We call them shifts, for work is to change yourself, the forks, the job we adjust and rearrange. The work’s much more than a waiting game, it only starts with welcome and here’s my name. We’re back in the business of busyness: daily hosting, packing and bussing mess! Serving versus scores of mouths to feed, who knows what’s in store or what they need. The doors soon open, the easy window’s closing, that gentle ambiance should be composing. Now time to pick up the pace, pick up the plates, there’s no idle rest or want for those who wait! So minus the menus of their muck and mire, stack dishes, cups and lids a little higher. Any glass half empty shouldn’t last, lest you or your table finish fast! Fill full sweet sauce from the source! People in my way? Prep another course! Want a tip? Phone it in! Serve the role! Gotcha grin? So busy I have to table this and that; God forbid if customers want to chat! Fix disorder and that order as we slow! To come here is to get theirs to-go! Easy now, take a ten, fuel back up. Eat a bit, remember your cup. Unagi is a ready state of mind, for quicker eels are not left behind when the workload becomes unkind!

over dried ridges of acrylic my finger traces, idyllic in a swirling, colorful dance a mind and surface entrance these tender brushstrokes lain layers of lush cloaks across grand sweeping plains presence of kernels and veins another, dressed in scales i must resist the details even ugly guardrails I resign touch upon a feeling divine from rough flakes to mistakes i follow close to the wakes and when i’m due to depart my finger keeps the glimmer of art and the paint a piece of my heart

Last night I stood firm against that beast’s searing stare; I showed them no fear.

I dream of days finer than fine Good days unprompted by indulgence of wine Some say satisfaction must be sought out Others think the pursuit leaves you without It’s ok to say “It’s ok to frown” But how ok am I really, all the way down Want to want? Need to need? Every permutation leaves me ill at ease. Is poetry a way to help myself cope Or a crumb for a malnourished mope? Maybe if I closed the blinds I’d seek some sunshine Whether I have a lot Or I have a little I fear I’ll feel stuck in the middle So many questions, no answers real, I want more than this one way to feel

Black and white, perhaps Heritage of flight, it flaps The Birthright Collapse

Inter me within all my garbage So when I enter heaven My garb shortens the wait The weight of all my sinning Mistakes in my beginning But how the middle thinnens As flaws’ ends have yet to near Much too near my nadir A day near still inside me This I know will sigh me On some future day My mother names me humble And then she grumbles humbug Because I dare to mumble “It’s easy with no virtues” Followed by a shrug I’d try to end this better But this I threw together Through 3 AM this morning Mourning our hours past Passed another minute An other way to spin it Knitten from the loose strands Those thoughts left in misused and’s And so I’ll leave an ‘and’ for That second chance I’m after Til all the questions dance more And I finally say the ans-

I wish I could ignore the clothes strewn on my floor, but they say so much more than I can… Oh how my scattered socks do prove our walks and talks, so when the clocks flummox, they deadpan… My pants and T’s dance as they please, my pleas but a breeze. Though they defy my appeal, after dark, I know how we’ll reveal our ordeals. The floor feels… New threads worn til we’re worn, I hug them close and warn though others may scorn. We’re Real.

One hundred twenty one thousand, Seven hundred Seventy-seven

Dust gathers over on the moons of Neptune, you’d see sweeping and mopping around noon. Alpha Centauri is home to crowns, mirrors and rust, much I can’t name; in principles we share and trust. In Andromeda, mothers gaze up at our Milky Way, considering rainbows, lyrics, and their bad day. Distance changes much, but not all, we each learn what it means to fall. You can focus on how we differ, how we mirror, but look where you like, we are always nearer. Even when we’re lonely, we are never alone. The unknown has much of what we’ve known.

A Hi did work for us . If via some magic saying Goodbye divorced ourselves comparably permanently, presumptuous indulgences dignifying Farewells shouldn’t loosely arrive again ever for me .