The story goes that a tornado ripped apart a town leaving the townsfolk in total ruin.

A young boy looked at his mother upon returning to the shambles that once was their home and commented:

“Look Ma, ain’t it great! The winds stopped blowing. ”

Thus he was labeled ‘ The Fool. ‘

In his defense I would like to point out that his joy at being alive is perhaps buoyed by the sheer wisdom that if you are alive and well, he can always start again.

Dennis Mantin

I met my Grandfather Patrick when I was 20. Patrick was 92 and going blind. He had been muster gassed in the first world war. Being young and immature I was horrified by the realization of him losing his sight. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry… I’ve seen enough.”

I’m 60 now and am beginning to get what he meant. Life is like that.

Dennis Mantin

I loved her for her beauty.

She was crazy, not for me.

I couldn’t fix that business,

From nineteen eighty-three.

Never said she danced with demons.

There were monsters in her head.

We don’t know Myth from fiction.

So we dance with lies instead.

She sure is nice to look at,

Maybe that’s the curse.

I’ve settled on alone for beauty

It couldn’t be much worse.

Dennis Mantin

It’s Truman and Capote.

Shakespeare and Macbeth.

It’s Homer and the Illiad

And Merchants peddling death.

It’s the Bible and the Proverbs.

Commandments and the rules.

It’s Fredrick and his observation

Of Kingdoms and the Fools.

It’s Dostoevsky and the Russians.

It’s sometimes you, often me.

It’s story that we’re telling.

And there’s no fiction that I see.

The Mathematicians brother was senseless… thick as a brick.

They couldn’t be related was the talk they laid on thick.

We watched them add the numbers to be certain they were sure.

That someone must have played around, the numbers far from pure.

It’s not a perfect science this family side of life.

They couldn’t blame the numbers; so they blamed the mathematicians wife.

Dennis Mantin

Having thoughts lots about dying.

And other things that I don’t know.

Its not the fear that’s got me down.

Just that I don’t want to go.

Now sure I know I have no choice.

Has been made abundant and clear.

This transformation is all the rage.

I just kinda like it here.

I hear all this complaining.

What’s wrong about this and that.

You never really stood a chance.

With an attitude like that.

The feelings were confusions.

The expression was surprised.

The product of delusions.

The truth had somehow lied.

The children were selected.

In the group who would be spared.

No deception will be detected.

If you smiled like you cared.

It works for just a time or two.

Because bullshit baffles brains?

Even babies raised by wolves.

Know about deception pains.

One of my earliest childhood memories is from the back seat of a car peering into the blackness of the road being sliced by highbeams… Suddenly, out of nowhere, from the darkness of the country and the trees and forest was the lights of the city! Like a million diamonds shattering the empty.

The possibility of all those people! Surely some will be nice?

I had never before witnessed such a transformation; one second darkness, the next, millions of lights shattering that!

Anything was possible…

What a trip it has been.

There was no turning back!

The light slices the darkness.

The blues are looking grey.

The gifts they keep on coming…

Here comes another day.