Rooster Reflections
My rooster struts everywhere that he goes
I think I know how he feels
Living this life must be taken head on
Like your balls are made of steel
Life must be dealt with the way that it comes
With confidence that you will conquer
Really, it’s easier living this way
But people will think that you’re bonkers.
For Bill:
One more Christmas down
Santa’s made it out of town
Empty bags, our Christmas cheer
is put away until next year…
But wait, is that the way it is?
Start with a rush, end with a fizz?
Christmas Day will come again
Let’s keep the Spirit until then!!
Birdlegs
I was just four when the polio came
A matter of having bad luck
It damaged the nerves in my growing young frame
The nerves in my legs were just fucked
Muscles can’t grow and get big without nerves
I grew, but not like a weed
My legs are so skinny they look like a bird’s
…but they’ve met my minimum needs
There have been times I was really perturbed
’cause I looked so different from them
Those who were soft in their comfy suburbs
Who didn’t want to be “him”
It didn’t really bother me much
I knew that they didn’t matter
I had more than my brace and my crutch
My brain had been left unfettered.
My education was second to none
With what I had for my tools
I learned how to have my own kind of fun
From books, and even from school
I married, took jobs, and traveled the globe
Had two fine children to boot
Life has been fine ’cause I made it be so
My birdlegs have carried me through
I’ve climbed mountains and reached the top
Made love to beautiful women
The joy that I’ve known will never be stopped
because it comes from within
“Disability” is a state of mind
A trap that can suck you in
But if you look deeper, you’re likely to find
It’s a place to begin again.
***
Dreamland (Iconoclast)
There are words that I must say
but I can’t say them…
for my mouth is much too small
There are places I must go
but I can’t go there…
for I am much too tall
There are mountains I must climb
but I can’t climb them…
for fear that I might fall
There’s a world that I must live in
but I won’t live there…
That is all.
Hitler’s Legacy
A pipsqueak of a man
made up a master plan
that would fuck up the world forever
There was no way
the rest of the world
would allow this insane endeavor
We marshaled our forces
and built our defenses
against his deluded advances
The Jewish community
had to lay low;
they couldn’t take any chances
Until the Allies
conquered their foe
and he left this world forever
The coward’s way out
he took his own life
and ended his insane endeavor
But his way of thinking,
his legacy, burns
in the name of righteous morality
To kill for religion’s
as insane as he was
A most irrational duality.
***
Bred and Whine
She came to see me once or twice
I thought that she was very nice
I didn’t see the other side
Until I started thinking “bride”
That other side, the one she’d hidden
Started to emerge, unbidden
I’d just seen the luscious bits
A perfect ass and bulging tits
She used them to distract my mind
From seeing that she wasn’t kind
She hated animals and kids
(that statement put us on the skids)
In nature she saw bugs and sweat
She wouldn’t garden on a bet
She wouldn’t eat the game I shot
Store-bought food was all I got
Man can’t live being bred alone
There must be more he can count upon
***
Finding Spring
Spring is beautiful
unimaginably so
from some hiding place
If springtime beauty
doesn’t register, you must
find a better space
Open yourself up
and leave your troubles behind
Let them leave no trace
It’s beautiful here
no matter what the season
when you live in grace
It’s a hard thing I must say
Why do things work out like this?
Sometimes words come out this way
Imaginary fairy tales
Prince and damsel, magic kiss
It’s a hard thing I must say
Killing dragons is not child’s play
With blades of words that cannot miss
Sometimes worlds come out this way
I read the book to her that day
She listened, young eyes lost in bliss
It’s a hard thing I must say
Knowing that she’ll never play
With dragons, never hear their hiss
Sometimes words come out this way
I know she’ll have some dues to pay
Before she feels her Father’s kiss
It’s a hard thing I must say
Sometimes worlds come out this way
Learning to Fly
When I was a child
the encyclopedia
was always my closest friend
“A” was for animals
“B” was for birds
well worn by the time I was ten
I wanted to fly,
run free through the world
free of the childhood disease
that struck at age four
and crippled my body
but left my mind fully complete
I didn’t know then
that I’d overcome that
and live a full life of great pleasure
When I got older
I then understood
that my mind was the ticket to leisure
A good education
A career of success
A marriage with two fine kids
I traveled the world
and experienced life
better than most people did
But the urge for freedom
has never let up
and now that retirement is near
I’m back to the animals
and watching the birds
and learning the habits of deer
My encyclopedia
is far in the past
but I still carry it in my brain
The future I wanted
is what I have now
By flying I outran the pain.
Last Night/This Morning
I woke in the middle of the night, last night
Sheets wringing wet with sweat
I woke again in the light, all poetic
And wrote out the first couplet
I rose from the bed, words unfinished
I showered, and then stripped the bed
I carried the sheets to the washing machine
While writing more words in my head
I started the wash without thinking
Neglecting to put in the soap
It was hard, with the realization
Not to feel like a blithering dope
But I know that I get distracted that way
When clouds of wordplay have caught me
Especially, when I try to do something
Before I have had morning coffee.
That first poem ended itself as a sonnet
This one did too; that one’s under my bonnet.
dkirkstokes 