Make it stand out.

Friday, November 1, 2019In the group I was taken aback each loop:He asked if I wanted to talk about my son’s drinking. He pushed me to talk about dad. He asked how I felt about Lisa. He got overly angry with me when I repeated myself. He’s not perfect. But I detect a pattern. It was when I got into Eric’s group that my relationship with him became difficult and eventually unworkable. Not much of a poem. I got angry at myself after the session. I started to feel my music is trash. I stopped myself from hurting my piece. I shut off the computerAn idea gut and gutter. If Sima has been the therapist I might have said I misunderstood her. There was at least one other time We locked horns. When he said that my son still lives at home It felt like a little put down attack. I corrected his statement, but alas and a lack  still If you will, there’s a lot here to make me feel uncomfortable. A therapy should reproduce some of the symptoms of which he says there were more than just the intrusive thoughts. He made a big deal of my drinking. Two drinks a night is not so muchAnd it wasn’t every night. True at parties I sometimes or usually drink more out of discomfort. Southern comfort in this northeastern city Is fit but it’s a pity I don’t drink bourbon. Thursday, October 31, 2019Rosemary and rhythm and rhyme To paraphrase Simon and Garfunkel’s time with a silent darkness, an old friend ofParsley partly cloudy today in this basement foray.There can be progress from this dank darkness.Goodbye my old friend. ***News from the dumpster:Too bad he didn’t give more bombs to Pakistan. It would be grand if all the third world blew each other up. There’s no such thing as scientific fact about nuclear fallout. Science is a left wing hoax. Just like that joke- you know the Chinese hoax about global heating. I’m heating up, heading in the White direction as I gird my loins plotting for my reelection. Win by all and any means means. I can be as mean and vile as any Viking monarch or king with a thing for a nasty smile. ****They who tote the coin of the realm depositing their coins, dollars and millions not at Helmsley’s helm but at weak little king dumpf’s palace. Alice saw  things less strange through the looking glass. What would that lass have said about those who tote the coin conjoining with con men enjoying their larceny which is not not only not a petty penny but is strictly on party lines. ***Just because he decidesto be a pathetic, dangerous, weak little king and a reality star. Has he gone too far?***The weal and welfare of our former friends is unimportant to dumpf. He’s no friend even of our farmers, his base in His baseless betrayal. ***He wants to be one of them dictatorial dictators or maybe a god. Odd he was a dem but now He’s a true Dem-hating gem of a demagogue. ***Now take two two times and for sure We’ll be In Sync bringing me back to 1995 Not on the Syrian border but in Germany which ironically may with France become the leaders of the new Western Order. ***Just makes your head hurt this mishmash gaslighting about coal and natural gases... Are they inert?Certainly is a lot of inertia. **** See what is directly in frontTo be perfectly blunt. Emily Blunt would have recited these lines better in Britain would have been Great... Britain but for Boris, but wasn’t available having had previous bookings. ***Institutionalized gangsterism Creates a prison even for the jailers All hail the chief barbarian rousing Raucous rifle-bearing militias dreaming of crosses burning at night. Arbeit mach frei. No lie he calls for civil war Tore the country apart. Would rather his people be deadThan a have a cleaner, fairer world instead. Glares and glows infernal red Maddening the remaining hours and hairs on my head. We are all heirs to this earth. To better times we will give birth. ****Help friend and stranger escape from dearth and need. In deed we will all soon be dedicated to better things, some medicated. ****Tired Obsessed with composing Although I did exercise throughout the day All day in the house. Quiet as a loud crowded doused but not soused as sousaphone in a sarousaphone band marching over the hot sands*** Parsley, sage this time their trio was incomplete as Thyme was in a bar boarded up by billy Barr Trying to rile and rally the Christian militias Wish us good luck as he stirs the racist religiously zealous plot. 

Monday, October 28, 2019

Will I win friends?

Depends... on how often I digress. 

What’s my theme?

Tell me this is not a dream. 

One poem for five minutes?

Or five poems a minute?

***

Oh what a mess. 

And yes, I digressed

Choosing to recite that night rather than play along on my horn. 

Sworn to 

Weigh in on areas neither black nor gray I’ve all manner of words 

colorful 

to sing with cats blue and orange red breasted birds. 

***

Here I am treating myself like a prisionero  

Exercise helped get me out of the casa

All good except for renewed enojado 

I’m impatient to finish mi Quinta Sinfonía 

Not enjoying el proceso tan mucho como en los últimos días y semanas. 

Quizás la razón es que he mencionado esta obra a algunas personas y ahora estoy siendo demasía prensión 

La misma situación con mi comercio de acciones 

La solución no es obvious

Sería ayudante si yo get out of the house more 

Siento constreñido because Beth is concerned about money 

Y he estado gastando mucho en comer out of the house 

No tengo destinaciones suficientes that are free. 

So here I am at Starbucks 

After a productive day. 

***

Longing to be what I used to think I could be but never really was. 

Curiosity good for my heart and head 

Is my quotidian bread. 

The right woman I wed. 

Was blocked

Now unlocked. 

Shocked?

This rant won’t pay the rent. 

This post postulates:

The past is good for depression. 

The future for anxiety. 

***

My stubborn desire to be what I was meant to be took me a long path 

sometimes scenic, sometimes yelling, hellbent with wrath. 

***

Oh my god. 

Sounds odd, said by an avowed atheist plodding on sod. 

***

Why do I want to perform?

What’s on a stage?

Undivided attention, a cessation of rage?

***

For years, over a decade 

I’ve been afraid. 

Afraid of this, afraid of that. 

Suddenly out of my silent muse 

Comes news:

Got over my fright, fear of returning to a stage 

At this stage 

I’m turning a page

****

I’ve worried and wanted 

Wanted endlessly and waited breathlessly. 

sometimes hypomanic, sedated, often elated. 

For the moment to rejoin the human race no longer feeling like an uptight disgrace. 

I’ve found my place. 

Placating everyone isn’t much fun.

As Sam Clemens said, “Don’t know the secret of success 

But sure know the secret to failure:

Trying to please everyone all the time.”

While not a crime against humanity

Like that pal of Sean Hannity

It doesn’t get you more sanity. 

Resulting in frustration’s profanity. 

****

***

Once I get into it, I’ll be inspired by an Inuit

Intuiting spreadsheets spectacular in the accounting vernacular. 

***

born to create. 

Don’t want to judge

Or fudge 

A flop being flip

At least as of late

I could be ok even if not great. 

***

Washington will o the wisps 

Just don’t give me any lip, critique or praise

I crave

both make me seek

solitude not necessarily in the nude in a cave. 

****

Doing a demo 

Having a demitasse with a young lass is more a fantasy less about being a dramaturge than with a demi Moore

Sure she looks more like my sister-in-law

My wife is more beautiful

My lovely, smart, grounded, realistic 

wife of thirty plus years who I often drove ballistic. 

I don’t want to study any more war or wages of moods nihilistic so I’m back to jokes and

Back to Wayne Shorter playing sax on Saturday 

So I went for a second opinion to once again attempt to clear my head. 

When I got back from the head, taking my med

Doc said, “you’re also short and getting on in years.”

Tell me something I don’t know, doc. 

The clock is a ticking. 

Time tells of wasted hours on Tic Toc. 

Having gotten through writer’s block 

Shock without awe

A couple of guffaws 

Now if only the quality could please me more I’d be solid as a rock. 

Unremitting standards kept me from playing at the Standard or even jazz standards in a band behind a bus. 

Always a fuss 

Neurotic and difficult 

Less so now. 

How come?

Less dumb and blind 

A clearer mind. 

I’m retired from unhappy careers. 

I love my wife of thirty years 

I drink wine and beers. 

Many things I couldn’t learn 

Bridges I did burn.  

Gimme home grown words any day. 

Get on with this little monologue of a soliloquy play. 

****

Instead of trashing my past 

It’s fast becoming a summing up 

Yup I’m an old geezer, a sneezer, a wheezing hopeful pleaser of jokes and endless words. 

It’s a torrent

It’s a flood 

Always trying 

Trying too hard. 

Couldn’t be natural and at ease. 

Can’t do that when you’re seeking to please. Tied myself in gorgeous Gordian knots.

****

By way of introduction 

Here I am reading my poems. 

I’ve got only five minutes. 

How do you choose?

First of all don’t make the audience snooze. 

Would Woody Allen have said “less is more?”

This line of thinking is a bore. 

***

Now retired life brings a beginning. 

each moment, each day, each echo toss of the dice, nice or not 

You never know but hot

Or cool it’s all school for thought 

Don’t let expectations get in the way. 

Why tell friends about my little poetry bash?

Is it unabashed bragging, boasting, seeking support from my cohort?

What again?

That word triggers old painful memories.

Words do do that...

I’ve been on the verge of canceling. 

I’ve given up on myself, sabotaged myself so many, many times. 

Is this different?

Different more so than exchanging bassoon for piano, singing for a loon. 

****

I’m smart 

I’m clever 

OMG 

Here I go blowing my own horn. 

Tooting that horn surely gets me into trouble when ego balloons bubble then burst

into tailspin in reverse. 

****

Happily we’re living more 

than a starving artist’s life pennywise and pound poor. 

***

I like to study and of course write. 

A great delight

The sounds of words as well as meaning 

enliven mornings and evenings. 

****

So what do you need to know in order to laugh with me?

I write music for free. 

I write plays infrequently. 

I write short stories plus tomes of poems. 

I’m fit 

Meditate 

Enjoy art especially from the caves 

Stave off  

Navel Gazing

Get on with my novel

In a saloon 

Having a Blue Moon. 

By the way, I sometimes played bassoon. 

As you know 

I festoon poems political with the satirical. 

***

Writing music at my computer. 

It’s good and guter. 

I used to sing a little 

Conducted students at school concerts 

Once in Carnegie Hall

Played there a lot when I was young in youth orchestras and at Avery Fischer, Alice Tully Tanglewood and Juilliard. 

You’d think I be more of a musician than a 

Word-smithing magician

sometimes bearded wannabe bard. 

Not hard to see 

I’m lucky too. 

***

No longer half, not quite whole 

Grandiose goals

Rocked on rocky shoals

***

Beckoning Brobdingnagian giants, Swiftly correcting it to Brobdingrag brimming with brimstone basically reconstructing a reckoning singing of long lost lists of lost lusts

****

Plagiarize and it will bring you down to size. 

Can’t I be more optimistic?

After all Rodney Dangerfield

Expertly handled words without getting the respect he felt would fortify his insatiable need 

A need I know well. Bottomless tell, a source for spring, a spring overflowing, endlessly growing, germinative no longer a hermit in it. 

***

What ?!

You want more confessions?

I was often hated, felt like a victim. 

It wasn’t him or her. 

No longer that strong lingering blur. 

Concurring: many mistakes I did make 

Trying to “fake it till I could make it” never my strategy. 

wanted to be perfect before I walked through the door. 

Sure 

I did the best I could. 

Would have done better with more humility, less burn out, more focus. 

Less hocus pocus. 

Endlessly flying obsessively and mildly terrifying locusts the locus of my libidinous credo

Couldn’t learn

Too defensive, too uptight, too much libido. 

Oh what I jerk I was. 

Now a healthier buzz

***

Wending my way back to my wayward self

In a calmer, happier place 

A space with friends. Thanks to them and family, amazing doctors and therapists and my best buddy oft 

helping me even out and about is the little bit of Zoloft 

I have less frequent painful intrusive thoughts about my failures and the people I’ve wronged 

Having prolonged self punishment far too long   

as though people intentionally misunderstood me...

... And I them. 

****

Be here now 

Ram Dad’s - oops.

Ram Das

“How Can I Help

Too  much input and not enough output. 

Not enough out. 

Out with the bad 

Be no longer a truffle sad. 

Though the balance doth change 

Not at all strange. 

As I reduce the amount held in 

I begin to feel lighter 

Less like a continually post exhausted PTSD fighter pulling an all nighter just to compulsively feel adequate 

Quit that kind of stinking thinking. 

It’s ten in the morning, thinking about drinking?!

***

I’m a proud dad of our industrious son. 

For fun he speaks Italian and a drop of French. 

He’s seeing a young woman who speaks French and is teaching her Italian. 

They’ve had three dates. 

She’d make a nice daughter-in-law. 

My jaw drops at how far ahead of myself I get. 

Let it drop. 

Let myself forget. 

***

The genus potus grotesque-us

US as in US!

The U. S. of A.

Was similar to the platypus. 

Instead of a duck bill

He left future generations with a huge bill. 

***

President Warren 

Undid the damage 

If you care 

for

Clean air, 

Clean water 

Being safe 

A fairer deal for all 

Then brilliant Warren is not so boring. 

***

So what’s the news?

A hint might be found in Blues Clues. 

A touch of envy creeps back in

Thinking of the success of that show’s creator. Oh how he (or she or they or them)

Ahem...

Better if these thoughts abate her. 

Yes Blue was a female dog. 

Why did that surprise me?

***

I’m speedy in the sense that I’m used to fighting through depression. 

Now with its cessation I go to less lessons and sessions. 

Roger Sessions music is mostly unknown to me. 

I have a kindling little desire to hear a few of his notes this night or morning. 

After I play. 

