CAVEMEN

CAVEMEN 

Once upon a time

On a whimsical Wednesday 

We lost power in our house

And were cavemen for an hour.

We ate breakfast by the flashlights on our Smart Phones,

You with your low fat granola, me with my two apples and Cheerios.

Both of us drank the kerosene coffee you'd made 

Which had barely finished brewing at the time we lost power.

(Don't worry honey, one day you'll get it just right-haha)

No lights, no television, no radio.

(Note to self- have Kyle buy batteries next time he goes shopping)

We talked on topics dear to our hearts

Our mutual admiration for Kamala, our disdain for Trump

a/k/a the man whose name shall not be spoken in this household

But alas I do digress and cavemen were not especially political creatures anyway.

The start to the morning was quite the welcome respite,

Taking the tedious sameness of my days away,

Then, all too soon the electric was back,

No longer did we need to figure out

How to manually open the garage door.

And things went back to semi normal.

You went off to hunt and gather,

Selling your meats, cheeses and salads.

I stayed back to defend our cave,

Armed with my cane and my deadly walker.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

RIVULETS

RIVULETS 

Rivulets of tears fall from my eyes,

The call of the cold, the pallor of the prize.

Either motionless as a slaughtered dove

Or dyskinetic as a discordant dream,

My destiny's clenched in fisted glove.

Salty tears in rivulets, in salty desert streams.

Dyskinetic legs that flail, arms that do the same,

I would seek my retribution if I knew just who to blame.

Easy to blame the medicine, the levodopa pills.

They cause the extra movements, but without them I'm too still,

And everyone's got something, I've no right to file complaint,

So I stay quiet as a church mouse and stoic as a saint

The rivulets flow down my cheeks, dissolving all my war paint.

Rivulets of regret surround me, the fear I've caused it all,

Insecticides that I once sprayed the reason for my downfall.

Meanwhile they're finding pesticides being sprayed near schools,

23 pesticides in children's fruit cups, it leaves me ill at ease,

A breeding ground for Parkinson's, harbinger of disease.

Those pesticides are in the air, the air we all must breathe,

 invisible to the human eye, more deadly than they seem,

They insinuate themselves into our lives,

Destroy our sleep and murder dreams

They infiltrate our precious lakes, our rivers and our streams.

Someone's got to do something, picket the factories, call the EPA,

If not we're all complicit, we're all just sitting fools,

Pesticides they have no place in our air and in our schools.

I'm raising hell and taking names, making sure no one forgets

And the tears that meander down my face, are not foreign or misplaced,

They are tears of concern for the human race, salty rivulets.

 

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE

(FOR KYLE ON OUR 23RD ANNIVERSARY)

Today I stop and deem myself a very lucky man,

For you came to me when I was drowning,

And there was sand in my shoes,

Filled me to the brim with treasures I could use,

All the bombs blasting detonated and defused,

In the cool cavernous reaches of your affection.

I knew you were the one for me 23 years ago today,

I gave you my heart and never looked back.

You and I were on the fast track as lovers and as friends,

And though we've weathered many a storm 

You were always there to keep me warm,

In the winters of disease and death.

We have had our mettle tested and emerged from the rubble,

Shielded from despair and lifted out of trouble 

I want to thank you today, for always standing by me,

For being my best friend and defender and my partner in this life,

For setting my spirit free to blindly, bravely soar,

For taking me on journeys I had never been before.

I thank you for unconditionally loving me,

For helping me up after a fall, for being there whenever I called.

From cane to walker to wheelchair and the phases in between

Through all the trials and travails and troubles unforeseen.

We have built this love stone by precious stone.

I look at you and marvel just how fast the years have flown.

Though we're only getting started and I know there's more to see,

I pause today and celebrate the wondrous twenty-three.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WATCH ME AS I FLY

 WATCH ME AS I FLY

I am sure that somewhere in the back of my closet

Tossed amidst the scrapbooks and shoes,

There's my own version of Dorian Gray

The one they see and love to hate

Just watch as I disintegrate.

