Owned by: Robert Jack

I tried the changes slowly.

The way the old go out in rain.

All in vain with not much Holy.

In the end, seemed quite insane.

We will batten down the hatches.

And will keep the powder dry.

I’ll keep praying here for something there.

As we sail for bluer sky.

N

I was shocked into submission.

A freak of nature, strange and cruel.

Such sensation and humiliation.

To give such props to such a fool.

These are moments almost glowing.

In my memory, a three act play.

Where I smile in the knowing.

And live to fight another day.

It’s 7:30 on a Wednesday 2026 and not quite dark yet. I hear planes far off and dogs yapping closer.

I cannot get rested and when I go to bed, it takes hours to get to sleep. Waiting for warmer weather which is soon…

I try to stay quiet and listen. The youth have so much to say. I am not longing for anything now and the answers came.

I used to know so many no longer here. I wonder sometimes and then I forget and fade back to the Quiet…

I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee.

All of a sudden I could hear someone whistling right behind me.

I turned around and she said. “Why do you always end up down at Nick’s Cafe?”

I said, “I don’t know. The wind just kinda pushed me this way.”

She said, “Hang the rich.”

I am nothing if not present.

And it’s always been that score.

Even when I couldn’t see.

When my back was at the door.

I hear distant sounding music.

Played by someone who was on tour.

Someone who can be that wise.

To know how and why and more.

In those times, I need to listen.

To those who came before.

Sometimes, I just need to be.

In the draft of troubadour.

I was tired when I woke up.

I guess now that’s just the norm.

I was up to something different.

When I found shelter from the storm.

Time is fleeting, not illusions.

On my face, you see the strain.

Where once were lines of laughter.

Are now harder to explain.

They didn’t like the world.

Said they wanted change.

Said that I was busy.

But not too busy to arrange.

First, you take the language.

You turn it upside down.

When they get all silent.

You take the King and smash the crown.

Don’t you worry about the churches.

Cause you sent them all away .

Internets gone viral.

At that alter, you can pray.

All the brothers now are sisters.

And the sisters, they don’t lie.

And we are all so happy now.

Do not complain, or don’t you cry.

There’s a mystery and a memory.

And a past that seems so cold.

It’s a playground in the sunshine.

And the young they seem so old.

“Jesus wept, and well, he might!”

I used to hear that intermittently when I was growing up from some exasperated human or poor soul no longer with us…

How they suffered with my youthful ignorance…

I see the others and their painful separations from family and marriage, and I see myself and my desire to be alone because in solitude is the only place I don’t feel criticized…

Mad Willie is in Miami, and he tells me that his children blame him and our generation for everything gone wrong in this world and that I am just going to have to learn how to smile and say nothing…

I have never had a successful relationship with anyone anywhere. I feel so very human and average in this regard…

Really, though, how does one measure success in the relationship realms?