***

Some days I remember all my poems. 

Some days they slip my mind. 

I still have thoughts ruminative and elliptical. 

More importing things fly away taking to wings. 

I sing this tuba-free song for my friend the tuba player. 

He’s an honest guy, maybe even a dragon slayer. 

****

It’s funny. 

It’s odd. 

So said Ken not Todd. 

You wouldn’t think a med 

A single, not married or wed med

Could help me get to bed 

Reduce my depression

Give me more energy 

Sleep more soundly 

Reduce my snoring 

Lessen my uprightness 

This needs a touch of lightness. 

Maybe an advertising career

Should have been the direction

In which I should have steered. 

That boat sailed a long time ago 

So I know it’s onto a different path I now go. 

****

I’m thinking of calling my symphony 

My new symphony 

The Zoloft Symphony 

And yes 

It does feature tympani. 

Friday, October 25, 2019

***

Here I am waiting for my shrink. 

No I have not had anything to drink. 

What I need: take a slower shower so I don’t stink. 

I think I’m back in a rut, but there’s humor this time to spare. 

So I care, but less. 

And that in itself is less distress. 

****

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Am I a little angry?

What the fuck makes you think that?

Too hot. 

Too much heat.

Be nice. 

Make it with two lumps, nice for New Jersey janitors drinking sweet and sour soup sitting on a transit bus loop. 

Is it about the republican gangsters?

My uncle’s intransigence?

My sexless life?

Lack of a career?

Inability to use my skills more outside the house?

Difficulty learning. 

Mistakes in the market. 

Have I left anything out?

Ruminative bad feelings and painful memories. 

Looking old?

Lack of self control?

Intrusive thoughts?

Hmmm... 

go to sleep. 

Not that i feel like wee Ping. 

Oolong tea was imbibed by Bethany in Beth Page on Long Island. 

Isle of the dead heads 

Rocky man in off 

Awful incompetence 

Things fell apart 

From the start it was no good. 

So now is new 

Now is better 

Now is ok. 

But I still want a fix. 

I realize that won’t fix anything. 

So what I want is to unwind. 

Be kind to myself. 

Let Lisa love who she wants but please please her. 

Take care of ourselves. 

Like little precious elves. 

***

The white Christian folks sit on their porches 

Not all of them like to go galavanting with burning torches. 

I suspect many of those 

God knows go to church on Sunday 

After a cruel bigoted bash at the house and home of Jack Lundy. 

Swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels 

They don’t read anything or listen to anything but state Fox News. Those foxholes don’t know Jack. They pride themselves on being regressive. 

Call me a progressive but all I want is a safe, clean, healthy and somewhat fairer world. 

To that in response, I get a brow furiously furled and a lip hideously curved and curled in a smirk of superiority and entitlement they are kettles calling the frying-pan black with their knack for playing the victim and dragging us all down. 

Down into a darkened hole not fit for a rat, not nice enough for bunny. 

Ok this is not funny. 

It’s the stuff of tragedy. 

What can you do if republicans in Congress are acting like brown shirts?

They are guiltier than the guy to whose skirts 

They are tied. 

They can’t change. 

It’s not so strange

This strangle hold 

They embolden the imbecile 

Even if they felt no thrill 

When he allowed Kurds to be killed. 

That’s how he treats allies. 

Don’t blame him. 

He’ll dump the blame on someone, maybe even Scott Pruitt 

It’s not his fault 

Not right but right of alt. 

Alternative facts, he says more than any president, he’s helped Blacks. 

He says he’s saved millions of lives. 

Let the Kurds and Turkey blow off steam like a couple of kids

I didn’t hit Johnny, he hit me first. 

Such is his lying, tiring and trying wit. 

Putin made him do it. 

****

I could play barriolage. 

I could go for a massage. 

I could write a poem corny 

Or I could look at porn horny. 

For a guy who was often misunderstood. 

This is pretty damn good. 

It was my angry demeanor 

I see it clearly now that I’m keener. 

Where oh where is Anthony Wiener?

He ruined his career if not his life 

By texting to an under age chick 

Sick, sick, sick 

Sending pictures of his prick. 

He may have gotten a temporary kick 

Quick on his phone 

His addiction may have cost Hillary 

The election. 

Of course there were so many factors:

Comey’s stupidity 

Allowed the dump’s quid quo perfidy. 

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

A little flood 

Let’s call it a leak 

To speak of these old bad feelings 

Is not wheee I want to put my energy. 

Yes they exist. 

They are hard to resist. 

