Sparrows free-fall from upper deck in numbers
Attacking unsuspecting bugs on grassy ground
Then swiftly return to safety
On the ledge
Overlooking verdant green lawns
Waiting for another raid
And feeding.
Chattering unending
Voices of love and sharing
To survive.
And mating.
Cats and bigger birds
Lay in wait in a form of ground cover
Intent on interrupting flight patterns
Killing little flying creatures
Upon landing
Because they can.
People stabbing sidewalks and bar floors
As if hated
Pushing forward
Bang, bang, bang
Stabbing unknown enemies
Moving forward
Diligent in the application of
The cane to the heart of
Their discontent.
Bang, bang, bang.
No one knows what to say
On this or any other day
Wandering empty food aisles
Searching for anything to cook
Something to knaw on
While you wait for the new normalcy
To kick in but
Mostly it’s kicking up your sagging ass.
You’d like to pass but
You have no easy option
Carry on like a bad movie
Of your sad life
But no one wants to say
You are all on your own
But you are.
Ready to
Sink or swim
Are you not?
Kiss your ass goodbye
Because your government
Sure has.
Wander into obscurity
Shuffle past locked doors
To the end of the street.
Return to your place
With no space to swing a cat,
Even if you had one.
Drop your empty bags
By the door of no return.
Reside in obscurity
Until the morn
And do it all over again
Your new life of normalacy.
No one knows what to do
Or say on this or any other day.
When people take themselves out of your life
Move away forever to a hot, foreign land.
What are you to do?
No blood was shed
But it feels like it down to the bone.
Drained.
Empty.
What are you to do?
No answers
Just painful questions remaining
Unaswered.
Life goes on
Ambling down a laneway
With a narrowing perspective.
A guy and the track and field trophy
Years ago, a friend asked me what to do when he had found out that he was too old for the high school division in which he had competed for and won a track and field trophy?
I said if it was me, I would tell the school authorities the truth. You now know you shouldn’t accept the trophy. He spoke to the authorities.
I did not know that because of his honesty, I would be the recipient of that very trophy!
I had no idea I was next in line.
Still, I would have done the same.
Sculpture Garden, St. Ives, Cornwall. Magnificent!
Would you cry at your own funeral
Any more than at anyone else’s?
Or at all?
To attend is an honour
To be attended to carries more weight
Than perhaps you wanted?
Or suspect you need?
Or, sadly, might anticipate?
But still, crying openly and being
Vulnerable at your own passing and
Not at others
Could cause a stir
Worthy of a shit-drop from the pulpit
From your best buddy
Not remembering you in a
Good way at all.
Bit of a roast, then?
Still, you had a good life
Mostly on terms you could accept.
So!
What do you think now?
New beer descriptors, refreshing, mellow, striking and captivating, are very deceptive. An astute observer said they were all marketing terms. Taster, please!
Actually, this is like trying to change the currency of a country!
While it is fine to describe beer differently so the novitiate may hope to understand beer better, it leaves some of us wondering if other descriptors might be better!?
And since there is a movement afoot to engage the novitiate beer drinker with new beer descriptors, I might as well add my version: vibrant, complex, funky and sumptuous!
A secondary level of beer descriptors may include hazy, milky, slightly muddy or full-on bore turbid?
An unfiltered beer should generally not be cloudy to the point of being brumous, and certainly not turbid and muddy; a slight haze is acceptable.
Does a baby carrot scream when pulled from the warm womb of mother earth?
Cool air circulates on its bare orange spine
Even as the bright sun withers its springy green scalp.
And then someone wants to chew on its tender orange life
Before it goes off.
Libations and Victuals 