Monday, August 29, 2011

APP's


I’m soaking up the new technology,
Like a celebratory sponge…
Multiple operating systems;
Risking viruses I can’t expunge.

I Google scientific futures,
Photo shop my boring past…
I copy movies seen on YouTube,
Manipulating the plot and cast.

The flip side is I’m losing,
Simpler times I used to know…
When Polar Bears were plentiful,
Not adrift on some ice flow.

Credit cards bought my latest needs,
From the desk chair where I sat…
Yet every day I age some more;
There is no “app” for that!


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Felix


Throughout my life, my best friend,
Has lived within a phone call’s reach…
One day a stranger’s camera caught,
Myself and Felix on the beach.

A friend who never let me down,
While I dealt with life’s conflicts…
A constant source of inspiration
Lent me his magic bag of tricks.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I'm the Ship


Fingers gnarled, hands deformed,
Genetics and time I did not choose…
Spurs on bones, and plastic veins,
All ailments I’ll never lose.

When Otis dies and leaves me,
Alone , and miserably free…
I want to go to Hawaii and Tahiti,
On a cruise, by myself, on the sea.

Escaping the Washington winters,
To nap once under bent palm trees…
I’ll hope I learned Otis’ lesson well,
To leave paradise with his canine ease.



Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Shadow Box


Heirloom china
A wedding ring…
A cherished memory
Just broken things.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Dying in the Digital Age?


How does one die in the digital age?
Does their game card start to fail,
Daily decreasing operating speeds,
As the color screen starts to pale?

A few quit before the guarantee,
Some I am sure died of “User error”
Or died because they never defragged,
Over worked with improper care.

Or is it the memory reaching max,
Incapable of one more bit?
I bet it’s quite often the hard drive,
Deciding simply to quit!

Friday, August 12, 2011

A Bottle Cap on the Straight


This afternoon from my bedroom window,
I gazed out upon the now still
Blue water of Penn Cove.

The view constantly changes; often in minutes,
Turning from black mirror to silver whitecaps
Obeying the strict cruel wind of the Straight,,,

The Straight of Juan De Fuca. I greet each morning
With thrown back covers, anticipating and predicting
My day by this house and myself still standing,

In defiance of time and weather. .. and time.

One third of my life has involved this view,
Though my beloved window is becoming a mirror.
It reflects all my life so far on the cove, in realities

Both harsh and as calm as the unpredictable water,
Sometimes reflecting and laying bare, my memories,
Like the bottle cap forgotten by the pavers,

Melting now for fifty years into the asphalt,
And granted fifty more by the county
Declaring the street private and no longer theirs.

The Straight of Juan De Fuca, I greet each morning
In defiance of time and weather. .. and time.
I am a bottle cap…

And becoming a part of the road.


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Hatched

I woke up one day in grammar school,
Shot like a rocket, into the sky,
Fourth grade was polio and Indians;
Sixth, I learned how airplanes fly.

I sadly learned in 7th grade,
Some presidents unfairly die,
Eighth grade introduced the Beatles,
My ninth grade friends were getting high.

Martin Luther died my sophomore year,
Bobby Kennedy , was shot too…
My musical heroes started dying,
The carnage seemed far from through.

Farm workers united in my Junior year,
Integration laws brought forced bussing,
I couldn’t fathom one more injustice
Without anger and heartfelt cussing.

My senior year,  the Vietnam War,
 We burnt our bras and draft cards,
The hippie movement was coming on,
Status quos broke away as chards.

My college began with a man on the moon,
A student at Kent State was shot…
The draft was now a lottery draw,
Hell is what the low numbers got.

We questioned all our parent’s thoughts,
We even doubted god and heaven…
One by one more heroes fell,
At the ripe old age of twenty-seven.

Shell-shocked and on the safe side,
I dropped out for fifteen years,
Living the dream on a ramshackle farm
Hunting  incubator parts at Sears.

Forty years later this old man,
Finally gave the incubator away…
Now witnessing a bright young man,
Hatching pheasants and quail today.