When in the parish, he knew instinctively

how far to go,

but now that he is footloose

and free, all he hears is go to jail and

don’t pass go.

He doesn’t aim to be disagreeable

just, when necessary, to disagree,

but it appears he is as welcome

as a dirty dog’s flea

in polite society.

One prophetic friend was

warmly warned

that his ego was in the way,

but the now former friend

just asked him to go away.

As another friend came into view,

the tired guy just said hi and

passed by

apparently not giving the friend

his just due,

so the now-former friend’s wife

tells him the friendship

is through.

Again a friend of twenty-six years

was pushed to the brink

when the man moved his long-time

friend into his discomfort zone and

now the friendship

has a broken link.

The man stands up for social justice,

what’s right and true

but whenever he does, whatever

friends he has left turn five

shades of blue

and all declare this friendship is

through.

So alone he sits and even his wife gives

a look of scowl

and he has decided to

throw in the towel.

Obviously, he doesn’t know how

to finesse

and as hard as it is to confess,

apparently the way out of this mess

is to keep to himself his thoughts

and live by society’s shoulds and oughts

and forget the shouldn’ts and noughts.

And one last thought,

one thing he has learned in this

go-along place, is that

nobody is willing to be challenged

face to face,

but behind peoples’ backs they can

attack and attack

with and ever and always a smiling

face.

Oh, what a disgrace,

but, the guy has to admit,

for all of his effort,

he does sit alone in a

a very lonely place.

And just maybe, for all his spirituality,

he’s in need of some serious

depth therapy.

And, as always, in just

such a mess,

there is 

that second guess.

I watch the golfer

lean over and putt.

The ball rolls smoothly

four feet along the

meticulously cut green

and drops in the center

of the hole while looking

like only a journey of

three inches on T.V.

There is an azure blue

lake just off the green

but I can’t see how large

it is in comparison to

the course. I don’t hear

the golfer’s footsteps

as he nods to the small

crowd and moves off

the green onto the

lush fairway on his

way to the next tee. Of

course, I wouldn’t hear

his footsteps even if

the sound were on, but

it isn’t. A handsome guy

with big, wavy hair hawks

a particular golf club and

then the camera does a

close-up of a hiker way up

on a barren mountain side

just off the course. The

hiker appears to be look-

ing at the water not the

golfers. I wonder if it looks

azure blue to him as he

looks down on it with

his bare eye or if that is

the color made by my

LED flat screen T.V. The

view zooms back from the

hiker. In the silence, I wonder

if he is thirsty from his hike.

An arm pumps; fans cheer

loudly without sound. A long,

curvy putt had just dropped

in for an eagle or birdie. In the

silence, I hope the hiker has

a water bottle.

My new, ninety-five pound, four-year-old Chocolate Lab

keeps an eye on me.  If I make a sound, he usually sits up,

raises his big head and looks me, almost straight, in the eye

as I sit in the big, green, leather chair.  After awhile, he lies

down again filling almost every square inch of his extra

large doggie pillow on the floor between me and the T.V.

He stares up at me so I see mostly the bottom white of

his eyes.  We should have named him National Security

Agency instead of Buddy and true to that identity, when I

called him National Security Agency, not once but twice,

he ignored me and continued to stare up at me with white

eyes hiding everything but a sliver of the pupils just under

the upper lids. To test out my theory, I called him Buddy

and he rose up on his haunches and stared me in the eye.

Red pine and white pine needles

commingle and swirl around the

cattail plant in the pond just in

front of the waterfall as it bounces

off rocks, drops and splashes over

the needles soaking them until they

drop to the ledge below before winter

descends freezing the needles in place

for six months. Pond fish hide behind

the cattail plant becoming more still

as the water temperature drops

below forty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

They say it’s “flat-out-fun to drive in any weather,”

and it will get about twenty-six miles per gallon

under ideal driving conditions and a really light

foot, but that’s no fun and “flat-out-fun” calls for

anything but ideal or a light foot or, for that matter,

any consideration for the environment, but if you

just look at vehicles flying down the highway,

you would know that, according to misogynistic

males and most young women driving big SUVs,

those flat-out-fun babies are of the female gender

and everybody knows that “girls just want to have

fun” in any weather even if 95% of environmental

scientists say that the weather is getting worse

due to vehicles flying down the highway and so

the question becomes, is it still fun to drive when

the vehicle is no longer safe in weather that is getting

worse because of those very vehicles flying happily

down the highway and who is even bothering with

the question when you are having so much fun?

