JOURNEY'S END

JOURNEY’S END

I am weary to my bones, thinking of leaving, going home.
Surrounded by companions and loving friends,
I rise once more and take my bow, here at journey’s end.

My spirit cannot be contained, it longs to soar in the morning rain.
Unfettered and trusting, alive in the mystery.
The stream of a consciousness, the thread of a history.
My spirit it refused to break, and I refused to bend.
But the angels they came and took me away
At the end of my life’s longest day, to complete my journey’s end.

Purple horizon, golden glen, places I have never been.
Soaring ever higher o’er the rocky mountain.
Like some skilled and awesome bird,
Marveling at the unmatched word,
Showering me like a splendid fountain.

All that I could hope for, all that I could pray,
Was mine at last to treasure at the end of that longest day.
My earthly journey fraught with cares, my heavenly one a godsend,
That came to me so happily and eased my journey’s end.

The friends that came and knelt by my side,
And with tears but triumph in their eyes,
Sent me spinning in the eventide, in this final glorious ride.
Up to the zenith, up to the top, to a place that the earth in its slumber forgot.
But my soul it remembered and cried out with joy and freedom from its doubt.
I felt the holes in His hands and feet and like Thomas learned the lesson sweet.
The pleasure of blind faith and the sweet relief of calm belief.
And I was swept into God’s sweet arms, safe from turmoil and from harm.

I am weary, so alone, ready for my passage home,
Surrounded by my lover and my precious friends.
Set to rise and grace the skies, here at last at journey’s end.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IN MY MEMORY

IN MY MEMORY

In my memory, the tarnished fragments of you linger,
Like some sad, sweet melody from a torchy nightclub singer.
The times we lived, the year you died, stretch across a burnt out field,
The times I stood my stubborn ground, the times you forced my soul to yield.

In my memory, the good times in a freeze frame, the bad all but abandoned,
A heart at once at peace with loss, but empty as a desert canyon.
Who says the dead leave and go anywhere once they leave our side?
You are a friend to the howling wind, you keep the prairie satisfied.
And though the years pass all too soon, like the fragments of a quarter moon,
They round up all my tears and lasso them to stillness,
Calm their jagged crystal edges, rescue them from willfulness.

In my memory, the decades spin into the cyclone,
Of friends I know will not return untouched unto this earthly home.
The time opens out in wide expanse to the cosmos and its hallowed dance.
Somehow the survivors lay their burden down and somehow carry on,
A little wiser, a little numb, from the place they’d once begun.
My memory the great sifter of the sands through which I’ve come.

It’s not the dead I sing for, but the living they have left behind,
Those who must make sense somehow of Fate’s great handiwork.
The search of a Sherlock for a clue to the Maker and his rhyme,
My memory is failing, in the labyrinth of His bread and holy wine.

In my memory, the gleaming torchlight of you lingers,
And for awhile you will remain, wrapped around my memory’s fingers.
Until we merge and then converge, soldiers of the dust,
And others they are left behind to bow their heads and ponder us.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CLOTHESLINES, LAUGH LINES, AND CROW'S FEET

CLOTHESLINES, LAUGH LINES AND CROW’S FEET

Hang another pair of jeans out upon the clothesline,
Try as I might, they are far too tight, and that suits me just fine.
I cannot wear them anymore, my waistline keeps expanding,
I guess I’ve eaten way too much from the stress that life keeps handing.
Each day the world takes a chunk of my soul as it grows more demanding.

Strangely enough I still feel happy and far from incomplete,
I wear my laugh lines and my age spots well, I celebrate my crow’s feet.
Those strange sad wrinkles that sag with muted flair around my eyes,
Some say are a province of a soul both sad and wise.
I claim them proudly as my own, a trajectory that my life has drawn,
All the twisted weed strewn lanes down which my years have gone.
Time that’s lost to me forever to the ravages of my memory,
Time that grates and fascinates, as both a friend and enemy.

It’s clotheslines that are sagging for the outworn garb that does not fit,
It’s time to chill, to call Good Will, to make a good, clean break of it.
It’s laugh lines that are forming around these stoic lips,
The years have come and done their thing, yet still my spirit yearns to sing.
And I would not trade those laugh lines, though my youth they do eclipse.

It’s crow’s feet come like a coffin nail, to hammer home the truth.
Some things were not meant to last and one of these is youth.
I never shall be young again, the wrinkles they are everywhere.
The plastic surgeons all be damned, I guess I just don’t care.
With each passing year of time, my inner life grows more sublime,
And I guess the nugget I have learned is that I have richly earned,
Each sure, slow progressing sign of age that spreads with fervor across my face,
Clotheslines, laugh lines, crow’s feet, those outward signs of inner grace.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS

It was not a high crime, it was just a misdemeanor.
So I ate a dried apricot from your bag of trail mix.
You don’t even like them, I could have been a whole lot meaner,
I could have taken an almond, or perhaps a pretzel stick.

It was not a high crime., it was just a misdemeanor.
I ran over your cat with the lawn mower,
She was so fast I didn’t see her.
And besides I would think you would keep her indoors,
Or at least upon her leash.
With me out operating heavy machinery,
You’re quite the one to preach.

It was not a high crime, it was just a misdemeanor.
So I drove your precious Acura into a snow bank.
The snow was cold, the car was old, unwieldy like a tank.
It was really not my fault at all, I blame it all on my disease,
The Parkinson’s, the cancer, I can’t remember which of these.
Perhaps it was the Alzheimer’s I’m really not for sure.
I have lots and lots of strange diseases for which there is no cure.

