Garvey's Truck Stop, Stockton

Families came for biscuits and gravy,

Truckers pulled in to spend the night…

Parking their semi’s row after row

Discreetly out of the diner’s sight.

An oasis for weary travelers,

Showers, burgers and French fries…

The truckers after ten P.M.,

Sought out whatever pure lust buys.

Stockton locals, guys and gals,

Both cruised the parking lot…

Watching for flashing dome lights,

Shirtless truckers, and nights…so hot.

The brazen waved, “Come hither”

Posing unzipped on their running boards…

Setting sights on Jimmy’s Cadillac,

Pickup trucks and the rusted Fords.

The families with their napkins,

Dabbed their lips and paid their tab…

Unaware of the sexual Olympics,

In almost every trucker’s cab.

The Best Days

Dan Warsinger Photography

 I spent many youthful nights with friends

Setting up camp in Yosemite…

Usually on the grass behind the chapel,

Far from any public proximity.

Those were the days of real freedom

Federal parks were owned by the people…

No twelve month wait, credit card reservations;

Just our bags, unrolled 'neath the steeple.

Each passing generation laments,

“We lived in the best of times”…

Perhaps my generation’s the last,

To remember less boundary lines.

Ant Farm

Today we finally saw the sun,

The air was comfortably warm…

I drove to town to buy some ice

On this day without a storm.

Every home along the way,

Had tenants venturing outside…

Some pulling weeds or painting sheds,

Others polishing their mossy ride.

I saw repairs to a windblown fence,

Children and dogs walk to the shore,

Hedges pruned and grasses mowed,

Impossible deeds the months before.

Whidbey Island was an ant hill,

The weather, its demanding queen…

All ants were called to serve her

Under the sun that’s seldom seen.

Ribbon Dancer

The onion skin did a ribbon dance;

Perfectly swirling down the drain…

Unlike the Olympic Asian girl

Who trained years to dance the same.

Mirror Writing

If I stood inside my living room

Writing backwards on the window,

All the neighbor’s walking by,

Would read the words and know…

The very thing that makes my day

Revealed in words I drew…

Weiv lufrednow eht yojne I

I enjoy the wonderful view.

If I bared my deepest thoughts and dreams,

I’ve written inside my heart…

Nary a single passerby

Could decipher my window art.

Thief

There is a thief so silent

Who in time steals everything…

Holding nothing safe or sacred;

Also known as the aging gene.

DNA is the combination,

Padlocking the secrets of our fate…

Genetic traits like eye color

And our expiration date.

The Final Poem

Thirty years after selling the farm

I still missed where my home had been…

I ached for my horse, the fields, the view,

A chance to hold my own dirt again.

I dulled the steady trauma of change

With a thousand bottles of wine…

New jobs, new houses and friendships

So many life changes in that time.

I discovered today for the first time

Young kids have lassoed my dreams…

Their futures are open to gambles and chance,

Mine sewn shut, with permanent seams.

Today,  I also woke up to see,

Where I landed and rarely toil…

Is smack in the middle of paradise

The dirt in my hands, my soil.

I don’t care after my passing,

Becoming a life that time forgot…

But request the keeper of this blog,

Move this poem to the top.