I will

I can and I will still get on with my life 

Lovely and lively a newer life with my charming wife. 

****

But so many people have said 

I’m not good at this 

I’m not good at that. 

So what?

My hobbies give me pleasure. 

Not important if I don’t measure up 

To other grownups or even kids. 

I did what I could and do what I can. 

I am now my own man. 

****

Compulsive yet productive 

Speedy yet calming myself. 

As good as it can get?

That pol from Alaska

Ask her. 

She’d say, “You bettcha.”

Why did she think that was a good locution?

Catchy phrase. 

That phase where she spent so much money. 

Was that honey corrupt?

Does a bear sell short?

Monday, October 21, 2019 

Can’t I?

Can I?

Do I want to try?

***

Warren Wins!

**^

Warren puts Putin’s puppet in place. 

Warren replaces Putin’s puppet. 

***

Warren: safety from dictators, haters

And fear-mongering traitors. 

****

Strength

Safety 

Warren

Security

Strength

Safety 

Security 

***

Responsable 

Reliable 

Respected 

Powerful 

Warren Wins!

Respected 

Powerful 

Warren Wins!

For all of us 

Warren Wins!

***

Warren Wins War against global heating.

Warren cools global overheating. 

***

Warren saves the day, 

the planet, the American Way. 

Republicans for Warren 

Women for Warren 

Businessmen propel Warren’s win. 

People of color rise with Warren 

All races rise with Warren 

Whites for Warren. 

Sensible southern suburbs sign on for Warren 

Sunbelt sings Warren’s inspiring song. 

Southerners sensibility signal sensational seasons signing on for significant Warren success 

Farmers for Warren 

Farmers on Facebook become a fierce force for Warren 

The old West 

The new Midwest 

Attest 

Warren is best. 

The flooded cities 

The flash-draught burned crop farmers 

Preventing future harm 

Warm Welcome Warren 

President Warren comforts kids

Our poor, our downtrodden 

Modern and traditional 

Additional good ideas 

Less fears. 

Allies cheer. 

Sunday, October 20, 2019 

My teeth hurt. 

My back aches. 

Make no mistake

I feel like a flake. 

Taking this in stride 

I noted my anger then felt a need to hide. 

Having hid from an additional BG check in the middle of the night 

Caused sleeplessness... alright

Get on with it

Let’s get at it said Chis. 

Ruth’s bliss

Bye the bye if Beth said everything she said used to bother me 

Why did she stay and not run free?

Same reason she can’t throw anything away?

One day she did tell me to leave. 

I heaved a sigh but didn’t. 

Then another year I said I wanted out 

Caught myself before it was too late realizing I had succumbed once again to powers I had given away. 

My poems are getting stale, too frail to make a paper airplane sail in tailwinds 

To Tahiti on a plain plane spontaneously refraining from 

Research besmirching birch and elderberry bush but Boris and the don of the dump are tips of the mob who they use, plunder and rob. 

Yes I can’t get away from this theme. 

Bits and bots designed in the republican great lie machine have an entrepreneurial spirit as they spirit away decency and truth. Could I be of service to democracy ere I get too long in the tooth. 

****

Everything’s fine. 

We’ll go out to dine. 

Have some wine. 

Forget about my petty grind. 

Waiting for death

Why so depressed?

Wasn’t all of a sudden. 

I woke up down. 

Downed by forces of the joker 

A real life chuckle choker. 

His ad campaign based on lies

Riles those who trifle with rifles. 

In the face of decency their hypocrisy flies. 

***

Smile, mate. 

Misery is not my fate. 

Of late I’ve been happier as Beth and I go on dates. 

So what keeps me down?

Where is late last night’s optimism?

Seen through today’s darker prism 

The paradigm keeps me lumbering in limbo. 

Arms akimbo 

There’s an arms race of lies promulgated bt

***

I can be less narcissistic. 

Artistic does demand a fair amount of classic self-containment heuristics yet as I go to meet my sister 

I want to listen more not only to enlist her in my endless needy retreat from pain. 

So to repeat and emphasize my goal:

Despite my feeling compulsive and unsure

I will happily listen more. 

****

Conflating those who’ve I’ve offended and hurt me in response with the evil-doing band 

runs and ran the risk of making me sick. 

To the point of inaction because everything seems a lost cause because since I was fourteen I’ve been between a rock and a rolling over a Bach and Beethoven score knocking at the fates at my front door. Now bored and frustrated by the seemingly unsolvable onslaught of terror to come I’m hiding under that rock being rolled by less though I’m still immobile and sore. 

