Tags

Beatles, poetry

Turn off your mind, relax and float upstream
The movement you need is on your shoulder
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Living is easy with eyes closed
Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me
Dream, sweet dreams of you
As long as I have you near me
You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead

And when I awoke I was alone
I wake up to the sound of music
And now my life has changed in oh so many ways
You left me standing here a long time ago
Been away so long I hardly knew the place
There beneath the blue suburban skies
It seems like years since it’s been here
It’s been a long time, now I’m coming back home

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Is there anybody going to listen to my story?
Half of what I say is meaningless
I’ll tell you something I think you’ll understand
It took me so long to find out, but I found out
Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about
The farther one travels the less one knows
Nothing’s gonna change my world

I know what it is to be sad
I’m so tired, I haven’t slept a wink
Good night, sleep tight

Leaves

Tags

autumn, fatherhood, poetry

The earth, at an angle
of just twenty-three degrees
takes this hemisphere
away from the sun, carrying
its warmth to the south
Maple leaves, knowing their time
has come, no longer
hope for youthful chlorophyll
Seeing their purpose
fulfilled, they fall, sacrificing 
themselves, feeding their children.

Slowly the closer

Tags

baseball, poetry

Slowly the closer 
comes to the set position
signs exchanged, nodding,
shaking him off- no,
let’s go with old #1.
It’s what he’s there for;
never get beat on your 
second-best pitch.

He checks the runner,
not really interested-
his man’s at the plate.

Slowly, lazily, starting
his windup, he reaches back
and POP! the catcher’s
glove explodes, the ball conjured 
by some sorcery. Strike three.

Morrow Mountain

Tags

fatherhood, Morrow Mountain, poetry

Once grand, prouder
than your neighbors to the west,
the Appalachians,
Thousands of millenia
have washed you away,
year by year, by hurricanes,
thunderstorms, showers,
just as Lao Tzu said they would 
not long ago, only
forty centuries.

Now you stand a mere
nine hundred feet, not even
really a “mountain”
You may have lost your
altitude in your old age,
but the children still marvel
at your quartz, your spiders,
and the millions of species
that call your face home.
They still complain, however,
you’re still too tall to climb.

Luckiest Man

Tags

ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, baseball, Jennifer, Lou Gehrig, poetry, Rob Holland, White Sox

Sox up, 3-1
Top of the seventh inning
I sit, watching, when
I should be doing ten miles
My spirit says “Go!”
but diastolic preload 
has me on the shelf
Konerko manning first base
Dotel on the mound
Twins committed three errors
The kids are napping
after getting up early
to see their Easter baskets

I think of old friends 
who won’t rise on the third day
All of the mistakes
and dreams I let die, blindly
I think of being
at Old Comiskey, watching
Carlton Fisk taking 
batting practice, launching balls
into the upper deck

Konerko takes the throw
there’s two out, nobody on

I think of Lou Gehrig
covering first for the Yanks
as his synapses 
melted away, leaving him
slumped on the dugout
steps as Tigers fans
gave a standing ovation

Now on to the eighth
I hear a little voice call
“Dada!” I look up
and see my wife there
and I realize
I am the luckiest man
on the face of the earth.