OLDTIMER'S DISEASE

Put up a map of the world and turn on National Public Radio.

     Nobody knows when their brains may begin to deteriorate.  However, everyone should be less concerned than we usually are about memory lapses.  The distance in time or the strength of initial imprint determine one's ability to recall.  Problem is when we are old we are bothered more when we can't remember a name or incident.

     Old is in your genes.  Some families of humans seem to last longer than others.  Old is in your thinking.  Jimmie C. told me one time that he was getting up around that "40-mark" and it was time to start slowing down.

     Mid-life crisis usually hits about twenty years prior to reaching retirement age.  What happens after one passes age sixty-five?  Late-life crisises.  Which are much worse since unlike 45, 65 may be too late to fullfill any dreams which require physical stamina.

   Powdered milk is more important now than Mother's milk was in infancy.  I tried skim, recently, and it compares not at all.  Of course, my powdered skim has body and the more added to liquid the more "milk body."  I drink lots of tea, green, and black, and I take the edge off with powdered milk.  Then add a tad of cocoa powder.  It's a good habit forming cup. As far as the recovery drink, chocolate milk; when made with powdered milk, a little sugar and cocoa powder in heated water...we're talking too good. Mix it rich.  I remember being slowed on the number of glasses of milk with the admonition, "You're just thirsty, drink water!"  I down powdered cold milk often, just to quench my thirst.

Make new friends but keep the old.  One doesn't know you and the other probably told.

OLD VERSE By the Maxx

BACHELOR

Been bombed out and re-built too many times to be in that old love-fight again.
Prowled around as a proud warrior, ready for a chess match to begin
And some beauty with haste would lay my moves to waste, take my check, say so long mate, fast as sin.
Don't try to fix me up or set me up or casually introduce me to someone perfect for me.
Even if you are correct in your assumption, my stomach's not ready for consumption of that which my mind refuses to see.
George said it was skin and the way it fits better.
Howard was checking bra size through every high school sweater.
Men of all ages, it seems,
Prefer young bootie seams.
It's a bit of a curse.
The older the worse.

BE MY VALENTINE
Roses are red
And pink and yellow.
In my mind
I'm a happy fellow
Who wants and needs
And loves you;
Who bleeds from taunts
And ridicules,too.
Please feel the tug and incline
Towards a hug and be my Valentine.



HEALTH CARE ISSUE
I'm sure you're aware, I don't care, no intent to go there, I avoid hospitals.  If taken against my will remember my wishes not to plug me in to begin my end.


GENDER GAPS
If he be tough and mean
And pisseth a mighty stream
Then it is plain to see
He's as male as you and me.

But if a gentle soul
Directs his stream to the edge of the bowl
Eliminating the foamy yellow
What say you then of this quiet fellow?

Who among you can say
That all your thoughts today
Are grim, severe and never gay
Or light, polite in any way?

Is the line drawn straight
Between the she and he
And on which locked gate
One wishes to swing free?

Are slight tugs, firm hugs
And hands aflutter
Preferred to glaring pugs, chugged mugs
And language from the gutter?

What's the reason to deny
What's pleasing to the eye
Of one beholoder or other
What's from Dad, what's from Mother?

The truth lies here, each is part
Of  two , near as ribs to heart
No one is all one gender
To each, sometimes, we must surrender

HOW FAR?
I'd walk the streets of New York City
Bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge
Fill the Grand Canyon with a toy shovel
And empty out the food from Shaq O'Neil's fridge
Just to get back to where we were.

  HOT STUFF
Turn you're fire way down low
You're about to boil over
Turn your fire way down low
Then we'll bring it up slower

Turn your fire way down close
To where we both can feel it
Turn it down and put it on hold
Until we go somewhere to seal it




                                     

            WAITING UP                          

 
        If my house was glass           
        You'd see me pass               
        Back and forth and all around                                     
        Across each room upstairs and down.

        Going to each window         
        Staring through the pane,        
        Arms folded and still              
       "Will I see her again?"                                                  

         I wish she'd appear
        On the walk, drive or lawn.
        That image stays quite clear
        As I pace until dawn.

                                  
                                                                      HEIDI

                                                         There's purity in the sound,
                                                         Wholesome innocence somehow,
                                                         Placed there in a popular scene
                                                         Of pastoral settings in spring.

                                                         But Heidi isn't flighty
                                                         Her plant cultivation is mighty.
                                                         Pleasant laugh from an easy smile,
                                                         Soft eyes identify her style.


 WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY

The hinges hang suspended
Supporting the moving door
Which weighs and sways minutely
With each pass across the foor.
Just as increments of doubt
Changed the love we had before;
Subtle undetectable abrasions,
Fine sand grit against the shore.


