Rec’d notice from mgmt yesterday:

12.5% of my production last month had errors!

“Your errors MUST stop!

12.5%! OMG! That’s an increase over the month before!

“How many files is that?”

“1”

1?

“yes”

well, okay then…

I’ll jump right on improving…

Brothers of mine,

how did we get so old?

So old we remember coonskin hats and cap guns

and your Big Bang cannons?

Fireworks from the State Fair

sparking over our front yard,

where all the neighbors sat on folding lawn chairs

talking about who knows what.

So old we’ve almost forgotten

Ruth!

Your birthday is looming at the end of the week.

I have been chuckling rememb’ring how you would speak

your mind with your  hands set firmly on your hips.

The world’s biggest laugh would roar through your lips.

“Oh my Gawd!” with that accent partly northeast

would stop conversation for a moment at least

as we all turned to see just what we were missing

while the story you were telling had everyone hissing

(to be continued)

How rude was life,

leaving him to live

when every beloved died,

when the odds failed

and his heart beat

despite every counter measure

of the Nazi beasts

who thought themselves God.

Liberated, yet always imprisoned

Elie Wiesel.

That rasty woodpecker was hard at work

drilling someone’s siding,

while rabbits darted ‘cross the yards

back to where they’d been hiding.

Chickadees see-sawed hello

blue-jays screeched and hollered.

The trail was real…

A house on Belleview Avenue sits behind a fence,

the street is busy and very loud, hence the fence makes a great deal of sense.

It is not the house itself you notice, most of it is hidden,

but sitting on  the columns out along the street

sit two concrete gargoyles

you would not deem as sweet.

They are hunched.  Their big feet curled.  They hold their ugly heads in hands.

But every single holiday they are all dolled up

with ribbons and colorful clothes and jolly good cheer.

And I honk as I pass on my way to work, like an old friend greeting old friends.

It is not that they haunt me, those buried by the Platte north of Denver,

I don’t know most of them, the sixty seven thousand.

I have heard of a few, read about fewer,

But I grieve their lush trees and lawns have been allowed to dry

and blow away…dush to dust…

And so it is

And so, I have retired.

I’m unsure what to do.

I’ll not miss mortgage banking,

with all its hullaballoo,

though I admit I’ve grown accustomed

to having too much to do.

Perhaps I’ll find my inner muse,

and finally write that novel,

This fickle spring weather is giving me fits.

Just when you think you need only a sweater, drizzle spits,

the air, only a moment ago, warm and bright

turns cold enough to make you pull your jacket tight.

The plants I held inside in windows all winter to keep them alive and sweet,

shiver, then wither when placed outside before

I went mad today

tired of the isolation