The Chances Store

Chances were the premium at the chances store.
Called up their proprietor and asked for just one more.
Inside information suggested relocate.
When they closed the chances store, it sealed the users fate.
With no plans for the future and the future, it is here.
Who knew that the sun would rise and whisper last nights fear?
So we headed for the highway, which ended at the light.
Looked upon arrival, no chances store in sight.
Searching for the answers that will ease the fears.
Some will stand there crying and find few are buying tears.
All are someone’s baby lost along the way.
Strangers and sojourners who have lost the need to pray.
And I say, “Pray”

Dennis Mantin

The Last 15 Years…

I was 50 and 5 years sober with $50,000.00 in the bank. Not rich by modern standards, however, the means were there to provide. I wanted a child for selfish reasons, and for my sins, I got one.

Rachel was batshit crazy though through the beauty and desires, I failed to see it. All was revealed by the time I said no, but by then, it was too late.

I saw Rachel’s mother on a video call. She was angry at me for something I asked, and  with her guard down, I understood where Rachel got her personality. She was her mother if her mother was perpetually angry.

Old and angry is a tough road…

Dennis Mantin

Einstein Sarcasm

A woman old enough to know better referred to the girl getting her coffee as “Einstein.”

After the woman left, the barista looked at her co-worker and said, “Can you believe that? She called me Einstein. ”

The co-worker said, “Like being rude?”

She answered, “Like yeah?!”

I don’t know who is more entertaining: millennials or the generation that raised them?

Dennis Mantin

Darkness Fell

Darkness fell, it wasn’t mood, it was just the time of day.

Said, “Oh well” I should include, I slept the night away.

The sun did rise, same as before, I knew was just for me.

Closed my eyes and heard the roar of an angry distant sea.

I heard of tales, happened long ago, long before our time.

Of people who had lived and loved with hearts of faith and rhyme.

Dennis Mantin

The Generalist

No specialization here.

Benal decades long studies learning a dozen ways to to say the same thing will be avoided at all costs.

I am the Generalist observer who knows intimately what it’s like to be thick as a brick and the sky knows no limits in my capacity for learning.

This is merely a log to remind myself of the time when I was rereading the power of Myth… in the distant future that doesn’t exist.

Dennis Mantin

The Oceans

Every year she crosses the Atlantic to the scene of the crimes searching for virtues that can’t be located.

Perhaps it’s just acknowledgment of what they did or is it the utterance of an apology she seeks?

Once I reached the Indian Ocean with her and there we found some of the rascals wedged between servants ordering serfdom.

They lack the courage she seeks.

Once I got her in the Pacific near the equator and in one glorious moment I got the photo that captured her in all her beauty and I swear in that one moment she forgot all the resentments she harbours; and smiled at me.

I call this a miracle. Dennis Mantin

The Travel Dilemma

I have never felt so satisfied as when I was in Drake Bay Costa Rica.

I have swam in the Mediterranean in France and Italy and did see Rome.

The Indian Ocean in Bali was never a dream however that too was realized.

It’s Nova Scotia and particularly Cape Breton that I long for now… However I just don’t like leaving home in Toronto.Dennis Mantin

Eavesdropper Interloper

They’re getting louder now!

The humans on public transit…

Pronouncements are punctuated with attitude and distrustful anger.

I understand the single car driver’s, going nowhere fast; listening to whatever they choose.

Maybe it’s time to lease a gas guzzler and join Denis Leary… going slow in the ultra fast lane.

Dennis Mantin