Saturday, April 27, 2013

CLOCKS ARE TICKING

CLOCKS ARE TICKING

Clocks are ticking, there will be no reprieve,
Nowhere to hide from the colors that bleed.
Into the fabric of this sad society,
No way of escaping for you or for me.

Clocks are counting down the seconds,
The minutes fleeting 'til the day that reckons,
Nestling helplessly on the precipice of doom,
Clocks are counting the swollen moments,
'Til death comes pouring from the womb.
The arbiter of our own destruction,
The architect of our tomb.

Clocks are sliding over the waterfall,
The painful avalanche of the rushing years,
Humbling and teaching, crazily beseeching,
A lesson in rhyme and a new paradigm,
A new way to grapple with the lies of demise.
Clocks are winding down and we see with brand new eyes.

Clocks are slipping and careening,
Like a B movie screening,
A back stage pass to an off Broadway play,
A sword fight, a bloody denouement, a strange and sad melee.
Clocks are rebelling, they are angry and yelling,
Sick to death of wastrels and their careless use of hours.
Clocks are plucking lifetimes like petals from a flower.

Clocks are ticking, 'til their hands crack and bleed,
Glued to the balustrade, they blister and feed,
Feed on the frenzy of the days as they pass,
Innocent and trusting, like Alice through the glass.
Not knowing the day or the time for the passing,
An innocent accident, a mass gruesome gassing.

Clocks can tick for good or ill,
Foretelling death and its final chill.
Clocks can beguile and clocks can betray,
Clocks are ticking in their fickle childish way.
Even as we watch in grief from the sidelines,
Clocks our best plans they mock and malign.

Clocks can be evil, clocks can be cruel.
Clocks they are ticking, grinding us up in their gruel.
Until at long last, the clocks they are still,
Mankind is free of their crazed crooked will,
The useless parade, the endless charade,
The glee of relentless tyranny.
Their brutish boorish spree of crimes against humanity.
When at last they fold their arms, and dim their angry chimes,
We will lose the mood of servitude, at last live out of time.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL  RIGHTS RESERVED

Saturday, April 20, 2013

HOLIDAY ISLAND

HOLIDAY ISLAND

Here on holiday island, just my love and me,
Drinks in hand and life unplanned, tropic, slow and easy.
I marvel at the wonder of the human brain,
To block out grief and blinding pain,
To walk again in splendor, swinging arms and swinging hips.
Is it margaritas or the gods' nectar that we sip?

Is this what it's like in the final moments before the curtain falls?
The bows, the curtsies, the euphoria, the strange unrealness of it all?
When breath it leaves the body and goes floating toward the ocean,
A final rhyme writ out of time and rollicking in slow motion?
When the drinks are free and there's no last call,
And the most bedazzling sunset it lingers in the sky.
No more the stumble or the fall, just spread your wings and fly.

Here on holiday island, I am loved and celebrated,
My union blessed by God and man, its majesty inflated.
Until it takes its place in the lexicon of romance,
My love and I we take the floor, in a celebration dance.
There is no more hate and no more fury and no more ice upon the pond,
God, at last, has come to me and he waves his blessed wand.
I am hurled through endless space, every sin forgiven,
And death it takes a holiday in this wondrous spot called heaven.

There is no need for bouncers or ticket counters at the pearly gate,
My father's there to vouch for me, my mother sits in wait.
They will be my witnesses, all who have gone ahead,
No matter what the doubters say there is no such thing as dead.
It's a world beyond our human grasp, beyond our comprehension,
A world no longer rife with strife and the poisoned fruits of our dissension.

No guns are needed, all cries are heeded, there is no violence here.
On the ride across the great divide, the schoolyards are secure.
Labels break in pieces that scatter to the wind.
Gay and straight communicate, enemies are sworn friends.
A light that gleams in blinding white, at last we make amends.

Every grudge is held aloft and zips away like a balloon,
Its helium uplifting, it makes its way toward the moon.
The comedy, the tragic mask,  they intertwine as one,
Then fall to earth exhausted in the pure light of the sun.
All is known and all is seen, the good, the bad, the in between.
To every man and woman love and tenderness is rendered,
With all the angels drunk on glory and God the great bartender.

Here on holiday island, where nothing's what it seems,
My love, he nudges my shoulder, I awake from my tropic dream.
Yet I know for the rest of my life, I'll be more than content,
Pondering my flight to God and back, and what its teachings meant.
I'll remember His hand, our walks on the sand, the day I saw His face,
Here on holiday island, the wondrous glimmer of His grace.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Saturday, April 13, 2013

ROUGH TRADE

ROUGH TRADE

It's a small consolation, it's such a rough trade,
Not the great stuff of which heroes are made,
Back room discoveries, pool table stumbles,
Foul balls on an open court, unnecessary fumbles.

It's quite unredeeming to live with inadequacy,
To throw yourself humbly upon the court's mercies.
To dance a drunken sailor on the borderline of madness,
Haunting dyskinesias mistaken in the sadness.
And the devastating memories of what was before the fall,
Small wonder that a lesser man would rush to end it all.

It is a rough trade we practice and a rough trade we ply,
It is win or it is lose, alas, there is no try.
There is no real justice, there is no real ease,
When the meds are as cursed as the disease.
From humble beginnings I arose and I shone,
Shot out from the cannon, I blazed all alone.
But I burned both ends of my elegant fuse.
The brain synapses staged a strike,
All got up and took a hike,
And left me with a gambler's blues.

Here in the corner I sit and I ponder,
What awaits in the wild blue yonder.
Here I sit in the park beneath a cool oak's shade,
Passing judgment on punishing choices I've made.
A work horse until I was 38, always in hot pursuit,
Of professional goals that swallowed me whole,
Ate away at my misspent youth.

It's a small consolation, it's such a thick bleed,
To one so not used to being in need.
To one so accustomed to living life without a hand,
To be banished to a cipher in this the chosen land.
Always thought I was too young to be,
Choosing Medicare Part B.
Thought that mighty Fortune's eyes
Would always smile upon me.

It's a bitter dispensation, it's such a crude end,
Time came and broke me when I just wouldn't bend.
Leaving me just a tad bitter, a man without a choice,
A deficit of dopamine, the rasping stutter of a voice.

Each new day I greet the pall, the indignity of another fall.
Yet with a strange and dim refrain of gratitude for what remains.
It is small consolation, it's such a rough trade,
Not such great stuff, but a legend that fades. 
Back room discoveries, terrible tumbles,
Foul balls on open court, an empire that crumbles.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Saturday, April 6, 2013

MY LAST HURRAH

MY LAST HURRAH

Here it comes, my last hurrah,
I hope that you are ready,
My talking skills they've gone awry,
My steps no longer steady.

Here it comes, my last hurrah,
Don't come at me with platitudes,
Yes, sirree, yes, sirree bob,
Don't try to change my attitude.
My life is like a sullen leaf,
Holding stubbornly to the tree.
Devoid of conscience and belief,
And longing for eternity.
The only thing that leaves me hanging,
Is a desperate fear of falling,
All amiss into the abyss,
Or else I'd heed my final calling.

If only for these goddam pills,
That keep me sane and chipper,
And leave my stomach torn to shreds,
I'd be floating past the great Big Dipper,
In sweet communion with the dead.
I owe my life and owe my bliss,
To my Walmart pharmacist.
And of course to my family nurse,
Who keeps those Effexors coming,
My healthy sheen is a well oiled machine,
It takes a team to keep it humming.
But still I know in my own sweet mind,
I'm running slowly out of time,
Still running amiss of my bucket list,
As I struggle to the finish line.

So I've decided in my dotage,
To be Matt Lauer on Today,
And to that end have cropped my hair,
You may have mistaken the two of us,
In your travels here and there.
I'll give you a clue and more's the pity,
Matt never comes to Stephens City.
So if you are in these parts and see a guy,
Sexy and buzz cut shorn at that.
Bazinga, it was only me, and not the hapless Matt.

Or perhaps with my sexy new do,
I will shun Matt Lauer and Today,
I hear his days of hosting are numbered anyway,
And my stutter would be bad for the ratings there at NBC.
Perhaps I shall endeavor to be all that I can be,
Even at my decrepit age.
To tote that gun and lift that bale,
Or work in the army mailroom sorting piles of mail.
Be a hero on the world's great stage
Try my hand as a soldier before i get much older.
If the US army doesn't want me,
Perhaps I'd be a hit with Israel or Gaza,
Or perhaps a UN ambassador,
My shiny dome lighting up the plaza.

But now it's back to bed for me to ponder all these things,
Choices, they can be exhausting, fortune's pesky arrows and slings.
Like Doris Day, I'll be blasé, it's que sera, sera,
But I'll be ready when it comes, to toast my last hurrah.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT

SERENADE OF TWILIGHT The stars in your eyes, love, I tried them on for size. They shone as bright as diamonds, how they mesmerized. And when...