Author: Nick

New Neighbors

While driving to Walgreens for you,
A pair of sandhill cranes
Stroll along the sidewalk,
Their foreheads blazing cherries.

They carry their tender frames,
So tall and russet brown,
Lightly as soft breezes
Going nowhere briskly.

We've seen a good few
Lately, are they here
Advising safety; it is 
Hurricane season soon.

Now they're rounding our
Corner as I return.
I hurry you outside
To meet our new neighbors.

I snap some blurry pictures
Of their graceful exit;
The leaves into the curtain
And sidewalks they make their runway.

Unpicked

Every grain of sand is consuming.
Winter after winter culls
Our offerings, and our reserves,
Overripened, go unpicked.

We only rehearse our songs to Silence,
But if we were heard, and approval
Laid on us, would we know what to do?

If it is a genius that alights
On me, how do I form a technique
From it; and where beyond the sand
Can one find a base to build?

The words and directions of others can't 
Reveal memories' inner world;
But to be there with them and to share
In the common dream, like beholding a peacock,

The world beyond yet partaken in,
If you could just accept and exalt it.
Even the unpicked fruit gets eaten.

This Living

I won't refuse it, this living of mine.
Frustration glares at me like a sign:
My era is ending; I'm losing my way.
That's been true, but why decay
When once I bloomed upon this vine?

You know, once I would decline
Handshakes out of terror. How fine
it is now! Kenny drops by and says hey; 
     I won't refuse it.

I thought I had to change my line.
I thought I had to leave behind
This chapter. Before I never ate,
Now I do with laughter. Why say
That now this humble life's supine;
     I won't refuse it.

Whatever

Whatever can be a beautiful term,
Not just a juvenile linguistic squirm.
The word exists in many forms.
Despite it earning my partner's scorn,
Sometimes the word helps me stand firm.

On occasions when rage in traffic worms
Its way inside, extinguish the burn.
Even if they honk the horn,
Whatever.

When my lover fears I'd spurn
Him for something shallow as a derm;
When he asks me so forlorn
What I'd do to help but a thorn
Of his dreams come true; I reaffirm:
Whatever.

That’s How it Goes

That's how it goes when you're not like the rest:
They lay down the rules that suit them the best,
But some of us play from a different book.
I don't think I'm above it, I'm no crook;
An addict perhaps, if I have transgressed.

Those of our kind, our static's possessed
By demons of sickness set to divest
Us of joie de vivre by their seething hooks.
                            That's how it goes.

How can one live at the system's behest?
None can be civil with spirits oppressed
By an inner void which hurts just to look
At, let alone have the courage to brook.
I have nothing to add nor to contest,
                              That's how it goes.