Bookmark

Opening my book
My bookmark fell upon the floor
Got caught by an errant breeze
Danced around and went out the door
Across the yard and into the street
I ran right after it
Brains following feet

If I don't catch it
How will I mark my place?
Whatever should I insert
Into that empty space?
The one between the pages
That's a story in itself

All the things that we do outside of books
In the real world
While the bookmark
Marks our place

Bully

They poke
They tease
They taunt

What you wear
What you are
What you look like

When really it's all about them

Life of Tie

I'm a wide skinny fish bolo bow tie
When I was new
I smelled like a million bucks
And gosh if I didn't look good on you

Then I got pushed to the back of the rack
Thrown in a drawer
To dream my technicolor silk houndstooth dreams
Another victim of a fashionista war

Snuck out by small hands later on
To play dress up
To be a bandana atop an explorer's head
To make someone look just like daddy and all growed up

Recycled and donated
Cut up and truncated
Finding myself part of a tie quilt
Upon an exhibition wall

Oohed and ahed over
Purchased, gifted, passed down never knowing the what or the why
Decorating necks, heads, warming knees
The meaning of this life of tie

Pain

Without the pain
There'd be no pleasure

There'd be no way to measure
All the tastes that wouldn't be as sweet

Without the pain
To balance the pleasure

To slay happiness
And lay it in offering
At your beautiful feet

Mask

Bobby Barry Brice played dress up
He played it every day
With a trunk full of masks
As an excuse to act in different ways

Till he found one that felt good
One that gave him a part he loved playing
So he wore it all the time
He never really took it off at all
Until one day he wanted to be his old self
And found to his dismay
He had forgotten one important thing

That the mask worn too long
Becomes who you are

Race To The Pole

"Grab the end of this and run!"

And run I did

I ran out of the sea foam green tiled boys bathroom
The one with the too-short-for-adults urinals
With spitballs all over the walls
Dried and solidified lugies hanging from the high ceilings
Like stalactites in a deep dark cave
A testament to the grossness of the prepubescent male

Down the hall I went
As fast as my silly short legs could take me
Hearing shouts in my wake

"Stop! You can't do that!"
They cried

In vain it would seem
For it seems that I actually could

Not stepping on the light colored tiles
That were scattered in the hall in a pattern
With that odd one in the way
A replacement player
Substituted by an uncaring janitor
With far too many light colored tiles for his own good

The doors were coming up fast
And I daren't let go
Their burgundy painted wood getting nearer
Polished brass push bars barred the way
Begging me to time my escape precisely

And like choreographed ballet
I planted my foot inches from the kick plate
Pushing with all my might with my free hand
Swinging that stern old door wide
Bathing in the spring sunlight

Now to make it to the pole
Just up ahead
With the hounds of authority at my heels
Pouring from the brick facaded Elementary

Ants from a prodded anthill
Bees from a batted at hive

I tagged the flagpole
Grabbing it and spinning around
To face the consequences of my triumph

The long white fluttering finger of toilet paper marking whence I had come

A new fourth grade record
For TP on the run

If I Had Glass

If I had Glass
I'd wear it on my face
But it's not the kind you think
That would leave my features smashed in flat space

It's the kind you wear like glasses
With lots of electronics near your right ear
A crystal eyepiece in front of your right eye
Don't worry it doesn't look at bad as you'd fear

I imagine it giving me directions from place to place
With small maps sort of hanging in space
Symbols to show you that "You Are Here"
With turn by turn directions just in case

I think I'd have one in black
Because I get everything in that color
I've a friend that says that means something deeper
And yet another that argues that black is a noncolor

I drive a long distance every day
To my job working in aviation
Sometimes amazing sights and sounds pass by my senses
Unrecorded and unremarked much to my aggravation

But if I had Glass I could perhaps capture those moments
Keeping the amazing ones for sharing or keepsaking
Depending on the moment
Depending how I feel about the whole thing

This 'If I Had Glass' contest is some intriguing marketing
My hats off to Google for thinking of such a thing
But even if I won
I'd still have no Glass

Because I'd still have to pony 1500 bucks
And to be frank
I aint got no cash

#ifihadglass