PEAKS AND VALLEYS

PEAKS AND VALLEYS

How like me, how like us all,
To forget our life before the Fall,
To keep the memory of each mistake,
To mind the dregs and forget the great.

I once held a sleeping bird in my arm,
Fragile and so very sweet,
It trembled lost for just awhile,
And then surrendered to its sleep,

I once rescued a teddy bear,
At least that's what they tell me.
A teddy bear being tossed by bullies,
I did my best to set it free.

Still sometimes I feel so worthless,
Fodder for the cobwebs and the dark black alleys.
How like me, how like us all,
To forget the peaks and mind the valleys. 

I once helped a drunken man to his shuffling feet,
His body crumpled sleeping in the middle of my street.
I gave him a lift to a 7-Eleven, he called his son on the pay phone.
Hopefully he was taken in and found his way back home.
Some darkness falls in every life, with grace its humble midwife,
We remember the sordid brothels, forget the bright boutiques,
How like me, how like us all, to cling to the valleys, forget the peaks.

Now I am lost to Parkinson's and a slave to failing health,
A bully of another sort who operates with a wondrous stealth.
Who creeps around the back alleys here in my mind,
Crippling the body, with methodical decline,
Counting down the days with an arm as rigid as a pipe,
Lucky for the disappearing art of committing words to type.

I have some high school glory days that I vaguely recall,
A college life of some achievement, friends still with me through it all,
A lover who I'll cherish until the day I perish.
Sometimes, though, the good times go by in such a blur,
I remember my sweet mother, I still can treasure her.
Still sometimes i'm so bereft that I can barely stand,
Painful memories weave a web, I am trapped within the strands.
When thoughts are so undisciplined, they compel a soul to kneel,
And conjure up a deep, dark future, gray and funereal.
Like the layers of an onion they begin to slowly peel.

How like me, how like us all, to strike ourselves upon the head,
To weep as in a deep, dark sleep, to wish that we were dead.
To remember every lost ideal and every second wind forget,
To always ponder all the things that we have not done yet.

I once held a sleeping bird in my arms,
Fragile and so very sweet,
It shook with a mighty tremor,
Then sighed and fell asleep.
When it awoke, it flew away,
High into the clouds of a brand new day.

Why then do I still feel worthless,
Fodder for the cobwebs and the dark black alleys.
How like me, how like us all,
To forget the peaks and mind the valleys.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN

NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN

I tried to be a hero, but got strangled by the cape,
Tried to be a writer, to whip those words in shape.
I tried to be a good man, but my image was besotted,
Tried to be a gardener but my fruits and veggies rotted.

I tried to be a light in darkness, but my flame blew out and died,
Tried to always tell the truth, they never caught me in a lie,
For four long years I labored, churning out the verse,
And I never missed a single week, for better or for worse.
I tilled my Facebook page with passion,
Filled with the beauty of pictures and fashion.
Tried never to let the fruit of my labor become disgraced or rotten,
It was the lengths I went to not to be forgotten.

I found out it was all for naught, this fierce and tender battle I fought,
I was not the man I thought I was, my reputation sold and bought,
Now I sit all forlorn, solemnly pondering mortality,
And I want to ask this wretched world just what the hell was wrong with me.

I tried to be a teacher once, the students did not learn,
I tried to be permissive, the next time I tried stern,
Neither made my pupils like me or mind me in the least.
I was at best a joke to them, my class a raucous beast,
A wild and woolly mammoth that alas I could not tame,
If they still remember me, I'm sure it's with disdain.

I tried my hand at radio, did what I thought was a decent show,
Let a big city programmer break my spirit and drive me from the overnights,
Let him fill me with self-doubt, with his pointed critiques and his slights.
I got a job proofreading transcripts, did radio on the weekends,
Said goodbye to the extravaganza and all of my midnight friends.
But no one really missed me on the radio, at the end of the day I was again alone,
Thirty-eight with the world as a weight that sank me like a stone.
An overachiever in high school and college, had never held hands or been kissed,
Until I found my man and settled down, did I finally get my wish.
The same year that i found my love, I also found disease,
One long in the making, brain cells dying over time,
Perhaps Fate had it in for me, I could feel the bells in the distance chime.
Somehow though I kept my nose to the grindstone and plowed on through the storm,
My only real success in life was the love that kept me warm.

I tried to be a lover and I think I found my calling,
After years of dragging this carcass around,
After the false starts and the stalling.
Still I want to change the world, to keep myself from falling.
To rise again with pen in hand and trusty keyboard lying in wait,
I want to be more than flesh and blood that will soon fade and dissipate.
I want to be a hero, but I will never soar with this flapping cape,
I want to be a poet, but will never whip these words in shape;
So let the fruits of my love for you live in your heart forever,
My poems will wither away and die, my repartee not clever.
Let me take refuge in your arms and in your heart once I am gone;
Let my name be on your lips with the coming of the final dawn.
Try never to let the fruits of our love be tarnished or grow rotten,
It's the new lengths I will go to not to be forgotten.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: My autobiography, condensed and set to rhyme!  This poem may seem a downer, but actually all the false starts and what I thought at the time were disappointments led me to the life I lead today. My old radio friends and mentors Debra Leigh and Sue Herlihy-Dischel are still a presence in my life. So are my two cherished friends Suzanne Lee and Jeni Williams from my proofreading days, who I have celebrated in verse on this blog. Life is as good as it can be with Parkinson's disease. And of course, I have my partner Kyle, who I dedicate this poem to. The glass is definitely more than half full.

DO NOT LEAVE ME NOW

DO NOT LEAVE ME NOW

The water caresses the peaceful shore,
As summer begins its long slow fade.
Harp strings vibrate with the balmy wind of evening
Before night falls in its mad tirade.

Life is hard for everyone so how can I complain?
What care have I of this mortal coil and all of this earthly pain?
Sometimes you lose and misfortune it wins,
But the hardships they are just as punishing now as they were then.
Trials come and they go, it's too late to ask why,
There is no peace yet in the residue of all my days gone by.

The dog in my lap looks up eagerly,
Laps up the wine I've spilt on the porch cushion.
As through my mind the past and all its pain comes pushing.
His inquisitive brown eyes melt my loneliness into the sunset,
Try to banish my burgeoning tears and silence my regret.
Later on, he will run by the seashore, chase apparitions, bark at the moon.
Welcome music to these ears, as time so dear slips away so soon.
It's a long road I've traveled for this final fling.
So I try to enjoy, just sit sipping wine and remembering.

My love he watches from the door,
He is worried and I can tell.
The pain of the flesh is bad enough,
But recrimination is hell.
I can remember every bad misstep, every secret sin.
I cannot yet forgive myself the places that I've been.
It's a fight we all must fight alone, a duel to the death,
To prove this life was more than just a stale parade of wasted breath.
I used to be a conjurer, I used to have the spell,
But my powers are deserting me and my thirst it will not quell.
There was once a method in my madness, once a road map home.
Now there's only sadness, and we all must die alone.

Long ago when I was young,
My life a song still half unsung.
When there was still time to remake the past,
To fortify old dreams.
To build a fortress that would last,
I could outrun the pain, go twice as fast,
Now it has me in its grip,
Into the gap and the chasm I slip.

Long ago before disease set its claws upon me
I could summon quiet into my nights like an ocean fog,
Breathe it through my pores.
A resilience that buoyed me through sunshine and through downpours.
Sweet comfort reigned and sang me lullabies,
Brought cool water to my feverish brow,
Halted my pain and stifled my cries, 
I pray those lullabies do not leave me now.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2013
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED