I have had a poem published by Jo and Christine, and I am in good company. I am especially pleased to appear at the same time as my friend Julie Buffaloe-Yoder, as I am one of her big fans. I would suggest you visit. I am in very good company. What a labor of love for Christine and Jo. I couldn't be more impressed.
You can read the magazine online at ouroboros review, and purchase a copy at the online bookstore.
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I am a bit irreverent by nature. I have a hippie streak, and the woman I married wound up considering me a fraud, claimed I was an undercover redneck. When I joined AA it didn't take long for me to also discover I am distinctly criminal minded. Damn. So here is how God treats the likes of me.
Tricked Again
The last time I saw God
He was out under His throne
Drunk on beer again,
With a shiny thing
Rolling away from His hand.
I stole it, found out
It was my own soul
All polished up and waiting
For me, a damn trick.
I never get away with
Anything I try.
***
One further comment. If you are a really doped up hippie, probably the only criminal activity you might have a chance at doing well is selling dope. Even then you probably won't do well at making money. Even if you don't get caught, there is the trouble of taking the profit in goods :) I had to go straight and get a job. Eeewwww! The shame of it.
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I don't know if this is whimsy or profoundly spiritual. It could be the spiritual desert, hmmm? Or maybe I just personified an old abandoned pick up truck. I really have no clear idea. I wonder though, if I were an old abandoned pick up sitting alone in the high desert under blue sky, itchy with the damn rust, and I wanted to go home, where on earth is that? What could I possibly mean?
Stranded
I got holes and more.
I got rust and high desert.
I got the blue sky.
I be old, cranky
Sittin alone in the sun
Kinda twisted up.
Doncha hate this stuff?
Stranded in the wild like this.
I wanna go home.
Contraction
1 week ago
hmmm. Stranded? It's been a long time i was stranded in the wild, but after some initial panic. I do just that,sit in the sun, and honestly slowly i will realize; I am always home.
ReplyDeleteSaying that; God maybe has not yet played trick on me.
But how bad can it be; you got published! congratulations.
(I could not get the link to work)
Jozi, there is something wrong at the other end right now. I used this link earlier and all was fine. Now I tried it and have trouble too. Traffic may be jammed.
ReplyDeletePerhaps He doesn't need to trick you like he does me. That's the work of Coyote, how come He sends Coyote to me.
I am very gullible, too easily tricked, no fun for coyote.
ReplyDeleteI can relate for sure :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on being published! I'm headed over there to see right after I finish here.
ReplyDeleteI love Stranded - you sound "be old and cranky". Great voice in this one.
i love 'tricked again'
ReplyDeletevery well done criminal minded christopher xx
See next post about the review. Damn puters.
ReplyDelete{{{Jozien}}} I hope coyote treats you kindly.
Michelle, you mean you are criminal minded?
Karen, I hope you will try again using the link I suppled today.
Congratulations on getting published, Christopher!
ReplyDeleteDope dealers, they always have friends when they have a supply. The supply dries up, and the friends do too. Fancy that.
I love the idea of the criminal mind being tricked into stealing something that belonged to him in the first place.
I don't have a criminal mind, these days. It's not my conscience that stops me; it's that icky feeling inside. My soul wants a clean house to live in.
Rachel, it's an odd life. My best friend from those days took off for Oregon before I did, settled in another part of the state. We came a couple years later, and when I married a couple years later, he came to the wedding. But after that we lost touch. I think it was me that didn't really try any more because I never expected any follow through from him in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI don't have criminal actions in my life because it is simply too complicated, much harder work than staying straight if you want to be left alone. You get bothered from inside by paranoia that sometimes isn't really paranoid, and you get bothered outside because of the social and political implications of ostracism. Then there are the risks of tremendous pressure applied on your vulnerable position, such that you may have to do things that cross even your own lines.
When I left the dope world behind I was at risk of having to snitch to save my own hide. I feared I would cave and bring another man down and then would have to commit suicide in the shame of it. Being in that spot broke me and rendered years of drunkenness virtually inevitable. That's what being an outlaw got me. I never did get popped, thank the fates, but it was a close thing and I had to leave town. That's what year's end in 1971 was like for me.
Not anymore Christopher, not anymore.
ReplyDeleteI try to make life easy for me these days.....
Michelle, I'm happy to hear that. I think the best thing about a criminal mind is the really odd sense of humor in it...
ReplyDeletethanks for you poems
ReplyDeletei always am touched by them
Lirio, you are welcome
ReplyDeleteI was lucky too Christopher, always dodging the finger, never quite getting busted (except when I was 14, and that was for shoplifting). I was 6 months old at the end of 1971. The world changes so little.
ReplyDeleteWhy Rachel, you whippersnapper you. You're not even forty.
ReplyDelete