Upstream is a Dream


Time… a deep river with a fast current,

the past always upstream.

You can try to go back,

try to swim against the flow,

but it’s no use. The current is too strong.

Oh, you might taste a memory,

But are soon worn out, and,

forced to tend to immediate problems.

Eventually just let the water

carry you along. It’s much easier.

There are shouts and cries of others.

The banks are near and sharp.

The past is out of sight and

mist hides everything ahead and behind.

The water is turbulent and dark.

You can’t see the rocks and drowned snags until you’re

right on them.

Then it’s up to luck and leg strength.

Sometimes you miss them, sometimes they get you.

Sometimes the screams you hear are your own.

But always the flow pushes ever down,

through unseen dangers, into the future.

Ticks


awesome-clocks-wallpaper-computer-816

The ticking of a clock is the
sound our invisible blood makes
as it ducks out the back door of today
and takes the bus out of
town to yesterday.

The clock’s mechanism creates
the illusion that everything
is controlled by
even, orderly forces.
But there is always the
last ‘tick’. Then what?

I counted to ten, and
with each count I dropped a
stone in the stream.
The stones all sank
but the memory of each moved on,
evenly spaced,
stone became water, cause-
effect, separated by time.

 

Walnuts or Roses?


large_BGtree14

Note: The nice people @Spill_words have republished this today. 
http://spillwords.com/walnuts-or-roses/

When you’ve been together as long as we have—
the grown children are off making their own mistakes,
and careers have been dropped like bad habits—
the arguments tend to be about basic things.
We no longer tolerate easy answers.

Just the hard ones, such as those about walnuts and flowers.

One of you wants to plant the trees everywhere,
Knowing they’ll grow 100 feet high, and three across.
Their fruit is good, and their wood makes sublime furniture.
This all comes with foresight and patience.
Remembering a father saying one day, a few years before he died,
“Plant a walnut tree and generations will thank you.”

Continue reading “Walnuts or Roses?”

What If?


Dancer on Dock

What if we weren’t the responsible ones, for a change?

What if we weren’t the ones who let someone else screw up and

Kept on doing the right things?

What if we … could just run away for a while—just for a while—

To some anonymous, peaceful place where email was banned, the phone

Didn’t ring, the air was warm and we were all alone for an afternoon?

Where my heart didn’t ache,

Where there weren’t the old problems and worries,

Where we could be carefree children again, with no grownup cares?

Continue reading “What If?”

I Knew An Old Man, Once


Working hands-1509

I knew an old man once who’d been around,

Who was young, once, and strong and made things.

He worked on the railroad, laying rails and timber

Until a machine came along that could do it faster.

Then he worked in a factory that made cars.

He stood in one spot and hung doors on Fords,

Just the passenger side for a week. Then the other side for a week.

And he started to dream about Ford doors chasing him,

Continue reading “I Knew An Old Man, Once”

Errant Satiety

seeking sublime surrender

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“The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne." --Chaucer

yaskhan

Verba volant, scripta manent !

Upashna

In happiness my words I lack, in grief they overflow.

The Wild Heart of Life

Creative Nonfiction & Poetry

- MIKE STEEDEN -

THE DRIVELLINGS OF TWATTERSLEY FROMAGE

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