I had a story I wanted to tell you but the words were all made up
I had a poem that I wanted to read to you but the lines were already drawn and tired
like the bedroom curtains, like my eye lids
I had a moment to be myself but the moment was already gone
There was a story to tell you that could only begin like this:
The beginning was the ending when I first saw you for the very last time
A better writer than I could find his way back home
I can only find the time at the bottom of a glass, at the bottom of a bottle,
at the bottom of a resin stained pipe
There was some sort of story that I meant to tell you but I just ran out of space on the page,
if there had been a little more room I could have found the right ending.

 

We have lift off
The first of a nation to float among the stars
no sky less traveled
Golfing on the moon because he can
Oxygen is a go
Time doesn’t stop because we’re not here but we can stop time if only for one
person and one achievement
We all have to believe in something better than ourselves but so few become that
The absence of matter, space, does not dream but those between the spaces do
And Alan Shepard was only one of them
There are so many splashes in the pool
All the ripples count and sometimes they culminate in one moment or one person
We all want so desperately to matter
yet we all do even those who don’t wish to
Patterns of influence
flow of affect
culmination in realization
When Alan Shepard saw the Earth from light years distant a particle of us all
looked with him
History knows the difference that disease doesn’t
Everyday so many die
Sparks and infernos go out and new ones ignite
So few, so very few have reached past the boundaries of our world and now
there’s one less
and there’s a little less of us all

 

Medieval machinery clogs the stairways to all our tomorrows
Do you remember who you never where?
A sentence is a future waiting to be born
Some hobgoblins are hand cranked
Combustion engine trolls hand carved wooden rainbows for the pleasure
of glass leopards
Do you remember who you never could be?
Wind up dragons commune with nature’s chaos
Who can we be?
Who can we be?
When we don’t know why we are.

 

A doctor a day keeps the apples away
Drunken aardvarks are making prank phone calls to the White House
Anteaters are boycotting the fact that they aren’t served at your local steakhouse
Catnip smoking cats are surfing the web for kitty porn
All those who have birthdays are discriminating against the unborn
Why is the Jolly Greene Giant’s little friend really called Sprout?
It’s only prejudice that stops a Boy scout from being a Girl scout
Dating a porcupine might be thorny
Is it vulgar to say unicorns are horny?
A loose goose is good for a gander
Calling a snake poisonous is slander
Armadillo Armageddon is on its way
Gender biased sheep are ogling a sheep shearing display
Objects object to being objectified
They want to be called the Bandage Enabled not the Mummified
Penguins are suing for the right to flight
The destruction of our language and freedom is fine for some
As long as the aardvarks keep chewing their bubblegum.