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I am trying to get past the mundane,

Groping for meaning is my visible task.

I resent the autumn for setting in

Before I find the needed answers.

My body close to shutting down,

The colors in my face are pale and doubtful.

The waters are all rippling 

 In anticipation of winter.

 

Looking for a reason to stay alive

Is the fundamental venture

Straining the mind past its usual heights

Watching the birds on their southward flights.

Wondering if they find new meanings

On the shores where they alight

Or if it's just boredom and the chill

That keeps them from remaining still.

No one calls the bird a mundane creature

There is a reason somewhere 

That keeps me searching for my place.

There is a reason that guides me

Makes me surrender to the thrill of this dream 

Keeps me drifting forever downstream 

Groping for meaning

Amidst cool and stationary rocks.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

AUTUMN COME SOFTLY

AUTUMN COME SOFTLY

Autumn come softly, 
Like a feather pillow falling,
Spilling leaves like feathers,
Your chill I feel it calling.
Spill into my hope for more,
My quiet intuition,
Let my half baked hopes and dreams,
Come to full fruition.

Let me float away on this lazy day,
Into this sky of crystal blue.
Let my spirit take it in,
This gentle vibe I feel from you.

Autumn come softly,
Refill my plate,
With a harvest of apples,
That fill up the crate.
A big shiny pumpkin,
With a shit-faced grin,
A handful of walnuts 
And acorns to spend.
The squirrels all busy,
Gathering for the winter.
Your colorful leaves
That bloom and then splinter,
Drifting aimlessly down from the trees,
'Til winter comes in with its bone-chilling breeze.

Autumn come softly, not all at once,
Let summer fade slowly into the horizon,
Spare the old woman, weathered but wizened.
Spare the old man at the local McDonalds,
Regaling his buddies with gallant war stories,
The past and all of its spirited glories.

And autumn come softly into my life, 
Be as a mistress and not as a wife.
Lay with me in fallow fields,
Let your clear, clean breath,
Come feather dusting over me
As I take my rest.
Then leave me be to take it in,
Like a man who knows just where he's been
And where he'll be tomorrow.
Autumn come softly with your chill,
Give me leave from winter
And its sweet, sweet sorrow.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

MY ETERNAL FALL

MY ETERNAL FALL

The medley of the falling leaves,
Dash their tune across the windshield,
The song of bringing in the sheaves,
The corn and pumpkin from the field.
The reds, the yellows, the blazing torches,
The last remnants of summer scorches.
I mark it and I remember it all,
So that I can keep the wonder in me,
Of my eternal fall.

Should I never see another,
Should I not pass these roads again,
I will hold this season like my own lost mother,
Feel her kisses linger on the top of my head,
All I had hoped for and given up for dead,
Will live again in this sacred autumn and its jack o'lantern smile,
I am none the worse for wear despite the weight of miles,
From the depths of my spirit I arise and call,
And feel the timeless echo in my eternal fall.

The medley travels joyous forth in wheelbarrow and apple crate,
Sings a song as clear as blue and gold as heaven's gate.
As across these fertile fields like a madman I do traipse,
I have not fools to suffer nor any breath to waste.
I will travel blindly forward and not once will I stall,
'Til I have crossed the threshold of my eternal fall.

Speak not of frailty, old age or tears.
Speak only of the spirit that brings forth fresh the years.
The medley of the universe, its sweetness enriches,
A rare unseen embroidery of heavenly stitches,
The trees undress ever so slowly for winter,
Their gold and crimson let me always remember,
In the frost of all my latter years when movement slows and stalls,
I will keep these old fond memories of my eternal fall.

Speak not of losses or of sorrow,
Dwell not in the past but on tomorrow.
And a future bright and golden with undiminished hues,
Grab your sad harmonica and learn a happy blues.
And if the future dims and fails,
The wind alas gone from your sails,
Let memory be the light to always be your guide,
Into the golden sunset of this your earthly ride.

So I'll jump prostrate and hearty before this pile of fallen leaves,
Sing my own off key tune of bringing in the sheaves.
Rest in the soft mounds that I am loath to rake,
Remembering when my walking was such a piece of cake.
The reds, the yellows, the blazing torches,
The cool last remnants of summer scorches.
I mark and I remember it all,
So that I can keep the wonder in me,
Of my eternal fall.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

LOOKING FOR TOMORROW

LOOKING FOR TOMORROW

Looking for tomorrow, amidst the wreckage of the day,
Here somewhere amidst the trials that life has sent my way.
Looking for a rose that grows not overgrown by thorns,
Sifting through the rubble in a soul that's grown forlorn.

Pleading for an answer, I go crawling on my knees,
Treading water by my boat that's capsized on the seas.
Trying to find a purpose, trying to say yes,
Trying to find a sliver of long lost happiness.

The evening tide is easy, most times the nightfall calms,
Sleep descends like a blessed friend, wraps me in its balm.
I go floating somewhere on a little death, somewhere out in space.
On a cloud of Klonopin, I am lost without a trace.
When morning sends Aurora like a vision across the plains,
I shake off sleep and sometimes weep that day has come again.

Looking for a purpose, now that life is free lance,
Now that I am all alone as day begins its dance.
My love begins his long, hard day, complete with long commute,
And I am here all by myself, with a lonesome attitude,
The brain cells they have died and walking is a chore,
I drive myself short distances, perhaps to the grocery store.
But ennui lurks in every corner, so it's radio and TV,
And music on the stereo, whatever comes to me.

Perhaps the existentialists were right, and life intrinsic has no meaning,
We recreate our own lives daily, once more now with feeling.
So I sit and fill this screen with words, listen to the chirping birds,
Hope that someday someone will take the time to read,
The words that spill onto my page, a massive molten bleed.
Sometimes a trickle, sometimes erupting, like a glorious Mt. Saint Helens.
At times I don't know what to say, at times resort to nonsense.
It's the way I choose of staying sane, confronting every peril and pain,
Each lost and lonely labored breath, leads inexorably to death.
The only question in my mind that spins,
Is how to spend the interim.
I recreate myself each day, with the words I write and the things I say,
Take my daily happy pills and try to forestall sorrow,
Turning over brand new leaves, looking for tomorrow.

Looking for tomorrow, at last my love is home,
A kiss and then a cuddle, and then we lie alone.
Time for the cloud of Klonopin to wrap me in its sheets,
The boat of life it floats ashore and it anchors at my feet.
I fall asleep in a bed of roses alas untouched by thorns,
Sifting through my dreams that fall, noisy as a newborn.
It's sometimes a cloud of sleep benign, sometimes a nap of nightmares,
The soil of the subconscious sends terror up the stairs.
Up the stairs and sometimes creeping stealthily up the spine,
A most malicious mauling by a troupe of valentines.

Pleading for an answer, to send the demons on their way,
It's a tricky exorcism, fraught with much dismay.
It's getting harder to find that purpose, harder to say yes,
Stubbornly I sift and cling to my sliver of happiness.
Amidst the autumn of my life that echoes fast its sorrow,
Turning over every leaf, looking for tomorrow.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OCTOBER BREEZE

OCTOBER BREEZE

Not a fan of global warming,
But I love these Indian summer days.
When the air blows bright with promise,
And the trees, a panoply of color sway.

A couple months before the winter snows,
Autumn in full bloom she blows,
Before smoke curls from neighbors' chimneys,
I rejoice in the October breeze.

And grateful breathe in life so sweet,
A hopeful never ceasing treat.
If you are as wise as me,
Believe in God’s eternity,
And other lives that pass unseen,
That flicker grand across the screen,
My radar tuned and piercing,
As the clear crisp autumn sky.
Give me a few more days like these,
And a happy man I’ll die.

Once in dreams I sailed the ocean,
Once in dreams I sailed the deep,
And my dream turned into a nightmare,
Bruised and broken was my sleep.

When I woke the heat index had peaked
And at great long last my fever broke.
My mother, she appeared beside me,
In the puffy clouds she rose and spoke.
On a mythic hillside, in the hallowed air,
I could see her clear as day and feel her spirit everywhere.
She said welcome sweet son, to life everlasting,
To the land of rest and sacred song.
It was the moment I’d been waiting for,
My wretched whole life long.

Yet something still was out of place,
As I beheld my mother's face,
The clouds they parted and I could see,
The world below was calling me.
Once more I regained composure,
Forced back tears, began to smile,
Saw it was not yet time for closure
For me to walk that long last mile.
  
Still I managed one more time to forestall paradise,
My mother said, my son go back.
I heeded well her sage advice,
Fell back to earth through heaven’s crack.
Landed back in that womb of sleep,
Found the vision that I lacked,
There upon that hillside steep.

The wisdom from that dream hard won,
I woke beneath a welcoming sun,
To find a Fate I thought so cruel,
Yielded me to autumn’s cool.
The bright of gold and crimson leaves,
The beauty of the season blazed,
A time for bringing in the sheaves,
Here in my star-kissed dwindling days.

Not a fan of what we’ve done to our sweet Mother Earth.
But I love these Indian summer days that echo with rebirth.
A panoply of colors sweet that thrill me to the core,
The first time in a long time I have felt my spirit soar.

This fine and princely kingdom, this bright and bitter place,
The colors all of the blessed fall, this brief respite of grace.
A couple months before the winter snows,
The autumn in full bloom she blows.
Before smoke curls from neighbors' chimneys,
I rejoice in the October breeze.

--Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED