How many more times

at deaths door ???

From the abortionist hook, I did escape.

Escape from, seems to have become my fate.

 

Death, around my body fell.

Grandfather, pulled me from the well.

 

Fell through the basement, trap door.

Straight down to the basement floor.

 

Landing on my two year old head.

Still around – alive – not brain dead ?

 

Shot at – not blind – hit in the chin,

older than two – mind you – at the coal bin.

That is the way - thus far – my life has bin.

 

Got blood poison, from big toe to thigh,

up into belly – Thanks Grandmother – for a keen eye,

otherwise I might be up there with the stars in the sky.

 

Became allergic – in the hospital – to penicillin.

Jesus !, god, where could my life be headin ?

After all, all this by the year I am ten.

At fourteen, I hit a hundred and six,

my brother / uncle “ you should be dead”, what a fix !,

as I lay under his Ford, nineteen fifty six

 Twenty, and rolled my car over twice.

Not one of six, hurt, how so very nice.

Is arm wrestling the Grim Reaper, my vice ?

 

Hit by a train at the age of twenty seven.

Totaled my new convertible, yet, have I touched heaven ?

 

Becoming conscious, showed a picture of my car and the train

that wiped out my Comet and into space shook up my brain.

 

A nurse told me, after she showed me, “ I was lucky to be alive. ”

I did not believe it, could not see it, did not understand her jive.

 

Thirty years of age and into a black tunnel,

minutes later, the light begins to funnel

out into a bright, mystic light,

light that has come from this flight

of a soul – gone – no longer before my sight,

that which seemed so very right,

 

until we rolled over twice in a canoe.

Lost my companion, my friend to the raging river !

 

Who could have foreseen ?, who knew ?,

that his sole, his sprit, in fear would quiver ?,

 

I would shiver, but survive and he could never

leave this plane, be stuck here forever and ever,

 

never to be seen in this life – alive again

leaving me to question, why did I remain ?

 

Which, in the end, became so very wrong

and now has become part of this sad song.

 

The tale, the journey, the essence of this story.

All, comes with hope, but without any glory,

 

some of, filled with fears, some of, full of tears,

some, no more than many, many wasted years.

 

Some – cup filled to the brim- with life,

Some – the cup emptied – by the hand of strife.

 

At fifty four, downed by an aneurysm rupture in my brain.

Rupturing once was not enough, the doctor ruptured it again,

yet, here I stand, – what does fate have in store ? – I still remain

among the living and the dead, but never seem to be giving

to either the half dead, or dead, the half living, or living.

As for the thoughts of, “ why am I still around ?

and not six feet under, part of the ground ”,

still amazes me, after all these years, yet many more stories,

than those mentioned above, where I should be sorry

for all the foolish, stupid, insane, dangerous things I ‘ve done.

A sleep, drunk, stoned hundreds of miles behind the wheel

and yet here I am, not a scratch, and have yet to run

out of luck - bad or good – makes me wonder, what is the deal ?

 

Personal rhymes to deep. / Nowhere man still asleep.

From his uncertain hand. /  Within his nowhere land.

 

A slice of life / a day in the life

 

Out in the elements – almost every day, training,

weather, sunshine, cloudy – B. C. fate – raining.

Seventy five reps, twenty times over my head,

on my back, thirty bench presses I’m fed

then onto twenty curls and I’m dead.

Then it has come time for abstaining

from all my physical straining

weather, sunshine or raining.

 

All the above, after starting off with fifteen minutes

of tummy tucking, bumps and grinds,

a songs worth of body tilts, from side to side

round and round, from front to back and back again

then another songs worth of  twisting – not the dance –

legs firmly planted, arms ( helicopter blades ) rotating

then comes leg squats for as long as they may hold out

- hold on – be they weak or be they strong.

 

Solitaire fills the moments in-between, cools, relaxes the air

that this old man disturbed, for an old man, it’s pretty fair.

 

Not done yet, sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred push ups

Dependent upon the will, the strength, the stamina,

followed by punching at shadows in front, left, right,

air turbulence being created all around,

moving to a songs worth of, beautiful sound

leading to another songs worth of, on the spot running

then a songs worth of bending over and touching

– legs straight, hands flat – the floor, my toes

showing the angles where the wild goose goes.

Finality, another songs worth or running

on the spot even though the spot keeps moving.

 

Games I play – three, all different – of solitaire

guide my eyes true, capture my stare

as we compete against each other.

I beat one, two, three then another

when not beaten and being put under.

Games I play in-between my sets

to cool, relax the air after my reps.

 

These are some of a sixty year old man’s activities.

These are some of a sixty year old man’s proclivities.

I am just exhausted from reliving all these vitalities

 

Then come words that flow, from books, I want to know

their essence, their wisdom, their knowledge to show

me, that what I have always believed, is, truth is so.

So, books of art, biographies, philosophies, psychology.

Books of ancient history, afterlife, N.D.Es., U F O logy,

Books on the metaphysical, parapsychology, telepathy,

clairvoyance are but a few that have interested me,

bringing me through to an understanding, a confirmation

of all that I do not know I know, yet know is my relation

to this universe, this plane, this planet and all creation .

 

The end of my day comes on a screen of flashing colours.

Fleeting images burned onto the retinas of my eyes.

The sounds they project, pressed onto my ear drums

as I leave behind all that went before, as stated above.

I put my body and mind into neutral and let the cathode rays,

these waves – from the boob tube – wash over me,

realizing that far too many are glued to being neutral,

neutrality filling most of their empty hours, their empty lives,

and this is the very essence of their very life.

 

A day in the life – to bed, to sleep, into dreams

are the activities of this sixty year old man, it seems

are the proclivities of this sixty year old man, without means.

B. J. “A” 2

March 19^th 2003