'Still Moving'

( for Rev. Bob C.)


This land doesn't know who walks on it. It cannot feel.
The mountain is indifferent to hooves or feet,
to wily snakes, to butterflies, to calculating spiders
and their reluctant meals,
to sweating climbers toiling upward on its flank,
and, indifferent to, by the roadside, the mangled deer
still moving;

The busy creek, finds its way anew each moment,
talking only to itself, as it moves -but doesn't move-
down the hills and hollows;
The wind, gentle or fierce, -seldom calm- from West or North,
unknowing, whispers, shouts, or howls to no one in particular
-not even to itself;

Even the birds -the cardinals crows et al- that live and die
their birdly lives all around my own brief life,
feel nothing (in whatever hearts they have) for you or me;

The little cemetery near my house, under The Buffalo,
beautiful, still, serene, holds its tiny piles of mostly ancient bones,
not sad, it can't be moved, nor will it ever be-
and desperate tears that watered it in 1930, '56, and '63,
-those intermittent anguished mornings- now are gone;

The long-dead mountaineers, the farmers, woodcutters, whiskey
makers, mid-wives, violent men and tired women, barefoot children,
and one special man of God -all dead, silenced,
dissipated molecules, and buried sacks of bones,
only their names remain, on aging, time-worn stones;

This place, beautiful, uncaring, cold, indifferent,
one would be a fool to hold it dear,
-only a fool holds foolish sentiments; and yet,
long-past struggles, laughter, triumphs, tears,
babies crying, all the chestnuts
dying, dying;

The oxen, the guns and whiskey,
the frolics, the sickness, poverty, and pain,
the sly courting of eager lovers,....
the preacher's little toils of love,
all the life that lived here once
seems like it could happen once again,
as if to see them now one turns a switch and, 'there!'

as in a once-dark room, all this...
still moving.

-jorge999

Denouement

She was not the cheerful smiling soul
 that I once knew,
 but like her morning's breakfast

 --the milk and bran flakes churned
 by belly acid to a caustic mash--

 She too, was broken down and soured,
as if by age and cruel misfortune
eaten and devoured.

  -G.Lally

Surcease

Friday, you are a welcome sight
That full moon wreaked havoc on me this week
priority, deadline --crises,
snarled and snapped at my feet,

over and over, with all my might,
pushing a boulder up a hill,

when I reach the end --my night--
will anything matter still?

Friday, it's your other side
I am yearning for:
a known face, allied
Behind a familiar door,
a smile, a touch,
a bit of amber in my glass,
supper, love,
leaves of grass.

-G. Lally.

'Musings of a FB ‘Heavy User’

I had two hundred three of FBF’s
But now just two o two are left,

annoyed or bored, some buddy slipped away,
quietly, sometime yesterday,

I miss him (her?), but I'm not bereft,
perhaps he simply needed rest,

I know, I know!
I learned this thing before:

‘parsimony’,

it means that sometimes
less is more.

-jorge999

“Talking Dirty”

Dirty dogs


filthy liars


dirty tricks


pants on fire 


dirty poker


dirty pool


dirty stuff


behind the school


dirty old men


sully and taint



They were Supremes

but now they ain’t

:

‘Citizens United’

'A Toast and Prayer on the Occasion of The 2012 AFC Championship Game'

[written on the morning of the Patriots-Ravens AFC Championship Game, January 22, 2012]

Okay, Tom Terrific, once more today is your day!
Cape Cod clam-addicts and Boston bean-eaters,
dour down-Mainers, and folks from New Hamster
are holding their breath and awaiting the fray!

While twenty-six miles down Route Ninety-Five,
in divine Providence, they're betting and fretting,

at breakfast Vermonters cross fingers and chew apple pie.
Even in Hartford they're tingling and feeling alive!

But, Tom, there's a hint that your father
in Heaven is smiling and looking below,
so, now 'Tebow- pious', we pray 'twas a signal he sent
( ie. the cold and the new-fallen snow!)

from Smugglers Notch to Killington, to Brockton, Boxford and Barrington,
from Alton and Athol, and Adams and Avon, from Ayer and from Arlington,
from Warwick and Wenham and Wareham, and Wrentham, and Wilmington,

from Boston to Barre, to Bristol, New Britain, Bar Harbor,
Westminster and Worcester and Foster and Gloucester,

from Woonsocket, Wiscasset, Pawtucket, Nantucket,
Nantasket, Pocasset,

from Waterbury, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Tewksbury, Newbury, Shutesbury
from Glastonbury, Londonderry, Manchester, Dorchester, (but not Westchester),
and from Manchester=By-The-Sea,

from Scarborough, Moultonborough, Middleborough, Brattleboro, Attleboro,
from Kennebunkport, from Eastport and Newport,
and from down on the Cape in Hyannisport,

From Portland, to Plymouth, to Portsmouth, to Dartmouth and Yarmouth,
from from Buzzards Bay, to Cape Cod Bay, to Casco Bay and Narragansett,

from Westover,and Dover,and over and over Andover,

We raise our hopes, and raise a glass (or two)

to YOU!
-jjorge