On Presidents Day

Small Victories

The same discoveries over and over...
Leading to victory with the least resistance - bend but don't break...

Off to new territory but stuck in the same cycle of post-victory depression;
Make fun of myself to keep from believing my path,
The one I trailblaze in parallel with those who have
followed their own thought trails that felt right to a lot of other people,
Is the way.

I'm still accustomed to the habit of pleasing other people;
If I only pleased me, I...don't know.
What I want no person can give me,
I believe,
Which means I'm still thinking like one form of people pleaser.

So much more than what meets the eye -
How do I describe what I cannot see?
I have no interest in math-based symbology,
No matter how universal it appears to be;
More of a COBOL guy, I guess.

Using the species to test theories about bringing them
up to speed on what's going on at a level where we hardly matter -
Why would our species care to know that we really don't matter?
Just go on with it, Rick -
This might be your ticket out of here,
Or at least away from ennui, melancholia, and depression.

Anything is possible, despite evidence contradictory.

On, on, on...do I invent my own roadsigns?
How do I get the zeitgeist out of my thoughts?

What if the people elected Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin
and showed they truly forgave themselves as a people for the past?

I miss the days of large predators.

Claire de Lune Revisited

I stood outside with the Moon, you
Beside me in thought, no sound except
Orion shooting stars;
Leafless trees,
How do they breathe in winter?

You walked under the Moon, you said,
Your accent somewhere between New York
And here.
A distance, voice echoing against Little
Mountain, bouncing off moon rays, casting
Shadows like musicians' roles.

Did the Ancients watch starlight cross
Ripples in ponds?
Could I sing a lullaby or ballad to the
One I love?

Can I pull a melody out of the rope
Tied to a one-note steeple bell?
You sing in my thoughts as if you set up home
Here a long time ago.

CHORUS

Moonbeams and shadows
Cloud over my thoughts;
Long walks and happiness,
Will you comfort me tonight?

Wasn't long ago you never said you love me,
Wasn't in a song I heard your sweet reply,
Won't be long now until I see you again,
Won't be these words that put me behind a plow.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR SOLO


We rarely remember when we heard the whistle
Of the train of our thoughts passing through
The station of Mushy Memories,
But I'll always remember when you bowed
To my applause, and put this farmer's son at ease.

MANDOLIN/FIDDLE DUO WITH BASS IMPROV IN BACKGROUND

BRIDGE

CHORUS

Moonbeams and shadows,
Cloud over her thoughts...
Long walks and happiness,
Will you comfort her tonight?

Welcome to "The Right Is Priced!"

Generations from now, when these bones are dust, ashes from the funeral pyre of a great leader will fan the lanes of corduroy lines that shifting bands of air pressure we call wind have found.

Archaeologists will analyse tubes of Bob Barker shaving cream as well preserved as any aged starlet.

Laser-guided golf balls will make holes-in-one par.

Sport coats will sport tissue box dispensers with pockets for recycling composters bearing posters of sports stars sportingly tearing tissues while pushing envelopes across finish lines.

Legislators will debate humour in the first degree.

Hotel and house cleaners will host hotelier house guests with names like Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, may he rest in peace.

Stacked rows of rowers and bikers will replace horsepower as horsepower for long-distance haulers when switchgrass is no longer cost-effective fodder for fuel-starved iron horses.

A strawberry picker attracts magnates like magnets.

Lithuania petitions the U.S. not to abolish the apparent population redistribution sewn into social security payments for expats populating lithe housing estates.

Stonecutters slice off their spite to face their noses.

The price of eggs in China is no yolk.

Swiss yodelers form barbershop quartets in Peruvian Thai bazaars Bavarian-style.

Bizarre though it may be, Byzantine Ovaltine cup sales extrude Trudy's trunks through troughs to take microfiber development to new peaks in valleys.

A missile silo becomes a home for war orphans.

Bald female board members make bold statements.

That's tomorrow's news today. Now, back to yesterday again once more.

Where will your works of art end up?

What's a little beheading among friends?

Ah, Caesar, we seized his image on canvas before the siege!

3D Sensory Perception

As daffodils push their leaves up out of the ground, I see birds in the tree limbs overhead.

But I cannot hear them.

The whistling of tinnitus is louder than normal today.

And with that, I have lost part of my former normal hearing.

And with that, I have lost part of my three-dimensional sensory perception (or 4D, if you consider time of flight (of sound and birds)).

The second time my wife and I met, at age 14, we hiked five days on the Appalachian Trail.  Ten years later, we married.

My reputation at that time earned me the nickname "Eagle Eyes" because I could hear many sounds others couldn't and would identify the source of many of the sounds, usually birds, accurately.

Boy Scout training, in that case, taught me to pull order out of the chaos of background noise.

Now, much of what I see and hear is background noise again.

Would that I could write a violin piece for someone like Anne-Sophie Mutter and hear all the subharmonics!

Perhaps I could convince my wife that I prefer hikes on the AT to walking through shopping districts and tourist traps?

I don't remember as many birds or their sounds as I used to, but then again I can't hear them, so there is a symmetry to my forgetfulness.

To see the silence of space from a suborbital craft would suit me just fine, I'm sure.

Today is a time for quiet meditation.

No need to see or hear much.

My curiosity is not piqued.

Small piles of glommed-together snowflakes melt under the pelt of rain.

Give in to the tinnitus, sssssssssssss...

Give in to a morning lost, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...