I tried so hard to be vegan.

It was eating me inside.

Fat Nancy put on the steaks

Then she took me for a ride.

It’s always now or never.

Though it’s something in between.

My kingdom my kingdom for a horse.

But the horse was with the Queen.

I might sound low and bitter.

My heart is light and free.

I just wish you wouldn’t sit so close. 

You are fucking with my chi.

Labor Day is in the city and in the country here on Earth.

Most are scratching towards the middle. And so few are giving birth.

There’s a sadness in Financials. They have fired the accountant and the clerk.

The message on the answering machine says, ‘You can’t go back to work. ‘

The parade is stuck in traffic. The Grand Marshall looks forlorn.

The motivation speaker is screaming insults at some Karen on her horn.

Me? I’m writing poems. All these words freed from my head.

There’s a cat to feed and a child to see… if I can make it from this bed.

The sentence was death by boredom. The virus spread the earth.

Madness rained down upon them. Like some monsters giving birth.

They handed out free money. The kind that makes you soft.

And nearly jumped out their skin. When someone smiled and coughed.

Then Dylan put out an album. With a song called Murder Most Foul.

That sounds as disgusted as I feel. Like the purging of a bowel.

I’ve learned to take the blessings and take them as they come.

He is at another level, a bit too much for some.

It’s Sunday in the Lowlands.

Maybe in the Highlands, too…

But I can’t say I’ll ever know.

Because I’m here missing you.

There’s a view from those high places.

Sometimes wonder what you see.

I remembered once when I was there.

I had this yearning to be free.

So I left. Was in a hurry.

And my feet they brought me here.

I might go back to visit.

Maybe not. Maybe next year…

I fell in state unconscious.

Great fortune in my bed.

Parts traversed upon great distance.

The rest lay here instead.

A sound outside the window.

My cat did snarl and hiss.

Which brought me back together.

To you and more to miss.

I take in what I can and need.

Daily log I write it here.

Somehow, I feel quite rested.

There’s a quiver in my fear.

I was rolling in a memory.

There was her, and she is here.

So close that I can taste her.

Anything else is not as clear.

I am waiting on the front porch.

Somehow, hope that she returns.

I take it all much slower now.

No more candles, both ends burns.

The kid is sleeping land of slumber.

When she wakes, I see she grown.

So much to be thankful for.

Regrets of past, no more are shown.

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 north coast of Nova Scotia is somewhere between the middle of nowhere and God’s country.

Somehow, I was still there when I was 18, and she’d been dead for 7 years. I would still look for her whenever I was in a crowd of people. Straining searching. Imagining that she had faked her death to get away from me. My mother. By the fall of 1977, I guess I figured she was really dead. All of this I kept to myself. Winding wrapped tight. In my tiny bedroom on a twin bed in a mobile trailer on an acre of land at the edge of Deception River is where the nightmare began…

I ripped out the window screen at the foot of the bed one night and the screen at the head of the bed the next. Screaming some nonsensical rage about “I’ll get you! You motherfuckers!” The next morning the fingernails were torn and bloodied from ripping out screens. Both windows smashed.

I could hear the breathing coming from something somewhere. I held my breath and lay still on my bed, making sure it wasn’t me. I looked under the bed and under the trailer. Nothing. I was alone… except for whatever was breathing. It felt like it was coming from inside me. I had never been so terrified. I forgot to pray. I forgot God.

After a few days and nights of this, I realized that I had to leave that bed, that bedroom,that trailer, that acre, that river.

I left and never returned…

Heidi sat down at 5:15 a.m. on the bellhops cart at the Shangri-la Hotel. She hiked her skirt between her legs and lit up. She had the air of someone who had been here before and around the block. Attractive, blonde, and street smart.

The bellhop was young and talking a mile a minute, waving his arms and smiling… Heidi’s smoke break was the highlight of his night.

He asked her what champagne she liked, and she answered him, looking at me. I was waiting for someone to come down to take to the airport.

The bellhop said something else, and my mind faded, taking in Heidi and wondering what she had on her mind. She turned after a few seconds and smiled at the bellhop. “All these rules and no order.” She said.

I repeated what she said and laughed. She must have heard me because she looked my way again. “All these rules and no order indeed Heidi.“

September seems to be a time of the year when things begin for me…

In the beginning, it was always a new school in a new place with new people.

Here we are again, and my daughter enters a new school, but this generation seems more stable. More firmly feet in this strange new world of pronouns and discontented hearts screaming their collective dissatisfaction!

As previously mentioned, this is also my anniversary; 19 years Alcohol and drug free. Thank God! The real miracle here is no desire, zero cravings.

Which coincidentally matches the date that I started my last beginning 3 years ago of being a single father. This could not have worked out better. We do remember the struggles with the greatest fondness.

Onwards we go…