A week and a half before the flood

that roared down the creek ripping

out the mountain road, up and down

in and out, and tumbling homes,

shattering them on big creek boulders

and before he sat in front of the T.V.,

in mesmerizing disbelief, he had balanced

himself among the boulders as the

swift water pushed and pulled at him

as he made short casts with a fly rod

for small browns and rainbows. His son,

the guide who provided the gear and flies

he had tied a week and a half earlier,

announced matter-of-factly, at the end

of the day of balancing, “Good job, Dad.

My buddies couldn’t have managed

these waters like you have all day

without the proverbial face plant.

Excellent!” The man was glad it

had been a week and a half earlier.

As he watched, he wondered if the

browns and rainbows following face

plant after face plant tumbling down

the creek, had washed over the dam

safely into Boulder reservoir and

were glad to be alive.  A week and

a half earlier, the man, exhausted

and leaning against a high and dry

boulder next to the creek, said,

“Come on, son. I’ll buy you a beer.”

People they meet at

state parks along the

shore of the

Big Lake

ask them, “If you have

beach access where

you live

along the shore

of the

Big Lake,

why do you bother with

camping?”

Reflecting and ruminating

on the question, they

say, “We love

to roam and because

this is where

you are.”

Before he could put his

golf clubs in the

backseat,

the big, brown dog

jumped in and

wouldn’t get out.

The man and his wife

pushed and pulled,

tugged and shoved,

to no avail.

The dog jumped to the

front and back to

the back.

Tee time. A final yank

and the dog was out,

with ears lowered and

tail tucked and being

yelled at.

Sad doggie eyes. Human

anger and frustration

when all it would

have taken was,

“Buddy, want a

cookie?”

Driving down the road

he sees a vehicle

coming up fast

and then

riding his tail. Tap

the brakes, offer the

driver the middle

finger, universal sign

of peace, watch the

truck move along

side, see the man

with the smirk on

his face,

watch the truck cut

off the car, see the car

tumbling toward

the ditch, or

just pull to the

side of the road,

let the driver

speed by, look

straight ahead and

drive on.

Aware, he let the

energy pass right

through, he let

go, he let live,

he patted the

dog’s big brown

head and said,

“Good boy,”

to himself as he looked

down and saw the thorn

in his hand, which he had

just pulled

from his side.

There’s a man who

still writes his poetic

thoughts

on yellow, legal pads

perhaps even in fast

vanishing

cursive

and avoids the internet

at all costs.

A farmer from

Kentucky,

he jots down his

wisdom, in between

farm chores,

keeping his

priorities straight,

those being justice

for all,

the environment,

individuals,

the burgeoning

poor, the fast

vanishing

middle-class, the

chickens, pigs and

all the rest of us

and he’s crashing

the high-tech

world in favor

of good, old,

really great

thinking.

Staring at Uncle Ben’s beautiful,

bronzed  “chrome dome” with

snow-white fringe on the package

of converted rice, the man thought

about being a bushy haired young

man of twenty-seven or eight and

visiting another Uncle Ben and

observing his beautiful, bronzed

“chrome dome” and the snow-white

fringe in the little, four-room

cinder-block house converted into

a restaurant Uncle Ben owned in

rural Kentucky. He and his wife

fixed fine, fried chicken dinners

family style.  Now all these years

later, he’s envious of  those beautiful,

bronzed “chrome domes.” He is sure

Bardstown Ben has passed on to glory,

but the other Uncle Ben is frozen

in time on a box on a shelf. The

man now stares at a pale, white

skinned “chrome dome” pate

every time he looks in the mirror

or at his reflection in the window

of the grocery store as he passes

after having visited Uncle Ben on

a box.