It was not a high crime, it was just a misdemeanor.
So I set the house on fire with my popcorn in the microwave.
You could have been a tad more gentle, you could have been a tad more brave.
Instead of fuming over losing a full eight hours of sleep,
And a ton of your designer clothes that were burnt and were not cheap.

It was a high crime not a misdemeanor, to ever say goodbye.
You were the sweetest man I ever knew with such beautiful blue eyes.
And now I sit a man alone in the prison of my years,
Shackled by my loneliness, condemned to a torrent of tears.

It was a high crime not a misdemeanor, and now I’ve learned my lesson.
With your boyfriend’s trail mix you shouldn’t go a ‘ messin.’
Or at least you do it on the sly and do not go confessin’.
Here I sit in a dreadful snit and I’m sorry I forgot,
To drive myself to Wal-Mart and buy my own dried apricots.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

KEEPING SCORE

KEEPING SCORE

After all I’ve done for you, why can’t you do this for me?
We bargain with God or the universe for some sense of parity,
Yet sure as the bubbles in my tub that sometimes splash upon the floor,
Fate is murky and indifferent, and does not believe in keeping score.

God is not a referee in a tired old baseball game,
Like your favorite singer who you think knows you so well,
God can be a diva who scarcely knows your name.
And Fate can be a miscreant who damns your soul to hell.
We may as well not fight it, sometimes love goes unrequited.
Sometimes in love, one partner gives less,
Sometimes in love one partner gives more,
There’s little to be gained from the act of keeping score.

We fly for awhile on the wings of a smile, all is wine and roses.
But we never reach the promised land just like the punished Moses.
We reach home plate far too late, gasping out our final pleas,
After all I’ve done for you, why can’t you do this for me?

And yet it never works that way, we never fully understand.
God is not a street peddler, you cannot bargain with the man.
We live our lives with a child-like faith that borders on entitlement,
Then cry like babies in the crib when our days have all been spent.
All because we never learned when our feet first hit the floor,
God’s not an umpire in the clouds involved in keeping score.

I’ve watched friends come, I’ve watched them go, I’ve often questioned why,
Wondering if I’ll be a bargainer when it comes my time to die.
Will I ascend the heavens screaming it’s not fair?
Will I accept it stoically, with a calm and graceful flair?
Only God knows this for sure and he frankly doesn’t care.
He has bigger fish to fry than the meager death or life of me,
The sooner I accept it, the sooner I shall be set free.
No one knows the end of the dance, only Fate or random chance,
No one knows what waits in store.
Life is murky, life’s a crap shoot, life does not keep score.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE GREAT TENT SALE IS OVER

THE GREAT TENT SALE IS OVER

The great tent sale is over, wave goodbye to the auctioneer.
Say farewell to the unicorn and the rugged mountaineer.
They have all gone spinning across the spheres,
Somewhere out in the Milky Way,
Like some lonely vagrant year, like some weary, wasted day.

The great tent sale is over, bring down the lonesome canopy,
Yield to the strange cover of clouds that have silenced you and me.
Wave bye-bye to the man with one arm,
Who beguiled with his clever remarks and his charm.
And rode his unicycle over the moon,
He shan’t be back here anytime soon.

He has gone to the hinterlands somewhere far away.
Asleep in the land of poppies and psychedelic hay.
Ditto the double jointed fellow, the woman whose skin was a ghastly yellow.
Who fell victim to the drugs that shot through the needle,
Just like the midget who shot through the cannon,
Into the atmosphere, coming in for a landing.

The great tent sale is over, on to the next town,
With a brand new cast of characters that will not let you down.
The gap-toothed straw haired lanky lad
Who juggles sparklers and entertains.
The fearless loathsome hell of a hag,
Who does amazing things with pig brains.

The great tent sale is over, it’s back to school and back to work,
Or for those of us on a long, strange trip, it’s back to Planet Earth.
Say farewell to the painted ponies and the swirling carousel,
Leave your tarnished pennies in the bottom of the well.
And say a prayer for all of us in this freak show on this barren sod,
For there go you and there go I, but for the grace of God.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WHIRLWINDS OF FURY

WHIRLWINDS OF FURY

Whirlwinds of fury, whirlwinds of dust,
Whirlwinds of failure covering us.
Like the lonesome Sahara, we are desolate and wild,
Renegade, petulant, just like a child.

Whirlwinds of fury, we are lost in the blur of drifting sand,
As it blows like the snowflakes across this barren land.
Too quick to fathom, too fine to see.
Whirlwinds of fury, engulfing you and me.

I never thought I’d say it, but I’ve lost my appetite,
For the howl of the coyote in the western skies,
Blanketing the night.
For the reassuring prick of the cactus,
The cowboy and his rope.
I’m here in hell without you,
Out of time and out of hope.

Like a shuffling unkempt mental case,
With a month of beard growth on my face.
I’ve abandoned all pretense of knowing how to live.
I’ve nothing left to offer you, no more dreams to give.

My eyes are tearing in the dark,
Remembering the cruel remark
He set off like a firecracker and then commenced to run.
Whirlwind of fury, blotting out the sun.

Whirlwinds of fury, blotting out time,
Past, present, future no longer are mine,
Death like a harpy inhabits my soul,
Waiting for his close up, nose in the air,
Pimping for the camera with a nonchalant flair.

Whirlwinds of fury whip through the canyon,
Then over the prairie, the topsoil goes sailing.
Somewhere around midnight the fire of the cannon,
Blows me apart, leaves me hopelessly flailing.

Whirlwinds of fury, whirlwinds of dust,
Whirlwinds of doubting where once there was trust.
Like the lonesome Sahara, we are desolate and wild,
Renegade, upstart, just like a child.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED