IN THE LIGHT AND IN THE SHADOWS

IN THE LIGHT AND IN THE SHADOWS

In the light and in the shadows, I can see what's hidden,

What's allowed and what's forbidden,

What is playful, what is dangerous,

What's all the fury, what's all the fuss.

In the shadows of your arms,

There is no cause for alarm,

As you cradle me to your breast,

As I acquiesce to your behest,

As I make my way through the valley of the shadow,

Through the coursing river of my sorrows,

The remaining gusts of tomorrows,

That my soul still must blow through,

In the light and in the shadows,

I will always turn to you.

Like a babe in arms, like a fish still flapping on the deck,

I strive to be a stoic, keep emotions in firm check.

Like a deer in the headlights, I flee the road,

Like most earthly travelers, I believe what I've been sold,

But somehow you are handy with your spirit so uncanny,

When all my trust that still remains lies with the heavens blue,

In the light and in the shadows,

I will always turn to you.

Your goatee brushes Brillo pad across my face,

Your arms reach around my shoulders,

Your love it shows such dependable grace,

Lifting a sorrow heavy as boulders,

With effortless striving you make me new,

I am happy to be sheltered in these covers,

By the ultimate of earthly lovers,

Comforted by the heady wine, all others I eschew,

In the light and in the shadows,

I will always turn to you.

If you need me, only call, and I'll open the door,

Just wait a moment while I limp along

And safely reach the ground floor,

If you need a traveling companion to babysit the hotel room,

Somewhere in my thread of memory, some movement to exhume,

Have wheelchair will travel, here to the moon,

In the light and the shadows,

I will always turn to you.

So travel with me everywhere,

Walk behind to nudge me when i freeze upon the stair,

And count our blessings with me for each day that remains,

Each precious moment that will fall before the final rains,

Before the mud it slides beneath me,

And my footsteps they no longer hold,

When at last my breath deserts me,

My life is not my own.

From now until the bitter end,

When all that's left is you my friend,

Your emotions raw and true,

In the light and in the shadows,

I will always turn to you.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2015

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IF OSCAR SAYS IT'S SO

IF OSCAR SAYS IT'S SO

If Oscar says, it's time to go,
I'm tempted to believe him.
That strange cat who is in the know,
Who hails from dear Rhode Island.
I've often pondered on his legend
And on his special gift,
On just what he would say to me.
Should his feline brain I pick.

A death cat could prove quite handy,
Though frightful it would soon turn dandy,
To feel Oscar's warm form in the bed beside me,
Letting me know my time has come,
Letting me know my world's gone numb,
Letting me know it's okay to let go.

Oscar the telepathic cat,
Who eschews the living and sides with the dying,
Oh to possess a cat like that,
With a sixth sense as it were,
The alignment of your stars 
Aligns with the feel of his fur.

Oscar knows somehow ahead of time,
When time is no more,
When there's nothing left to say,
When it's time to close the store,
To put a padlock on your dreams,
To write your last infernal will,
To make your final testament.
Oscar is a sweet and tender honey,
Giving the doctors a run for their money.
He translates their garbled syntax,
Their reticence, their we don't knows.
And lays down beside you, a statement of fact.
After nudging open your door with his nose.

He can smell death in the air,
He has a kingly knowing fine tuned sense of smell,
He comforts the wild and the wicked,
On their path to heaven or hell,
And would be quite the cat to court,
To know how your affairs to sort,
If you want to hear the truth,
The echo of your final footsteps,
The fading of your timeless youth.

Your breast has no need for constant heaving,
When Oscar comforts with his gentle feline breathing,
Letting you know that right here and right now.
Are the perfect times for up and leaving.
Oscar, the wonderful death cat,
If I picked his brain for just a week,
Perhaps I'd know the perfect time,
To lose the power of speech.
Once more into the breach,
I would unreservedly go,
I'm tempted to believe it, if Oscar says it's so.

-Bruce Potts
 Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Inspired by my friend Drew's Facebook post on Oscar the telepathic death cat who has an uncanny record of predicting the next to die in a nursing home in Rhode Island.

ENCORE

ENCORE

This is the finale,
The wondrous encore,
The whole glittering show.

Fans of the rhyme,
They sway in time,
Moaning and groaning
And bending so low.

Low enough to touch the sinews
Of this withering heart,
With a frequency just low enough,
To blow it full apart.
Clapping in unison,
Chanting in triplicate,
Begging me for more.
Until I bend and condescend
To give them the key to the store.

Hold on, have mercy,
What have I done?
To deserve such beating of the drum?
Such unrestrained cacophony,
It frightens and it scares me.
The writing it is painted on the wall,
I am human and I am small.

