How It Is

From the very day his unsane,
vagrant course was charted,
to this was our Charlie
nearly drawn, did keen incline
all natural and, thus, without fear:

The white-hot and smokeless
flame that fueled the ardent hearted.
Who the world shot-through,
bejeweled, with art, love, pain
and such beings, things
which knew not shame.

There but for the Grace of God

Seemed the over-bright afternoon
a blight upon his private darknesses.

Charlie, quaking to the quick
ambled about on benumbed legs,
feeling most mortal,
doing no good,
those around him
seeming but vane, blind
vessels to eventual carcasses.

Himself a kind of opened,
weird, walking wound,
throwing off the smell
of pain and beaten-down blood.

Morning # n+1

Morning lifted its head,
leaden, impenetrable-
and Charles,
contemplating coffee,
the cold commute,
rote work awaiting
him with perfect patience,
felt his drab dreams,
hewn half-assedly,
slowly eroding as he pushed 50.

Of late, a second-rate
irksome exercise
he'd concocted
burbled in his muzzy brain.
Whether one could
consciously remember
the millisecond moment
when one slipped in
Sleep's sweet surrender,
guard-officially down,
a dear, sad clown
awaiting dreams-
all crystal clear
or fuzzy with clouds,
fog, forgetfulness and rain.

Blast

Charlie was considering distance,
the tick of the odometer
on his way through Pennsylvania
through the wee hours of the night.

Each tenth clicking by-
528 feet, 528 more...

and it brought to mind
certain blithe claims
of Mickey Mantle clouts
of over 600 feet.

Improbable.

Kingman at Wrigley in 1976
measured in at around 530.
A tenth.

Either way he found himself yawning,
fascinated.... and a game,
with himself and the road
he, on the spot, created.

Peering into the rear-view
he found the lines guiding him,
and decided to see if he could
drive a tenth of a mile without
looking ahead, or ending up dead.

He never made it,
eased up on the gas,
had a palpitating heart..

THAT was a blast.

No sleep O Nights

Yon Cassius done gone and croaked,
cashed in his chips, paid the cost.

( no big surprise )

When Charlie heard
his throat all up and choked,
then, never really ever wise,
down deep, something snapped,
all ruined, wronged and warped and broke.

So he stopped and stooped to eulogize
a guy whose eyes never more
to be seen all welled
with emotion over some thing,
small, obscure, but bright
with life's thin brilliant thread-
a line, a song, a laugh, a look,
birdcall and wingflap,
books, broads, loves and lives
fought hard for and lost.

No, nevermore
(besides in dreams)
for lean Cassius
been found quite dead.