67 Angels 3/4 Time, May 23, 2o15

Well, I 've been unproductive all through May. Very little writing going on, no blog, a few movie reviews and very little poetry. I don't understand why I have all of a sudden lost my desire, my need and my ability to write, to create art. I've always thought that creativity would be with me, a part of me for as long as I breathed, but lately? Not so much. Anyway, it's my birthday and as a part of my personal celebration I have written a "birthday" poem for this {snicker} special date. I think the first BP I wrote was when I turned 54. That means with this poem that I post right now it will be 13 years of sitting down and writing something about where I am in this life, how I'm feeling about . . . it. Well, it was a struggle to come up with something, but I did it. And here it is . . . Happy B-day, Woodie!

67 Angels 3/4 Time

 

This is the sound of aging gracefully,

an unpleasant little ditty dropped in 3/4 time.
Can you feel it slowly, slowly winding down?

 

and ONE two three,

ONE . . two . . three,
ONE . . . two . . . thr—

 

My perpetual orbit disintegrates

at a disturbing rate these days.
Shattered, splintering,
burning myself out
at such a sluggish  pace.
I plunge head-on down, down,
forever down into the thick abyss,
into the greasy mass of it.

 

and ONE two three,

ONE . . two . . three

 

An internal warming of my organs,

an uncomfortable itch. The Polar Regions
compel my quixotic self, sends it rummaging
through closets, picture books and cabinet drawers
wherever a stray memory might be stored.
Just the gentler ones: youthful runs across an open field,
ballgames and horror movies when the folks were out.
And as a young adult: chugging beers and chasing girls,
motorcycles and cigarettes, Vietnam and ACID trips.
Not much more to it than that, not much more at all.

 

. . . The duller years,

thirty malingering to forty . . .

 

And then my fifties?

The world felt safer then, kinder then,
smaller than old man sitting on a cold park bench
near the septic shores of’a dying Duck Pond.
The geese still swam along the muddy banks,
back then, even though the water levels were so low
they could’ve  walked about  in it
if they bore the presence of mind to do so.

 

and ONE two three . . .

 

Sixties?

I miss my dearest friend.
I miss his sturdy, tires, his dirty sprockets,
his WD-40 musk stinking up  the morning sky.

 

From the moment when the sun would wake
we’d ride and ride and ride . . .

jumping the curbs that pepper Boyd St.,
swerving playfully around pot holes,
the tree branches that fell to the ground like
wounded soldiers during the last storm
that butchered Norman Town.

 

and ONE . . .

 

I’ve been told

that there are angels in the elms. Yes,
Sixty-seven angels lurking in the trees
along Trout Avenue.

 

I’ve never seen one, of course,

but they do exist.

 

For I have heard them dancing

through the winter years on days so cold
a thought would freeze.
Sometimes, I feel them
skulking about inside my head,
snickering from behind bright white wings,
giggling, I suppose,
at all the silly things I’m dreaming.

 

Sixty-seven angels I’m told,

one for every year old.

 

For Woodie on his 67^th birthday