I try to satisfy the crowds.
That wait outside my home,
Their cries so lonely and so loud,
For verses new and rhymes unknown.
But life is short and time is fleeting,
The Maker calls me for a meeting,
Not even I can comprehend,
When my typing skills will end.

In reality this may be the last,
Of all I have to give,
The day it may be coming,
When I struggle just to live.
So stop the constant clanging,
Like pots and pans come banging,

I may soon be back with rhymes of emotion,
Perhaps the Muse will come again
And spill on me his potion.
Believe me when I tell you
That I don't even know,
If this is the finale,
The wondrous encore,
The whole glittering show.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This is intended to be totally tongue-in-cheek, though it is new!

SOME BRILLIANT PEACE

SOME BRILLIANT PEACE

Today I speak of triumph,
Through a voice that's compromised.
Today I speak of wonder,
Though seen through damaged eyes.
Though much has slipped through clumsy fingers,
These hands are clenched in fitful prayer.
A lust for life still lingers,
And greets me unprepared.

Today I see beyond the body,
With eyes that pierce the veil.
A shooting star aimed straight from heaven,
I plucked it by the tail.
And it's become my alibi,
My second chance, my reason why.
My newfound stash of rainy day cash,
Like manna falling from the sky.

It's most amazing in its staging,
Its changing of my mood.
It's vexing and perplexing,
But I'm loath to change this attitude.
This waterfall of giving thanks
For every scrap of breath,
A lease on life renewed each day 
From the ponderous murky depths.

I creep through my day slowly,
But at the very least I creep,
And I'm only now accepting,
I may be decades from the final sleep.

And I may not do it perfectly,
And I may not do it fast.
But I have slowly built my empire 
And have found some brilliant peace at last.
A peace that glimmers, see it shine,
In my crazy bloodshot eyes,
Redeemed by the holy bread and wine,
In my desperate heart it thrives.

We all are floating on this ship,
We find it hard to breathe,
No way to gauge the way Fate tips,
A fond farewell or a reprieve.
The rain it pours, but as it goes,
In the sky it leaves a rainbow. 

So arise and speak of triumph,
Though your voice is tired and thin.
Arise and speak of wonder
And prizes left to win.
Alas, pick up your mat and gladly go your way.
For death and illness now are vanquished,
And joyful falls a brand new day.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BARRING SOMETHING UNFORESEEN

BARRING SOMETHING UNFORESEEN

You and I will sail the world, a thrilling, chilling odyssey,
And traipse across this earth serene, barring something unforeseen.

The islands and the coastal towns, the picturesque landscapes of summer,
Will emblazon on our memories their loud and livid thunder.

Love will echo through the forests, tender and so evergreen.
We will walk the beaches arm in arm, drink from the same canteen.

Hike the mountains hale and hearty, knapsacks perched upon our backs,
Sleep in peace in the cool green valleys, clothed in nightfall's solemn black.

See the sights our fathers dreamed of, tethered to their daily grinds,
Taste the fruits our mothers longed for, out of reach on hidden vines.

See London Bridge in all its glory, falling stately to the ground,
Hear the fog horns on the murky ocean pierce the air with warning sound.

Roam the tundra of Alaska, fish the oceans, hunt for game,
When nightfall comes to lay beside you, gently calling out your name.

The years will slip by like a waterfall, sweet Niagara rushing by,
The ocean of my love for you a deep expanse as wide as sky.

Before the curtain closes and sweeps my life away,
I will kiss your lips so tenderly in the beauty of the day,

And whisper softly in your ear each fond wish, each golden dream,
And count you mine 'til the end of time, barring something unforeseen.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ON THE WAY TO JOY

ON THE WAY TO JOY

Wean yourself, my friend, from screaming,
Give yourself, my love, to dreaming.
Light a candle for each time smiles creep like panthers across your face.

Wean yourself, my friend, from sorrow,
Have some faith in a new tomorrow,
Make this world of demons your bauble and your toy.
The path is laid with ice and stones, on the way to joy.

First the icicles must break.
The winter must slip between the cracks of treacherous, slippery sidewalks.
The eyes must swim in their aqueous and vitreous humors
With a clear shine devoid of glaze.
Life through the microscope must come into focus
And the days must lose their mystic haze.

Next the tears must fall like syrup,
Down your hard Mount Rushmore face.
The cold must melt beneath the gun
Of a fire breathing, fighting sun.
The eyes must swim in the peril of the terrors they see.
The heart must warm to the pale, grim journey.
The mind must cradle the tragic in its bosom,
Compassion must live bold and free.