Before the worms inch by to have their feast,

My body will be burned to ashes 

And I shall not care in the least,

Don't be surprised when the urn topples and smashes,

What remains of me can't be contained,

However much you try,

I'll be bound for the boundless sky,

So cower and seek cover,

For I shall always linger and hover

Just behind your jealous reach

A location that cannot be breached,

Until you take your own chariot ride

To the mighty mystic other side.

In the nighttime you will hear my Dorian Gray,

And you will see him in your mind's eye.

Falling like a suicide bomber out my window,

The last vestiges of my frail old self,

And all its silly foibles and mistakes.

Will fall and will not hesitate, to crumple and disintegrate.

All my sins will be heard and forgiven,

In the kindly vestibule of heaven. 

I am sure somewhere in the back of my closet,

Tossed between the scrapbooks and the souvenirs,

There's my own version of Dorian Gray,

The one they see and love to hate,

Just watch as I disintegrate.

A man you can no more disparage,

I shall mount my grand and golden carriage,

Blaze a path across the sky, just watch me as I fly.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SOMETHING HIDDEN

SOMETHING HIDDEN

 I do not take the plunge downward

To the streets of homeless bonfires

And the lure of unspoken suicides

A silent river night

Courses through my shivering jellied veins

And I walk the cat strewn alleys

Of life's tentative second dawning.

I do not fire the pistol 

To send my troubled head

Over the mountains where there is cheap refuge.

I take the gamble

And each new breath

Into these bewildered and frazzled lungs

I do not end it all

For who but God knows

Why life is clothed in shady robes

And there may be something hidden

Buried beneath our memories and perfumes 

Who but God knows

And there just may be a lantern

Somewhere past these heavy waves

Beyond these crafty currents

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DEPARTURES

DEPARTURES

Skies hold unfathomable mysteries.

You will know what I mean if you've looked closely.

 So many clouds move across the sky like little bath toys

Sailing in God's blue bath water.

I wish the clouds would stay still

For just a little longer than they do.

I am setimental about clouds,

More sentimental about the people I love.

That's why I'm troubled by all these comings and goings

I like the illusion that things stay the same.

But every time I turn around I'm confronted with the fact

That the only thing of permanence is change.

Friends come, then fade to black.

Lovers float in and out of my consciousness,

Speaking softly their untimely departures.

i would have liked to have held them, but they wriggled and squirmed in my arms,

Afraid of being trapped by gray-haired time.

I hold them fondly when I roll in dreams, but I sleep fitfully,

Knowing they are insufficient ghosts.

Life holds unfathomable mysteries.

Who knows why I had to leave a place and time where I was joyous,

Why I've come to ponder clouds,

To beat my brains against brick walls,

In search of hidden meanings.

I'm sentimental about life, more sentimental about the places I've left behind.

I remember every corridor, every portrait, and every human touch.

I recall my past; I cry because my past does not remember me.

Places come, then fade to black.

Colors and smells float in and out of my consciousness,

Triggering dreams and fantasies.

Past events, like eerie ghosts, tap my shoulder late at night,

Speaking softly their untimely departures.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS  RESERVED 

CEMETERY MUSINGS

 CEMETERY MUSINGS

Do the dead know the answers?

Does proximity to the soil help to unravel ultimate mysteries?

 I just know it is all too peaceful, all too green and trusting,

The clutter of fallen autumn leaves whispers the mortality of man.

Red, yellow and orange entities crunch beneath my murderous feet.

All the names on tombstones seem so old 

Impersonal warnings that the big sleep will also claim me.

An impetus to growth, to living fully in the now.

As I grow older, I hope to be less cautious,

Ready to plum the nectar of life unafraid of mistakes and misgivings.

Am I living by the scheme of nature?

Do the dead know I am plunging toward disaster?

They will not speak now.

They will forever hold their peace.

The autumn chill sets in, but the dead don't seem to mind.

I just know it is all too peaceful...

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED