A.M.

 A.M.

Eyes open and dreams flee

Rain beats against the glass

Why is life not ever kind

To a tie-dyed dreamer like me

Eyes open

Rapid eye movement

Diminishing like rain

While remnants of that dapper man

Flashed in the back of my brain

Why is life not ever kind

To a tie-dyed dreamer like me

Wrinkled sheets and pounded, pushed in pillows

Limbs that ache for human touch arise

Morning DJs relay the weather

In clear resonant tones 

Amid the aches and pains of early morning 

The universal sound of human moans

Eyes open and dreams flee

Rain beats against the glass

Why is life not ever kind

To a tie-dyed dreamer like me.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

HAD A WEIRD DREAM

HAD A WEIRD DREAM

Had a weird dream

Got lost in the woods at a funeral.

The rain it poured.

The sun it didn't shine.

Don't know if the funeral

Was someone else's or mine.

Had a weird dream,

The same one really.

I know that may sound kind of silly.

Lost my car in a parking lot

Some five hundred or so miles long,

That was one hell of a camouflaged parking spot,

I must have parked it very wrong.

Or perhaps my feeble mind forgot.

Helped a young man and his girlfriend

Find their car when I found mine at last,

Only to find myself low on gas.

Not only was the dream scary,

The dream was downright strange,

There was one lone alpaca,

Who sat up, shook my hand,

And addressed me by my name.

He was no help with the cars though,

For he was too distraught,

It was a funeral after all,

And he was laden with sorrow.

He is a pack animal first and foremost,

Perhaps an usher at the funeral,

A minister or a host.

He sat there and wept,

While we slipped away on the road to ruin,

Come back to me with a meaning,

My dear sweet Carl Jung.

Had a weird dream

Got lost in the woods at a funeral.

Sure wish the rain had stopped and the sun had shone,

That I hadn't felt so all alone.

Wish I knew what it was all about,

For it's left me feeling down and out.

Perhaps even a bit annoyed,

Ideas, Mr. Sigmund Freud?

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2015

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

LEPRECHAUNS

LEPRECHAUNS

For my partner it's a day tour,
Steeped in ancient history,
The fabled Giant's causeway.
The stunning cliffs of Moher.
The old familiar mystery
Of a land rich to explore.
For me another hotel room,
Nothing less and nothing more.

My only request strong coffee each morning,
And a sandwich each day for my strength.
Music to play on my Amazon cloud,
To enjoy and indulge in at length.
In my mind I visit Yeats's grave,
The shores of Connemara,
If, alas, my muscles would behave,
I'd be more than just a stowaway.
Salmon and eggs at the Bittersweet Cafe,
Lunch at the Queen of Tarts, 
Delectable, divine displays of the culinary arts.

Days of repose and music at the Harding Hotel,
Leisurely I passed the time,
And listened to the Christchurch bells
As on the hour they chimed.
The drinking far into the night
At Darkey Kelly's pub.
The sounds of live music playing,
In the din of raucous clubs.

Still this is Ireland, land of rainbows,
With pots of gold in between,
And it's only fair that while here on this green,
Leprechauns should dance in my dreams.

Leprechauns in floppy hats,
Jumping like Jehoshaphat,
Wake up, they say, the day is yours,
Do with it what you may,
Whether rainbow seeker or daytime sleeper,
The lessons are yours for the learning,
The tide of history turning.

Leprechauns preening in front of mirrors,
Leprechauns drawing ever nearer,
Leprechauns asking what-cha doin', 
Skating on the road to ruin,
Leprechauns asking with a nod and a wink,
Leprechauns leaping in the bathroom sink.

I too am a leprechaun, leaping in one place,
These fantasies are of my making,
A Parkinsonian with a frozen face,
Whether still or occasionally shaking..
My only request to be left alone,
With a sandwich, my coffee and tunes,
Still this is Ireland and at night in my dreams,
The leprechauns lightly leap over the moon.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

POOLS OF MYSTERY

POOLS OF MYSTERY

Pools of mystery, they reach out from the deep,
Enter my silent portals of sleep.
Water comes rushing, it gushes and pours,
I drown in the current, swiftly and sure.

