CHIMNEY SMOKE

 CHIMNEY SMOKE

Some things naturally make you feel warm 

Blazing orange rugs

Steaming hot chocolate

Friends and relations huddled in front of a fire

Wish I were home

Where the smiles came freely

There were always reasons for the changing seasons 

When I looked in my mother's eyes

Living in the city where the faces look so cold

Everyone checks his watch

Obsessed by appointments and numbers of units sold

I want to shoot holes in these damn neon signs

I want to lay down

This heavy burden and this yoke, 

To smell the smell of chimney smoke

To watch its warmth curl into the brisk air

Some things naturally make you feel warm

Wish I were home where the smiles came freely

There were always reasons for the changing seasons 

When I looked in my mother's eyes.

-Bruce Potts

Copyright 2024

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SUNSHINE, MOONSHINE, LIFELINE

SUNSHINE, MOONSHINE, LIFELINE

My friends, they are my sunshine,
My lover, he's my moonshine,
My spirit it's my lifeline,
To sing myself to sleep.

How I love the sunbeams,
The quiet warmth of the old salty men and women
Who pass the day at the old swanky hotel.
I love them for their wisdom and the way that they raise hell,
And most of all I love them for taking me in,
When I hadn't a hope or a trace of a friend.
I think of hobnobbing  with all of the rascals I've known,
What a privilege it is to live to be old.
It's easy to say what's on your mind,
When people already think you're insane,
To no longer suffer fools gladly, to pounce on the inane.
My friends they comfort in the deep imposing winter snows,
And then something sweet and familiar inside just glows.

How I love the moonbeams,
The dark mysterious tapestry of my lover,
His powerful prowess beneath the covers.
My comrade-in-arms, the warmth of another's flesh,
He always keeps it interesting, always keeps it fresh.
And when all I really have the energy for,
Is to lay my head in surrender on his shoulder.
My love, he always understands,
Content to sit and hold my hand.
How I love the moonbeams.
That shine in the generous eyes of this man.

How I love the lifeline that ties me to this earth.
Grateful for my day of birth to parents who loved me
And an older brother who became a friend,
Who in childhood days would shove me.
How grateful to the doctors who tend to my disease,
Grateful to the God who made me, who hears my every plea.

How I love the lifeline that ties me to this world so fair,
That comforts my aloneness, answers all my prayers.
The spirit of the universe that every living being shares.
The lullaby of our existence, such a strange and soft subsistence.

A lifeline to real time and a lifeline to those in cyberspace,
A daily dose of mercy and a dollop of God's grace.
A firm reminder I am cared for, cherished over miles,
The cyber friends who pen me notes and send me private smiles.

It's nothing false or counterfeit, just a natural triumvirate,
The gifts that pour like fine vintage wine, of sunshine, moonshine, lifeline.
Thankful for them each and all, they always answer when I call,
And always in the nick of time, to dress the wound and brace the fall.
To lend their humor and their grace and put the joy back on my face.

My friends, they are my sunshine,
My lover, he's my moonshine,
My spirit it's my lifeline,
To sing myself to sleep.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED