Time moved for him alone as he inhaled from his pipe, and dropped the match.

Pushing through the stillness he opened a door, and stepped into the street.

Glaring into the black sky, he puffed his tobacco.

“I’m sick of your bloody fucking war!” he cursed defiantly,

and dared the sky to answer him.

Tired and proud, he stood alone,

and he waited, unwavering,

for Hitler to respond.

RLJ - 2011

Only the Hemlocks

Raindrops splash on a dashboard Jesus.

The coroner’s van sits black as a crow.

Streetlight halos hang empty of angels,

as hemlocks watch over the chaos below;

over water and blood and gas and oil,

over hush of death, and hand of fate,

over waning cries, and tears and toil,

as they flow into the culvert’s grate;

into the blackness, toward the ocean,

back to the place where life began,

and what remains is towed away,

or placed into the waiting van.

And only the hemlocks stand in witness,

as flashing lights at dawn abate,

and as painted roadside crosses fade,

only the hemlocks wait.

RLJ - 2010

The Path of Least Resistance

If ever there a path be in my life,

cut out to parry every kind of strife,

in earth so deeply carved by demon tools,

one littered with the flinty glint of jewels,

and polished with the easiness of fools;

do prod me climb the grip-less hard-pitched walls.

In guise the path of least resistance calls.

Do prod me hard that I cannot ignore.

If hear you nay, pound hard upon my door.

Leave not, or I shall wallow evermore.

For the trap of least resistance does conspire,

to consume the hoard that sink beneath the mire.

RLJ - 2009

Death Defiant

Should time of my demise be left to choose,

procrastination be my loyal ruse.

And if the place be left to utter sway,

then name a place beyond the far away.

And be the method past within my power,

then lash me to the poison poppy flower.

Today defiance held as my decree.

Tonight I feel he’s coming after me.

I thought I heard a footstep on the path,

a press upon my door by demon’s wrath.

On window near a finger lightly raps.

In corner of the night a black boot taps.

But I’ll sneak out this room before the dawn,

and far into the woods I shall be gone.

RLJ - 2009

A Stone Unturned

Her life came.

Her death came.

Her thoughts,

her dreams,

her words,

her deeds,

dissolved,
unwritten,

unrecorded,

unrecalled.

Her face

smiles only

in the memory

of a mirror

on a wall,

in a hallway,
in the ruins,
of a house.

She was a stone

unturned.


RLJ - 2012

Unfinished Letters

A pencil whispers secrets to the page.

A pen scrawls out in bitterness and rage;

while typewriters plink, and clink,

and hammer at their ribbon’s ink,

catapulting words at paper walls,

sending soldiers running down the halls,

with orders stuffed in envelopes

dashing everybody’s hopes

that they will all be home before the fall.

A Private in his barracks writes a poem.

His Sergeant scribes an angry letter home.

Then rockets shake, and bullets rake,

and walls collapse, and windows break.

And blood runs o’er the words of each man’s page.

O'er the truth about the waste of war they wage.

But it’s in plinks, and clinks as cold as ice

that we’ll read of their sacrifice,

then fold our paper, sip our coffee, disengage.

RLJ - 2010

November Recall

My unsettled thoughts

seem to stir in November;

and I wonder, do you have

a month that you dread?

A time or a season

when angels forsake you,

to gather in valleys

with wings to be shed.

When hope becomes sand

sifting fast through your fingers,

cascading o'er beaches

where memories play.

Where you walked to your future,

and followed your dreams,

leaving footprints behind you

that waves swept away.

And I wonder today,

could you swim in that ocean,

on the blackest of nights,

without any fear?

Then a wind on my neck,

coldly curls up to whisper,

in the voice of a memory,

“November is here".

RLJ - 2010

Library of the Mind

So many dusty memories

rest on such high shelves

that my stooping brain

can no longer reach them.

And there are low ones too.

I just can’t seem to bend down

far enough to grasp them

as easily as I once could.

But some volumes remain,

with dog-eared pages,

right here in the middle

that I can still reach with ease.

And so I will tell you

the same old stories,

over and over again,

until my library closes.

RLJ - 2012

The Fading Tales of Heroes

World War II novels
with tattered covers,
worn out bindings,
and faded pages,
are put up each night.

But by day
you can find them,
out in the halls,
sitting on benches,
walking on pathways.

I saw them last week
at the Old Soldier's Home,
with their thin necks
like bookmarks tucked
into real life war stories.


RLJ - 2012

The Iron Latch

At first it seemed too plain a thing to write;

a memory that a pen need not record,

heard passing by the gate into the night,

the iron latch my ear so long ignored.

In slamming she may choose to catch, or not,

the gate she once held tightly in her grasp.

The post to which she clings has gone to rot.

No oil has wept for years upon her clasp.

In time the post and gate will both be gone,

eroded by the salty wind of time.

The iron latch alone will carry on.

For she will find another post to climb.

But I shall never hear that solid sound.

By then I shall be laid below the ground.

RLJ - 2009


Note: This poem has little to do with gates or latches. It's a loose metaphor about women who outlive their men.

The Last Witness

As dry brittle leaves scuttle past my feet,

and moth obscured street lamps cast shadows faint,

the winter winds chase disarray down the street,

across lines of time, and weathered white paint.

Alone here I sit like a ghost in town square,

upon a wood bench of love deeply carved,

initialed by those who once lingered there,

inscribing young promises later gone starved.

Before the full moon of a century ago,

before men’s titanic arrogances,

this street was a meadow of crystalline snow,

unstained by the blood of retreating defenses.

I read of it ‘neath the last witness to thee,

consoled at the base of the mournful tree.

RLJ - 2009

Below the Sawmill

Towering o’er the hunchbacked man,
steam driven arms thrust and clank
in a vault of toil, deafening, dank.
The ceiling shakes, a cable snakes, past creosoted beams.
Once tall and lean, now bent unclean of sweat and steam,
the old man sweeps.

A small dark room of bench and broom,
from where he sweeps to earn his keep,
is a place I still see in my sleep.
Long ago there was a crack, and a cable took as cables do
when cables snap, the shortest route from me to you.
Steel breaches flesh and bone.

Doctors mend what doctors can,
and though he’s bent, it’s left unspoken,
a lucky man is he, for he’s not altogether broken.
And the leaders of the company in all their generosity
show their binding loyalty, but nothing ever comes for free.
An offer made is accepted.

A wife, a child, and bills to pay,
and so beneath the grand machine,
he works to keep the basement clean.
Above his head, steam pressure makes the mighty head rig lunge.
Teeth of saw blades tear the air, and into timber plunge.
Slabs of hemlock feed the mill.

And sawdust falls between the cracks,
just as he has, to the floor below, to a life hollow.
A life bent and crooked hard to swallow.
Dirt blackened face and empty eyes, into the broom he leans.
I walked in green, just a teen, sent below the mill to clean,
when I came upon the hunchbacked man.

RLJ - 2009

The story behind this poem took place in 1976 at the St. Regis Sawmill in Tacoma, Washington

My Own Way

Please teach me nothing.

Let me find my own way.

Let me make my own mark on the wall,

below the millions who have come before me,

above the millions who behind me crawl.

Please show me nothing.

Let me use my own eyes.

Let me contemplate the world I see,

here in the moment, from the my own perspective,

to witness and imagine what could be.

Please sing me nothing.

Let me hear my own song.

Let me hear the music of the land,

from melodies that blow through windy canyons,

to beating waves that crash upon the sand.

Please give me nothing.

Let me earn my own way.

Let me find a way to show my worth,

to add coin of gratitude for my time,

for all the days I walked upon this earth.

RLJ - 2011

A Cowboy in Time Square

Along the sidewalk he strode,

'neath the shade of a well worn Stetson

past a thicket of women.

They beckoned to him.

As tempting as a clump of August blackberries,

and seemingly as juicy and sweet;

their smooth plump fruit

hanging swollen in the hot sun.

But he imagined their vines were tougher,

their roots more hardy,

and their thorns even sharper

than the blackberries he knew from home.

So he kept on walking.

But he had to look back and wonder,

what it would be like,

to pick just one.

RLJ - 2010

Sunday Morning

Sitting in a hot tub with a warm cup of coffee,

looking across the lawn, and into the back woods,

watching the creatures begin their daily routines

unaware that today is Sunday; a day to relax.

The donkeys turn their broad sides toward the East

to collect the gathering heat of the rising sun.

The goats chase each other around an old tree stump

butting heads, and wagging their stub tails.