Pools of mystery, they know my sad history,
Tears on my pillow, the remnants of woes,
Unfathomable how I made it through those,
They tug at my life boat, they send me slowly reeling,
Like the vertigo that spins the bed beneath the ceiling.
Like a flowering plant, an overgrown wisteria,
It climbs the trellis, this nameless fear, this brutal, cold hysteria.

Pools of vaunted mystery, in puddles at my feet,
Cold and frigid, the glacier, the ice, heralding defeat,
A fatal, final splash,  a most resounding crash,
The cops they come with night sticks and shut down my mirthful bash.
Never one to take a chance, nor with the devil to flirt or dance.
I only party in my dreams, the nightmares into which I dive.
Headfirst like a kamikaze, they make me feel alive,
And sometimes sorrow, sometimes glory, they lurk and stay behind,
Pools of mystery, stone cold history, messing with my mind.

Where are your days of glory, my son,
See what all your sad hubris has wrought.
All in your youth that you worked and you slaved for,
What little peace of mind your currency has bought.
The questions they rise and they torment a brain,
You wonder if you're going insane,
What led you to this stifled life, where once you raised your voice,
To leave you such a wretched soul, lost without a choice.
Was it just a sad, blind game of unrelenting chance.
An overdose of pesticides, that stopped your youthful dance.
Was it some sin from out your past, that left you sinking sure and fast?
Was it predestined in the womb, was there never any wiggle room?

You gaze up at the tall trees, pleading for answers,
While the cells in your substantial nigra perish like a cancer.
Metastatic, evil, the brain death it goes spreading,
Swift as an assassin, intent on your beheading.
I want a scapegoat, want revenge, I want someone to blame,
I'm standing with my notepad, quietly taking names,
In handwriting that I cannot read, sick of playing useless games,
That hold no promise of fruition, nothing but voodoo and intuition,
And lofty calls for my surrender, haughty calls from the depths of my soul.
Emptiness that hearkens and hastily eats me whole.

I fall from off the mountain steep, into the precipice mighty and deep.
Drowning and floundering in the rushing sea of the helpless tears I weep.
Most times sorrow, sometimes glory, they lurk and stay behind,
Pools of mystery, stone cold history, messing with my mind.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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

FLOATING ABOVE GROUND

FLOATING ABOVE GROUND

Ever the stickler for the smallest detail,
I listen to the warning sounds,
Like a boat lets out its billowing sail,
Floating like air above the ground.

I am not in heaven nor in hell,
But between the two, caught in the crossfire,
Of my angels and demons that wish me well.
That leave me to traverse this high wire.

I traverse it at my leisure, lost among the ashes,
Of the cities that once gave me pleasure,
The memories that live as brilliant flashes.
They burn and then the flame it ebbs,
Not knowing the road, its curves and its bends.
Like the intricacies of a spider web,
The Teflon hold of my foes and my friends,
Burning the candle at both ends.

I flew too high and peaked too soon,
My soul it plummets from the height of the moon,
And lands somewhere in foreign soil,
Engulfed in a merciless trap
My only pay for all my toil is falling off the map.

Where no one calls and no one comforts,
They dare not to inquire,
Whether my travels have yielded heavenly bliss
Or the torment and terror of hellfire.

Never the gambling man, ever the miser,
Always the foolish and never the wiser,
I wait in my torrential bucket of rain,
My hot coal crazy of emasculating pain,
Crying out for just the cusp of an answer,
The worm in my brain, the cogwheel, the cancer.

I hover so quietly you can barely hear,
My eyes well too quietly to release a tear,
But I am crying on my knees,
Weeping for the man I used to be
Before the devastation blunt and brittle,
That wounds complete my selfish pride
And all my dreams belittles.

I hovered so quietly, you scarce could hear me disappear,
Into the firelight of a lost horizon, into the tortured hemisphere.
I disappeared without a trace, without a wayward sound,
Lost in space between heaven and earth,
Floating above ground.

-Bruce Potts
Coopyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED