Hated Saturday nights;
Being third to
The bath-water
After Mom and Dad
But before the older kids
Felt poor;
Deprived.
He thought he was.
While down the road
His buddy, Joe Cordova
Didn’t have to feel so poor
Because the family
Didn’t have a tub.
Lucky Joe.
Old Jules
Coming back from Fredericksburg yesterday I spotted this sitting in a field 100 yards off the pavement. I felt an immediate kinship, made a U-turn to go back for a closer look.
The first new vehicle I ever owned was a 1970 F150. Standing here looking at this one too-long left in a pasture, flat tires, dents and proud sign I flashed a brief, joyful memory of driving mine back to Austin from the dealership in Luling.
Someone did the same with this one from some other dealership. I wonder if he remembers the day, wonder if he’s even alive to remember some piece of geography he shared with this heap of steel, glass and rubber before me.
The young don’t know enough
About being young
They squander youth
And never know ’til later.
Any lad of twelve will testify
An eight-year-old can’t even qualify
To be a child
At eighteen our own ignorance
At fifteen is finally written
In language we comprehend:
We know the score
Reality’s the icing on the cake
Of youthful fantasies;
When the young grow old
They know a lot
About being young
But almost nothing
About being old.
But trucks know
Trucks have the dents
Worn bearings
Frayed seat-covers
Holding a thousand
Passed-gas kisses
Spilled drinks
Forgotten miles
Of those who forgot.
Old Jules
Posted in Poetry, Relationships, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Trucks, Uncategorized
Tagged country life, culture, History, home, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, misc, miscellaneous, musings, my life, other, personal, poem, poems, poetry, random, Reflections, senior citizens, wisdom, writing
Recurring dreams of life
Disturbed his slumber
Nightmares they often were
But they were dreams
Had to wait in line
Almost forever
To even get a nightmare
Ticket out
For just that tiny while
From all that somnolent
Incessant
Endless nothing
Broken now and then
By welcome
Welcome dreams;
Nightmare punctuation
In a twenty-chapter sentence
Was a blessing;
Wished he could kill himself
When he killed himself
In dreams
But never quite learned
To love the nightmares
While he dreamed them
Old Jules
Posted in Human Behavior, Poetry
Tagged Human Behavior, Life, lifestyle, musings, other, poem, poems, poetry, random, Reflections, wisdom, writing
The head-count of chickens and truants
Considering sub-plot and nuance
Suggests there’s a vixen
Requiring a fixing
Or else a coyote’s influence.
Old Jules
Posted in Chickens, Creative Writing, Current Issues, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading, Poetry, Solitude, Writing
Tagged animals, Chickens, country life, culture, environment, Events, home, homesteading, humor, Life, lifestyle, limericks, misc, miscellaneous, musings, Nature, other, poems, poetry, Poultry, random, Reflections, thoughts, Wildlife, wisdom, writing
She loved bridge
He loved mostly poker;
Never understood
How his sevens-high full house
Betted to the limit
Looking at her pair
Of Aces
Turned out to be
Disaster
Crushed beneath
An Ace high full
Every time he let her
Cut the deck
Old Jules
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Education, home, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, misc, miscellaneous, musings, other, personal, poems, poetry, random, Reflections, Relationships, thoughts, wisdom, writing
So you hate him.
Wish him ill.
You have a problem.
If he could only feel
The fear, the doubt, the horror;
If he could only satisfy your
Yearning
For him to feel those things
He might do it.
He might.
If he could only understand
How much it means to you
To cause him pain;
With what a flood of anguish
And venom you despise
Hunger his agony
And want to be responsible;
Want him to know,
He certainly might try.
But, he can’t.
Despair’s no longer sexy
To those who’ve seen it naked.
Fear cowers under a straight,
Steady gaze.
You’ll have to offer something
More frightful
Than your silly rage;
Your idealized terror;
Something more dismal
Than your impotent concept of
Emptiness;
Something with more substance
Than your scorn;
Something more somber than you
Think death is
To make him care.
Life will hand him defeats
His days will serve up
A ration of pain
He’ll deal with them as he must
And always know those blows
Aren’t yours.
They’re just life.
Old Jules
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Human Behavior, Life, misc, miscellaneous, musings, other, personal, poem, poems, poetry, random, Reflections, Relationships, thoughts, wisdom, writing
It’s the only job left.
Being on top was such fun!
The products were cheap, and the gun
Assured they’d keep coming
Velocities numbing
Til ammo we’d spang out of run.
Those multi-national boys
Didn’t make you buy all of those toys.
You bought them not thinking
From China, though shrinking
Your dollars without so much noise.
It’s jobs that you want, and you’re right
But you’ve got to be part of the fight.
Throw out all your plastic
incumbents and spastic
Buying and crying and spite.
The CEOs bankers and pols
Helped you do it but aren’t Commie moles
It’s true they’re just like you
Their coppers will strike you
While your coppers strike at the doles.
Stopping a train just ain’t easy
The methods are bloody and sleazy
But changing direction
Requires a correction
More solid than whiney and breezy.
Old Jules
Posted in 2011, America, Communication, Human Behavior, Poetry, Politics, Uncategorized
Tagged consumers, culture, economics, economy, Events, government, Human Behavior, humor, imports, jobs, Life, lifestyle, limericks, misc, miscellaneous, musings, occupy, occupy wall street, other, personal, poems, poetry, politics, random, Reflections, thoughts, US, wisdom, writing
Choose Something Like a Star
by Robert Frost – 1947
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud —
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
Posted in Adventure, Astronomy, Creative Writing, Music, Poetry
Tagged environment, Human Behavior, miscellaneous, Nature, other, poems, poetry, writing
He goes by the surname of Fauna;
From platypus to the iguana:
He hunts and he stalks
And he ceaselessly talks
Of death and the killing he want’ta.
She goes by the surname of Flora.
She’s plankton; she’s trees, a plethora,
But lives in a dread
Avoiding his tread;
He’s Sodom; he’s death; he’s Gomorrah!
He eats, he digests, he excretes her;
She’s worried each time that he meets her.
It’s not so dismaying
To find him decaying:
His syrup of nitrogen treats her.
Submerged in a hostile reality
Humanity flirts with finality.
He yearns to transcend
But his carnal self wins
And he wastes all his life in banality.
Old Jules
Copyright © NineLives Press, 2004
—————
Interesting aside:
“The midnight sun is a sore trial for amateur astronomers in the high North,” says Fredrik Broms of Kvaløya, Norway. “But now, after a long summer without stars (save one), darkness is falling again. Last night when I was watching the beautiful conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon, the first auroras of the season suddenly appeared!”
“I am looking forward to a great season with lots of activity on the sun!” says Broms
———————
GEK, the friend who owns this place is going into high gear preparing for the Hatch Chili Festival coming up soon in Hatch, New Mexico. Last night he sent me a pic of his latest creation involving Siberian wolf fangs:
—————————————
Upcoming White Trash Repairs Project – Soon to be a nesting box
Getting the guts out of there without destroying the aesthetics is the challenge A layer of dead leaves or horse bedding chips in there and the Great Speckled Bird explaining the operation, they'll be right at home.
“Life after death will take care of itself howsomeever it plays out. Finding something useful to do with yourself when the future passes you up without volunteering yourself for the burn pile is a this-lifetime matter worthy of concern.” Josephus Minimus
“I am a Long Tall Texan” – Bob Luman
Posted in Animals, Nature, Poetry
Tagged animals, culture, environment, humor, limericks, miscellaneous, musings, poems, poetry, Reflections, writing
Explanatory note: I used to spend a lot of time on the Zuni Rez with a lady-friend who was school librarian there for 20+ years. The animals described and named here were all hers. I post this as a hat-tipping to Ernie, Princess, Spot, Boy Toy and the rest.
A schoolmarmish lady in Zuni
had canines subversive and loony;
her communist felines
made neighborhood beelines
with doctrines both outworn and puny.
The KGB cat was a lean
and speckled-nosed beauty serene
appearance alone
for her countenance shown
multi-faceted plots as she preened.
Her Weathercat history was tops.
She’d sprayed on dozens of cops
with a Commie aroma
ere she joined Sertoma
cavorting with phonies and fops.
The ringleader hound was a red
and curly haired rascal it’s said
whose Trotskyish leanings
and Maoish gleanings
were pondered curled up on the bed.
Princess Redfeather, they tells
of this curly red bitch of the cells,
forsook her fine lineage
to sip of the vintage
of Lenin, and Gulags and hells.
The worst of the felines, Bearboy:
striped and cross-eyed and coy;
Politically weak,
but claws that could tweak
bourgeoise carpet, and bedspread, with joy.
The Uncle-Tom dog of the hut
was Ernie, the gray-bearded mutt;
dog-tired, and dogmatic,
he thought, ”Problematic:
dog-eared dialectic and glut.”
A calico hound lying dormant,
most likely a police informant:
a capitalist clown
took his food lying down
resisting the commie allurement.
The Uncle-Tom dog she called Ernie
began as a dog-pound attorney
commuted from gassing
he pondered in passing
discretion’s demands for a journey.
The Stalinish kittenish spies
spread foment and torment and lies
to the Indian curs
and mutts that were hers
and war-gods high up on the rise.
Princess and Ernie and, Spot,
and Chester , the narc-dog; the lot:
for half a piaster
would bring the disaster
to Zuni, once called. Camelot.
Old Jules
Copyright 2004, NineLives Press
The Communist Internationale (Original, with English Lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suVB3YGIUk0
http://youtu.be/suVB3YGIUk0
Gloria Jean’s CATS – “You Better Come Home” – CAT SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw475QLrqdk
http://youtu.be/Lw475QLrqdk
Tagged animals, cats, environment, humor, miscellaneous, musings, Nature, poems, poetry, Reflections, writing
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
So Far From Heaven 