                   SHOE-DE-BAKER

  His navel's playing baseball with his backbone
  But he won't leave the highway for a bite.
  His theory is that hitching is a twenty-four hour play;
  Until you reach your goal, you thumb day and night.    

                    LUCRE

It's filthy green presence lies
Just below the earth's pond surface
Like some dinosauric amphibian
Waiting for the fly-speck prod
To crunch through and leapfrog
At the least hint or mention of its name.

The burly Bogart'n brother mother
Never leaves completely does she?
Money's no object, there is none.
Money's no object, got a million.
Off my back Jack green monster!


   CHAINED LOVE

 Willie Nelson is rasping
  His latest effort,
  Another automatic hit.
 It has that country joy and hurt
 Which adds so much to it.

  No matter how many days of  sun
  Shine down to warm our skin,
  It's that first gray cloudy one
  That chills our soul within.

  Songsters and singers
  Know those little quirks,
  Those special little zingers
  Which provide the jolts and jerks
  That never let us fully relax
  Before reality snaps us back.

  The secret is to know the length
  Of every binding chain,
  To not exceed the weak link's strength
  And avoid the choke and pain.



BRANDYWINE (24JAN89)

Didn't I sleep here, last night?
I think I did, but no...
It wasn't here at all,
It was far away, in fact.

And you weren't here either,
Were you?
And yet I feel the mattress
And the blanket
And the pillow
And I know...

No, I'm dreaming still.
No one, not even me
Is here.

                                                GONE IN THE DARK

                                             People searched high nd low,
                                             Looked nearly everywhere
                                             That evening old Jim vanished
                                             From the Sonoma County Fair.

                                             Just like he said he would
                                             Just like everybody feared
                                             Old Jim left without a trace.
                                             He's gone, just disappeared.

                                              It was just a matter of minutes
                                              And lots of people didn't care.
                                              It happened when the lights went out
                                              That night at the county fair.

                                              There's lots of speculation,
                                               Lots of guessing and ideas to share
                                               But no one ever really was certain
                                               How Jim faded into thin air.

               PLOWED UNDER?

He told many he had a feelin'
Some big change was comin'
No one paid him any mind
People say that stuff all the time

The story causes some fears
When a person just disappears
There are chills in skin and hair
About when the lights went out that night at the California county fair.

QUICKER THAN FAST

There's no tomorrow, that's what they say,
There's no tomorrow, there's just today.
Well, they're all wrong, no matter how long
The wait may seem, morning sun will beam.

     Litter bugs are ignorantly wealthy.  They toss it out and defend it as work for welfarees.  "I'm rich enough to pay pittance wages to clean up my ignorantly tossed trash."  No, you ain't, fool, no culture in history has been that rich, except oil sheiks, and they're running out of cheap immigrant labor. So go pick up where you see, walk and spit; that'll take care of it.


                             TRIOLET

  Dylan said, "It's anything that walks by itself."
  But all of mine sit immobile on the shelf
  I wish they could at least learn to crawl.
  Dylan said, "It's anything that walks by itself."
  If I coax they may take motion after all
  They're just for fun and won't bring any wealth.
  Dylan said, "It's anything that walks by itself."
  But all of mine sit immobile on the shelf
       

 Variety is the spice of life, but you can't live on spices alone.

HOMELESS, JOBLESS AND PENNILESS

It's a kind of a color-blind
Patriotic blues come to call,
If it wasn't for the bad high times
There wouldn't be any good times at all.

  TRUCK DRIVER
I'm gone, I'll be back
But I don't know when,
Then I'll hit the door
And I'm gone again.

            COME AND GO

You used to say you wondered where I've been
Then treat me like you wanted me to leave again.
Look over your shoulder in front of your chin,
Your wander lovin' man is gone again.


                COULD BE WORSE

Woke up with a stove and refrigerator by my bed
(Which was a linoleum mattress and throw rug for my head)
But I'm thinking it's the better of the choice the night before;
Which was "Hit the road sunuvabitch or sleep on the floor!"


NO COLA, PLEASE

Coke on ice is fine.
She fevers for a line,
One after another
Until the smother
Of her brain
Is all that remains,
Waiting to awake
And want again.

Rock and Roll decadence: JUDAS PRIEST warming up BLACK SABBATH.  And Huth said, "You can shake that all night, baby, and if there ain't a drop left when you hand it to me, I won't feel bad cause I won't have to blow the rust dust off  it.


                 RIPPED VAN WINKLE

You can't go home again
You get no second acts
Repeating is for robots
Man must make new tracks.

I've been down this road before
Watched the passers-by
Wondered what they're all about
Felt the need to fly.

Everywhere is a place I left
While chasing an elusive dream
Or running away to play
Until reality hits again.

I wonder if I'm doomed
To sleep and stumble through
Wasting more years than are left
Trying to decide what I want to do.

Make new friends but keep the old.  One doesn't know you well and the other probably told.

                                        ODE TO BRENDA 8

The panic pace became a race to beat the clock with a faster walk.
"Want a ride?"  "Yes!" I slide in on the other side.
Hope we're seen so I can dream and scheme and fantasize and lie
"bout how we drove for miles to arrive on time with smiles.
But if you're serious, how would I know whether to get serious
And take you so...yes, I'd go.

                                       
                                        
                                        
        ANOTHER ATTEMPT

Trying to say it differently or better
Seems conceited or even bold.
What about all the great lovers and poets
Who've been copied, reprinted and sold?

Even if the means would come to me
And the words and phrases could flow
Would it prove what I feel is special
Enough for th rest of the world to know?
Yet, the others only expessed some inner
Feelings which they considered too good to be true.
So at the risk of sounding cliche, trite or bland,
I love you, I love you, I love you.

                                                                                                                 SOLAR BROILER

                                                                                                             The sun's silent blast
                                                                                                             Through freshly wiped
                                                                                                             Bay windows
                                                                                                             Brings the sensation
                                                                                                     That my body has been hollowed out
                                                                                                               And a brush is inside me
                                                                                                               Basting on a glaze of warm blood.
                               CRY AND FACE IT

Sitting, sipping, tip-tapping and typing and wiping the sweat from my face,
Trying to think, close to the brink of figuring where I'll find my next place.
Feeling like squealing to the highest order of whatever allowed me to be
So confused and abused by the elements and time that I've nothing to do but flee.

Who's caring or faring better or sharing my plight or giving much of a damn
About one dude's rapping and crapping out in life's inexplicable plan.
(Not those who peek at the words of a freak who can't tell work from a scam.)
That's the way it appears when one reaches times when all the feelings are fears
About having wasted all of one's life until there's nothing left but more tears.

      I watch you read the letters at the mailbox by the road, shred the ones you don't want me to see and I know your secret will soon become a plea but the truth is it won't bother me.

Nothing but the sound of the world going down, no phone, radio or TV show, no singing, gun-slinging rodeo.
The quiet can be noisy when thoughts crash and burn.

                      MACHO MAN

When some dude runs me a ration of mud
About something he thinks ain't exactly stud
Like hanging wash or doing other tasks
Dishes, windows; you know, anything she asks?
Look, bud, I'll say, what've you done that's so macho today?

When a dude begins to swagger
Then hints strength gets the prize
I'm leaving him to stagger
I'm cutting him down to size.

After I walk the walk
Or chug the whiskey away
I'll calmly clean his clock
And ask, what did you do so macho today?

Talking my way out instead
Seems a better way
Than blasting upside his head
Just so I can say, I did something macho today.

                                                                                       YOU ACT LIKE

                                                                               You think it's easy
                                                                               Giving love with no return?
                                                                               You think it's easy
                                                                               Feeling your coldness while I burn?

                                                                               You think it's easy?
                                                                               Well it's not it's very hard.
                                                                               Each days a struggle
                                                                               My mind's a mud puddle
                                                                               My body is tired.



                END OF SNAIL

Can't send a tear-smeared E-mail
About how our love may fail;
Salt stains are no avail
If they can't be sealed and set sail.

Can't describe the greens
In walnut tree scenes
That backdrop when a breeze
Waves the flag which proves we're free.

Don't want to die like one of those times when I almost died.  I've been close to giving up the ghost when it hurt too much to cry and the next second told me I'd survived...I've heard of folks who were pulled from fire and nobody gave them a chance...some are walking and smiling through the scars, thanking their lucky stars.

Dirt won't hurt, but dirty's a worry.

                                          FUN FUNERAL

When it's time to lay me in the ground
Don't play any slow, church music sound
Crank the tunes when I'm put into the hole
Send my ghost away with some rock and roll

Don't use any operatic strains
To purge my sins or ease your pains
Blast some tracks for the high-volume train
That's my ride to the never-coming-back-again

                       THE HARDER THEY FALL

We suppress outlets of frustration
We contain the shows of emotion
We hide our faces from others
Especially dads and brothers

In the end though we all know
Any day we may have to let go
The salt water rush will flow
Even as our age may grow

We are as aware of the facts as we are aware of the skies
The bigger the man, the bigger the tears he cries