****

We know the why of Weimar and Brazil 

Russia, Turkey, North Korea give the leader a thrill. We’ll see, maybe not Brazil, too close to Mexico on his mental map, stealing sterling trap. 

****

They’ve got the guns. 

No amount of puns will change their ill and evil informed rage. 

Truth is twisted and denied 

To the detriment of all. 

Yet they hear and heed the piper’s noxious,

Intoxicating call. 

***

Jack loved to climb up and down the beanstalk. 

Becoming the talk of the town 

With golden harp, a golden egg laying hen 

He rose quickly to become a renowned and beloved leader of men. 

Then came the giant. 

Long had he planned and penned his revenge for the thefts Jack did do when with puny force he attacked what should have been a secure server. It was the giant’s wife of course, getting even with hubby who helped Jack hack behind her one-time lover’s back. Though Giant’s heart was blackened by rage as far as his constituents and consort went he was able to turn the page. 

Meanwhile Jack back on earth in his shiny new palace built with gold from his bold, criminal climb was a hero for he and his henchmen did not value the giant at all. 

Interesting considering how compared to him, they were relatively small minded yet banded together tethered to the groupthink killing foxes and mild-mannered minks. Monks thought, they even thunk about dunking a delicious donut but what happened instead was Solomon showed up with a solution everyone liked. Jack got to keep his palace. He and his men rebuilt the home of giant and wife. All property stolen was returned with damages prorated and amortized over the years. Giant would be co-ruler of a buffer zone with Jack’s sons Eric and Donald. The don was like his plunderous dad, claiming his pater had sooner or later saved millions of lives by working out his deal so artfully with the welfare and real weal of the common man his only ideal. He was able to have the giant disabled messing up the carefully worked out peace just so he could get his grubby, evil hands on ever more pieces of golden bands and bearer bonds regardless of the suffering he caused because he was a jack of all trades and a miser of one. 

****

I’m all stuck in muck. 

Yuck said the puck to the flying duck

Ducking into and behind a rose bush wild 

Rice he said yum so good in my tommy tum tum. 

I’ll forgo today the rum 

A rum pot took a shot at the bird 

Fortunately he was too drunk and soused

To take aim so te doused his cup which runneth over 

with still more rum and a touch of clover. 

He retraced his steps occasionally flexing his biceps 

He took only a few mistaken missteps getting a grip on his belly

No duck for dinner tonight 

His wife would pout and fight 

For there was no food and he was no good

At being a provider of services 

In church, temple or mosque 

He had one redeeming quality though. 

He could arise in the morn and know 

For sure if today would be a day for beer. 

Saturday, October 19, 2019 (continued)

A woodwind quintet is a safe bet

For a better bassoon-based bounty.

I can count the counties and countless countries in which I’ll play. 

Stay on track. 

Of opportunity there’s no lack. 

****

A little humility I’ve been fortunate in acquiring. 

Though it might make me more fit for hiring 

It’s not necessary now. 

As the future grows, who knows?

I’ve addressed my physical and mental ills

And not just with mediation, therapy and a  pill. 

Silliness has been the greatest gift and comfort having strengthened and restored my power of will. 

****

So dad, here I am

And pretty successful at that. 

And of that 

You’d be one pretty proud old cat. 

Beth and I are healthy, happy, have been able to retire young. 

Among our blessings

Our son has a good job in his chosen field. 

He wields his smarts, talents in paying his dues. 

He’s his own man even though he’s walked in my shoes. 

Good news: I’m composing, studying languages, am in good shape. 

I pass the winner’s sprint victory tape. 

I’m no longer afraid. 

Bade goodbye to being waylaid by bonds of shame or bands of any unhelpful game. 

Having tamed my demons 

I don’t need to be captain, airman or seafaring he man. 

I can venture into the world sure of the ground beneath my feet. 

Neat...Quite a feat 

That one’s hard to beat. 

And an unexpected treat: 

My memory, abilities to concentrate and get along with people are pleasant. 

Neither peasant nor pauper, I let go of the past. 

Am less defensive; learned to learn at long last. 

Psst! It’s no longer grist for my mill. 

Tilling the soul, the soil of my creativity

Makes me free. 

With growing glee, I’m tenacious, toughly appropriate, can tell a story and have built on your gifts of humor and art. 

For her part, Jennifer Lopez said 

(I’m penning this in bed.)

“When others are going home

You’re just getting started.”

I’ve learned to value and trust myself. 

Can’t get that in a book off any old shelf.