So wean yourself, my friend, from screaming,
Long enough to start your dreaming,
Light a candle for each time smiles creep like a sunrise across your face.
Wean yourself, my friend, from sorrow,
Turn your gaze toward tomorrow.
Make this world of demons your bauble and your toy.
The path is laid with ice and stones, on the way to joy.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

WHAT WILL IT MATTER

WHAT WILL IT MATTER

What will it matter, when I'm tired of the dance,
The strange back and forth, the call of romance.
The raining down men, the joining of hands,
The new sun rising on distant lands.

What will it matter, this bitter charade,
What will I care of the palaver of parade,
The meat on the bone that endangers my throne
And leaves me to my end alone.

What will it matter what fools time begets,
For I've come to the blaze and the burn of sunset.
Left to my memories, left to my tears,
Here in the tarnished gold rush of my years.

What will they matter, the promises that crash and burn,
School's out for summer and still I never learned
How to hold the things I love close to my heaving breast.
My jagged tears are crooked thieves picking the lock of my hope chest.

What will it matter if time wounds and maims,
I'm losing the words to announce my own name.
And just like the records a wounded deejay spins,
I'm caught in a groove that repeats without end.
And just like those records, my heart is skipping beats,
The water's filling up the lungs, the rain it pours in sheets.

What will it matter if the sun burns and grazes,
Scorching my heart in its bittersweet mazes.
I may be dying in the summer heat,
But I once knew love and the memory's sweet.
It fills the nostrils strong as clover
It sizzles and it knocks you over, heady as a vintage wine.
Life was long and lonesome, but love it once was mine.

What will it matter if I am speechless in the end?
I wrote these words when I was young and they are still my friend.
I must die as all men must, these words survive my ash and dust.
Heed them, scoff at them, burn them if you must.
What will it matter, when my heart has turned to rust?

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IN THE LEAST INTRUSIVE WAY

IN THE LEAST INTRUSIVE WAY

I would like to change the world, in the least intrusive way,
From my bedroom and computer, through a verse of godly praise.
To forge a spell or break a curse,
For good or ill, for bad or worse,
I would like to change the world, here in my final days.

I tried to change the world before, but it was too intense.
The life I lived in days gone past no longer makes much sense.
People have seemed strange to me, sometimes brought me pain,
Left me holding empty hands in the midst of a brutal rain.
My eyes have filled with solemn tears, regretted much over many years.
Sometimes I fear I've taken much more than I have given,
Sometimes I fear I'm only here, but never really living,
A sad clown in his greasepaint taking precious space,
Only here by luck or chance or God's amazing grace.
Wondering if it's all for naught, just a waste of breath,
Remembering sins of yesteryear, courting early death.

I would like to write a peaceful quiet tome of lonely love,
Here in my room a recluse of little use to anyone.
I would like to change the world through art,
Like a loud and crazy upstart.
A once and former Thoreau or Emerson,
A modern day Emily Dickinson.
You can read my awkward verse or not,
It's of no import to me.
But I hope before I hit the grave,
To send a message bright and brave, 
To make whole just one fractured soul,
On his or her most desperate day.
I would like to change the world in the least intrusive way.

You can cast me off the dock of your heart,
A refugee at last I'll be, at least I will have played a part.
A bit part in this game of wild and random chance,
You can be my friend or enemy, my partner in the dance.
Be it a dance of amorous desire or a dance of bitter hate.
Rest assured that I have done my best to earn my final resting place.
There is no condemnation you can heap, that I have not heaped upon myself.
I am sidelined by a love of sleep, I am banished to the banal shelf.
I am tormented by the strangest things and dream the strangest dreams.
I feel myself unraveling, seam by anxious tattered seam.

All I have is my trade to ply of putting words on screen.
All I have are my cries in the night, my bruising bitter screams.
All I really want to do in the months and years still left to me,
Is to throw my arms around the world and for the world to let me be.
Is to walk in the sun at least once a day with my lover and my friends.
Nothing gross or grandiose, between now and the bitter end.
To throw off the chains of judgment, to see in a different light,
To know I did the best I could, with my busted lens and my limited sight.

Still I rise and try to see myself through new compassionate eyes.
Still I wonder for my purpose and try to pierce my own disguise.
I have had enough of tongue wagging, my spirit worn and sagging.
I have wasted so much time, only to drown in the salty brine.
Before I go, before I die, grant my soul some room to play,
Let me once just change the world, in the least intrusive way.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CLOSE OF DAY

CLOSE OF DAY

At close of day, when the sunset pinkish graces an evening sky,
I like to sit and watch the geese streak across the heavens blue.
I think of friends that have passed away,
And one by one my thoughts they stray,
To how fleeting is this sojourn, this earthly path of thorns.

