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.

She said she was a dancer. I said I didn’t care. I didn’t use my big boy words. Just a cold and distant stare.

Then I saw her smile. I said I kinda like your shoes. She’s been hanging around awhile. Now I have that dancers blues.

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 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

The Global Village has removed the barriers and harmony if it ever existed; is now the passionate involvement of the individual in the business of others…

Before the global village and its computerized electric marvel was the industrial revolution that fostered a depression sandwiched between 2 world wars; and before that… peasantry, and one can only imagine the horrors of that without the internet or Netflix!

The future of the future is the present if you are looking in the rear view mirror.

Now we know most of life’s mysteries and I long for the ignorance of that peasant in Van Gogh’s fields.

There is no rhyme or reason.

The mind it can be tricked…

None will have peace of mind…

With a heart that seeks conflict.

Does it seem empty when you chatter? Is there a darkness all around?

You ever hear someone speaking? You still screaming at that sound?

Is there a lover in your future? Is there someone can make you smile?

Does the silence overtake you? Leaves you vacant in your style.

I tried and failed to help you. I’ve left you to your fate.

You lie there in some hopeless void, it’s forever in the wait.

It’s raining in November and December is close behind.

You make love now to your demons. I hope they treat you kind.

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

No I never met her, she was legend around the Lake. Beautiful as a ballerina and colder than a snake.

They said no man could refuse her but some were glad they did. And the one she selected, is in a bottle where he hid.

Until his son came calling, “Dad now it is OK.”! I’m 16. She’s left for the coast, and her beauty’s gone away.

The moral of the story or so that I’ve been told, is head removal from your ass gets easier when you’re old.

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