A pair of wood ducks venture down to the pond for a swim,

scooping up a slug or bug or two along the way.

A lone squirrel darts behind them all, and scampers up a cedar tree.

Swallows swoop and hummingbirds dart, as robins toil at the ground;

all as busy as can be, as though it were already Monday.

RLJ - 2010

Writers Block

A blank page,

and a blank mind,

stare each other down.

Determined adversaries,

each waiting for the other to blink.

Eventually a thought worth writing,

a clever rhyme, a new idea,

an image will come to mind.

A compelling argument,

an inspired story, or maybe not.

Maybe tonight the page will win,

and I will say uncle. 

Maybe tonight, I will crumple up my mind,

and toss it in the wastebasket,

and take my empty head to bed.

But tomorrow, I will make the page blink.

RLJ - 2010

Scratched Vinyl

I lowered the needle to the record,

carefully.

Bobby Pickett’s name tumbled,

like pants in a dryer;

circling round and around,

on the plastic turntable.

“I was working in the lab late one night,”

it began.

And The Monster Mash tumbled

like bones from the speaker,

filling my bedroom with sound,

at 45 RPMs.

Then it did what it always did. ...It skipped!

“He opened,”

“He opened, He opened,” ...Smack!

“the lid and shook his fist

and said, ‘Whatever happened

to my Transylvania twist?’"

RLJ - 2015

The Evolution of Intolerance

With their cloaks of fear and ignorance wearing thin,

those who stand against equality

will soon stand before the world

as they stand before their god,

wrapped only in the tattered cloth of bigotry.

Though less recognizable

than the white sheets of another era,

the cloth still chafes;

bleeding, infecting, and scarring

all who continue to wear it.

RLJ - 2012

Sea Change

The tide may finally be turning,
but the lives of black men
who died unjustly in our streets,
and in the death row gallows of America
will never be recovered
from the sea of bigotry
that washed them away
like so much driftwood.
The best we can do now
is walk to the water’s edge,
and seek to make amends.

RLJ - 2015

Lowlife

On 6/15/2012, after catching up on the Jerry Sandusky trial and reading in the news that Steven Powell would be out of jail in just 21 months, I wrote this:

To: Steven Powell

Cc: Jerry Sandusky

I’ve got to think a guy like you

is the lowest of the low.

From where you sit I can’t imagine

anything below.

So I asked God “Hey why do you

let creeps like this keep livin’?

Aren’t there people even you

would say aren’t worth forgivin’?”

And God told me “The paperwork

has already been done.

Signed and notarized,” he said,

“The devil gets this one”.

And so I asked the devil, “Hey,

What’s up? Are you reneging?”

And he said, “No, this guy’s so low

That I’m still busy digging!”

And so you see now guys like this,

Sandusky, Powell and others,

would have been dead long ago,

if we’d all had our druthers.

But like I said up there on top,

these guys are so damned low,

that hell is not beneath them yet.

The devil told me so.

RLJ - 6/15/2012

Aimless

Note: This was written for a poetry prompt. The prompt was "Freedom" written in exactly 25 words without using the word freedom, or any synonym of the word freedom.


In boundless mountain meadows I
meander like a butterfly;
zigzag like a babbling brook;
flip like pages in a book,
along pathways I never took.

RLJ - 2015

My Best Pet Yet

Note: This was written for a poetry prompt. The prompt was "What pet should I get?" written in 20 lines or less.


What Pet should I get, or should I get two?

Should I get a duet, or will one creature do?

And where should I keep it, here under my bed?

And if it won’t fit, then my closet instead?

Should it be furry, or covered in scales?

Something that scurries, or has a long tail?

Something that swims, or something that purrs?

And what should I name him, or should I name her?

And where should I look for this new pet of mine?

Should I look in a book, or go shopping online?

Should I look in a guide? Should I look high and low?

Well when I decide, I will let you all know...

...Well it’s time to report that I got my new pet.

I named him Mort. He’s my finest  pet yet!

I just went in the yard, and I climbed up a tree.

It wasn’t that hard. I just caught me a bee,

in a little glass jar, with some holes in the lid,

and it may seem bizarre, but here’s what I did.

I gave him his name, “Morton J. Bee”,

then I opened the lid, and I let him go free.

RLJ - 2015