And in my mind I celebrate the day our love was born.
Hold me tight, my lover man, as I hold tight to you,
For never have I known in life a love that burns so true.

At close of day I close my eyes and sometimes out fall tears,
Tears for those that I have lost, souls precious and so dear.
My mother sweet who filled my life with such infectious joy.
And Robin of the radio who thrilled me with his stories.
Tom my brother's dear, dear friend who left for that far shore.
Land of mysteries and of no return, lost to me forevermore.

And I cannot bear the thought, my love, of ever losing you,
So always wear your seatbelt and get immunized against the flu,
Beware the crazy drivers through your long or short commute,
And watch your daily fat intake and stay forever cute.

At close of day when the sun sinks low like a fading, bouncing ball,
I think it just a privilege rare to be alive to see it all.
And all I really care to do is climb in bed beside you
And feel your breathing as it comes so rhythmic in the night,
And ponder how for once in life I dared do something right,
In finding you, in adoring you, the treasure Fate has sent my way.
These happy thoughts sustain me, here with you at close of day.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TINCTURE OF GLOOM

TINCTURE OF GLOOM

I live in this veritable mansion on earth,

A house that's filled with love,

A taste inside of what I'm worth,

A sense of what I'm made of.

Yet my body lives as damaged goods,

In this damask room.

And I pray for Mary Magdalene

To anoint my feet with her perfume.

It is true I've lived a wayward life,

A hapless weaver at the loom.

I have never saved a single soul,

And my purpose has been swallowed whole,

By the threat of pending doom.

The world it is colored by what we perceive,

And I perceive it ending soon.

Rose-colored glasses are slipping off my nose,

Framed by the tincture of gloom.

My empire is abandoned in droves,

By those who don't find what they need.

By happy cock-eyed optimists,

Who do not care to see me bleed.

Who want the miracle, not the meltdown,

The smile but not the smelter,

The life but not the scent of death

That rains down helter skelter.

They wear their rose tinged glasses well,

They bear the stink of sweet perfume.

They walk away from my decay,

And shrug at the tincture of gloom.

Yet I say that one man's fate surely is the fate of all.

Perhaps my drop from the summit tall,

Reminds them of their own downfall.

Or perhaps I mire myself in loss,

Knowing that life's a coin toss.

Heads I die, tails I suffer on to live another day.

Our fate is predetermined, predestined either way.

I live in this veritable house of mirrors,

Where black humor cripples and the pain of the body sears,

Where I pine alone for all that I have lost through the years.

A penniless weaver, asleep at the loom.

Each thread unravels, the further I travel,

Weighed down by the tincture of gloom.

-Bruce Potts

Revised Copyright 2015

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

RUBICON

RUBICON

The die is cast said Julius Caesar,
We are at the point of no return.
We may as well our fortunes fold,
And all our blazing bridges burn.

And into the muddy, murky waters,
I deign to surrender my fate.
Perhaps there's still a saving grace,
Perhaps my pardon's come too late.
Midnight tolls its ancient bell,
I am ready for my fond farewell.
Ready to tie the ancient bond,
Ready to forge the Rubicon.

Custer had just one last stand
And I have now had many.
Nathan Hale regretted his only life,
For me one life is plenty.
Like Patrick Henry, it's liberty or death,
Anything else is wasted breath.
Like my forefathers who engineered this nation,
I am ready for the conflagration,
To be consumed in fire or ashes,
Like Fourth of July firework crashes
That celebrate our victory from the tyranny across the pond,
My die is cast into the waters of the stoic Rubicon.

Sailing to Rome in my golden boat,
These electrodes halos circling my head.
Struggling hard to stay afloat,
With arms and legs that feel like lead.
A walk I just can't get quite right,
Limping so gallantly into the night.

Like Lee to Grant I capitulate,
My reinforcements come too late.
The tide has turned, the die is cast,
And I must leave this world at last.

Like Sherman I have burnt the city,
Leaving destruction in my wake.
I have made my march down to the sea,
So many shattered dreams at stake.
I am not a hero and I am not a brave man,
But I have lived a precious life and done the best I can.

Into the sunset blindly I go, mariner take warning,
The signs are etched in concrete that herald my defeat.
My clothes are black, torn and rent,
My energies are all spent in mourning.
Every life it has its peril, every cruise its ending,
I am weeping to the dimming day, on busted kneecaps bending. 
Humbled by one too many falls, out of reach and strangely hidden,
I cast my cares down this flight of stairs, heaven bound and bedridden.

I am sailing blindly past the purple and velvet horizon,
Weakened perhaps but seasoned and all the more wizened.
Content that I will wake again on the other side of dawn,
Beyond the muddy, murky waters of the stoic Rubicon.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WILD BLUE YONDER

WILD BLUE YONDER

Old sad earth, I shall trouble you no longer.

On the wings of a silent prayer,
Into the wild blue yonder,

I will sail across your blazing western skies,
Leaving a world of troubles in my wake,
Leaving this body that loves to shake,
Leaving my lover's heart to break.

Old sad earth, I shall cut you down to size,
Across the wild blue yonder,
Kicking sand up in your eye.

And a new day I will see, old sad earth,
A new day of forgiveness for a soul that seeks rebirth.
Into the bosom of that home beyond the stars,
Looking down on your lost highways
And their tiny little cars.

Old sad earth, you shall not miss me when I'm gone,
But in my spirit lives the fire of life and the rising of the dawn.
And I will be at peace with you and love you from afar,
From my home in the wild blue yonder, miles from where you are.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PENINSULA

PENINSULA

I want to die on a peninsula,
Or better yet an island,
Removed from civilization,
Surrounded by water and sand.

I want to die a free man,
Away from the mechanical and mean,
Where arrogant doctors cannot reach me,
With their paddles and their machines.

I want to live on a peninsula,
Or better yet an island.
Surrounded by a few close friends,
And the space to say goodbye in.
To soar with the gulls above the sea,
To hear them call me tenderly,
Teaching the earth a song to sing,
To complete its turn around the sun,
To comfort it before I'm done
Before I spread my gilded wings 
Somewhere close to Saturn's ring.

I want to walk around on my peninsula,
Thoughtful and alone,
Until the rightful owners come
To knock me off my throne.
Gleefully they will pummel me,
May even knock me down,
Until I fall right off my island
And in its waters drown.
Mercifully I will die and mercifully rise,
In my island paradise,
Framed by the bluest skies.

I want to live and not hesitate,
To die and gladly levitate,
To float with grace in hallowed space
With nothing in between,
Nothing but the water,
And the cool volcanic green.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

LIKE A FIRE ON A WINDSWEPT PRAIRIE

LIKE A FIRE ON A WINDSWEPT PRAIRIE

Like a fire on a bleak and a windswept prairie,
The hand of death sweeps over me, bitter and contrary.
The breath of death with icy cold freezes in its stranglehold.
I am taciturn and lonely, circumspect and wary.

Like gasoline upon the fire, I feel my world explode,
Struggling to break free of this grueling gruesome load.
Onward I stagger, pain like a dagger that overtakes the heart.
I know not where all this will end, nor where it got its start.
The day I gave up hoping to focus on just coping.
The funds I'd earmarked for disaster are dissipating faster.
Faster than a fire through a rat-infested warehouse,
I am sinking in this quagmire just as quiet as a mouse.

Like firemen who are striking, clamoring for a decent wage,
My brain cells they are fighting to get these words upon the page.
Not hard hats nor axes nor the vaunted jaws of life,
Can reverse the fearsome damage of this torn and twisting knife.
So subtly it works its cruel black magic on the brain,
Like a fire on a windswept prairie that begs and pleads for rain.

Rain that falls and swallows flame, rain that gently calls my name,
Speaks to me in riddles of a gallant past.
My body fell and flattened fast, the drugs no longer seem to last.
They like to play and trifle with me, opening windows of opportunity.
Then slamming them shut with a cool, detached delight,
Cold and cruel in bitter spite, 32 in Fahrenheit,
Like a burnished chalice of poisoned wine, that intoxicates before its time.
My final relief from the motherlode these indifferent electrodes,
That perch atop my Martian head, careless as two lumps of lead.
Tremor still a no show, balance failing and stiffness flailing,
I am lucky to be standing, on the stairs and on the landing.

My stars are dark and misaligned, the earth spins lost and out of time,
Each revolution senseless,  a journey adrift and arbitrary.
Like sand against the coastline spent, a fire on a windswept prairie.

Just when I feel there's no relief, no antidote in sight,
You bring to bear your awesome strength, your all engaging might.
The civil war that's gone before, its gunfire strangely burns no more.
A brief and welcome new reprieve, a story I can still believe,
Wraps me in a warm embrace, finds new meaning in your face.

Just when it all seems useless and forlorn,
You come to me and cradle me like a fortunate newborn,
Holding me tight and chasing the fright into the portals of the night.
Your spirit softly fills the room, making it bright and airy,
Sweeping upward like a plume, like a fire on a windswept prairie.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED