The Donkey

The family fountain

[well, not our family’s, but some family’s]

holds years and years of wishes

[well… probably just a few weeks’ worth at a time

the rest probably get donated

or maybe rotated into the tip jar]

 

As a kid I tried to get them into the top

thinking somehow the lower they went in,

the lower my wish-granting chances

 

As an adult I try to focus on the intent and don’t worry about my toss, but

failing even that effort to concentrate,

I wonder as it flips through the air

what range of wishes the fountain has heard…

 

“I wish for a million dollars”

“I wish for world peace”

“I wish to not get heartburn from eating too much of that giant burrito”

 

The knowing water hears my aimless mind-babble

recognizing me still after all these years

and trickles lightly like laughter

as my penny plunks in

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Strip mall

neon-glazed sale shacks

bumping dollar store shoulders

vacant beacons of bargains

piles of troll doll pencil toppers

and overstock scrunchies from 1994

 

Now

It’s amazing how often

I forget to remind myself

to just pay attention to now

Heaven

Heaven is definitely an ice cream parlour
at least in the welcome center

Just like the report card reward
days family field trips to Swensen’s
who made clown hats with cones
and always left us cold
crunching slushy tiny ice cubes
on metal spoons that made my teeth water

or Leatherby’s who hand-made
chocolate whipped cream and
served sundaes with cookies
before calories, lactose and shame

And waffle cones.
They’ll definitely have waffle cones.

Life movie

When I remember to look for
the silver linings on dark days
I feel perspective shift inside me
begrudgingly at first, like a car engine
tired from road after road after road
But soon the heaviness lifts a little,
the scenery becomes a cinematic
and even the soundtrack improves

2012

This is what the end of the world looks like

apparently

except the etymology of apocalypse is “unveiling”

and it’s not the last cycle in the Mayan calendar

and pretty soon science will merge with spirit through quantum physics

and our collective insanity will somehow simply melt away

as we realize our interconnectedness

and embrace new solutions to sweep away old problems

and embark upon a Roddenberry-esque era of peace and cooperation

 

that, or total annihilation in a mass of hellfire.

In which case I won’t have to pay back my student loans.

So there’s that.

Velvets

When they say the painted ladies of San Francisco

they’re referring to the colorful townhouses

with their voluptuous Victorian visages

 

But when I hear it I think of the eucalyptus

in elegant ranks and long lean lines

aging gracefully, blushing velvets

Fog

sips of nostalgia tea

steeped long in memory

with a cup of pea soup dreams

foggy foodstuffs comforting

Play

potato sack slides and piggyback rides

licking cake spoons and bright red balloons

finding cloud shapes

making forts of the drapes

sprinklers turned to water parks

getting grass stains until dark

night lights, food fights, feeding ducks

graham crackers and ice cream trucks

somewhere there along the way

I somehow forgot how to play

Dreamers

If it turns out somehow

that we are the dreams

of some otherwordly beings

what drab imaginings