A glorious summer day they
took me
to the park to play and
it was oh so lively full of
people kids and dogs
and big smiles all around

Daddy definitely wasn’t rich
Yet Mom she was good looking
I was a big-eyed kid of 5
skinny with bones showing
hyperactive as a squirrel
on cocaine.

There’s nothing I wished more
on that day than hold
a floating balloon by its string.
Dad wasn’t pleased with the
long waiting line but it wasn’t
an expensive gift. So he stayed.
He got it. It was blue!

I held it yes, for the best part
of two minutes and even though
attached to my finger I did
let it slip through
stunned at its vertical flight.

So it fell into the deep blue sky
smaller and smaller, I had
to squint my eye – I lost it,
never to be seen again.

Daddy, what happens to
balloons in the sky?

They go up and up and up and up
and then eventually son
they all go “pop”!

Because mine didn’t
– I just knew it didn’t –
I lost that total trust I had
in him – that man – my dad
on that blue balloon day.

Here I am today
many years later plumbing
endless blue depths above
for something that flew
deep
deep
down.

Alone she writes at the table overlooking the sea
words that I’ll never read so no value judgment here
old school, I see,
hand on paper
no electronic device which is
a rare sight for someone her generation.
Glimpsed at her notebook in passing
her handwriting is too regular
too neat and intriguingly so
we’re polar opposites her and me
who write like a dog in the fog
with bad eyesight and a broken paw
not her though.
She watches the sea with legs stretched over
a chair, alone, conversing with her thoughts
Smiles to herself
Becomes part of the wider scenery of vast sea and eternal land
fleeting moment after fleeting moment
as much a part of my happiness as
the sky
the chirps
the wind
my blissful mind.

And I smile to the thought of an implausible
“August 25th, first entry:
Entropy will not let this beer grow any colder…”

There is nothing to do there is nothing to do
but sitting quietly in the almost dark
listening to the rain again
and again and again
and thinking of the vast blue sea
and breathing, breathing in and breathing out
like you’re the shore and you’re the waves
and that funny little ship dancing in the breeze
until you’re dizzy and sea sick and a little homesick too
cause that’s what rain does to you.

You realize
all your tomorrows stepped off somewhere
way back without as much as a nod
a pat on the back or a tip of the hat.
Well, that’s that. Less to care about.
Because if you recall there is nothing to do
nothing to do neither today nor tomorrow and
supplies of yesterdays are dwindling too.
At this point it all becomes clear; feel this point
settle in this point and be this point for this
is the point of your life.

Did you know ‘point’ is French for
Hard Stop?
(Fucking French
I could have died without knowing this.)

Passing mermaids are wailing out there
while I munch on finely cut red apple pieces and bad philosophy and breathe in and out
or at the very least
there’s breathing.

True
there is nothing to do but be.
In its own way the rain knows about me
high above these clouds of hers and mine
there is only empty fullness

shine shine shine

(looking like a madman feeling like a boar)