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Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet

Monthly Archives: May 2018

Wise and Soft

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Gospel, Jesus, Jesus said, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Gospel, Joy, Love, Peace, Rainbows, Soft, Truth, Wisdom, Wise

Sol’ asked for wisdom,
a wise move that turned out
well for him.

True wisdom comes from
beyond our first thoughts.

Some use prayer, some meditation,
some plant seeds, watch them
fight to fruition.

The song is sung, the praise made,
the bed is prepared, and we
reap the sown—

planting full of unknowns, our
efforts and work sometimes
with reward.

At others, we get the lesson of
the storm, the locusts come,
the drought,

the blight of uncertainty leading
to the glory of overcome obstacles
in eternity;

songs sung, the battle won, we step
up to ask, then receive the gift
of another day,

a chance to rise above the fray,
take a back seat to all that’s grey,
songs sung,

glorifying the altar that is on the hill,
waterfalls heard by standing still.

Wise like the serpent, soft like the
dove, we ask for Sol’s blessing,
the ancestors—

imperfect and sweet, like us,
somewhere between rainbow and
geese, songs sung

so we can look back, say
“We won.”

We did it, Longfellow’s hero in
the strife, heroes by trying hard,
and living life.

The Search for Reason

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Alcoholism, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Relationships

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Gospel, Hardship, Jesus, Joy, Love, Peace, Relationships, Youth

Sometimes the closer you
delve—the farther you are from
the truth.

You must back up to see the forest
from the trees, they say, each
cliché with

elements of truth, so repeated
until there’s a catch—maybe
something

to be used or useful to people.

Often I get upset about what
someone does or says, then
investigate

into a black hole of unknowns;
so much so I start to think that
what could

be going on is above my paygrade,
like a deep problem in the person,
like alcoholism,

day drinking and depression. If
such a thing is going on, you
are liable

to get caught in bigger problems
than you bargained for, you keep
searching

and wind up in a haze of powers
bigger than yourself that have nothing
to do with you.

Approach life and its relationships,
even quick interactions, with small,
light,

gentle intentions.  “Be as this little
child” to get to heaven, said a wise
rabbi once.

Be small.  Be as the child.  Smile,
and never harbor grudges, deep or
dark adult

feelings, knowledge of the apple
eaten bearing its bad fruit—

don’t let it fester, do what the toddler
does, and smile.

To Throw a Stone

31 Thursday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Gospel, Jesus, Jesus said, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Religion, Sex

≈ Leave a comment

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God, Gospel, Jesus, Joy, Love, Peace, Sex

It’s easy to judge.  It feels
good for a while, to size someone
up and find them wanting—
You see a flaw and flick it at them

To maximize damage, thereby
increasing the rush you feel, a cop
you steal, imbibing holier than
thou spirit, then…

You call a friend.  “Hey, look
at what so and so just did, said—
is or was!  Isn’t he or she a scandal,
where are the rocks?”

The what?

Let’s throw some rocks at him!!
Yeah!  Yeah!!

Throw rocks!

Wait, we don’t have any and I
can’t see you, this is a computer or
phone, everything’s online!!

“It doesn’t matter.  Tweet at him,
retweet ugly things, put downs and
all the ways you are better than him.”

#MeToo is truth and good, but
let’s stop short of throwing stones.

***

Sexual impropriety and crimes are
bad, but let’s stop short of throwing
stones!

Unless…

Unless ye, without sin, should you
want to step up, cast a big rock with
all the sin that you are not—

Go ahead.

Waiting…

***

No human without sin, it’s a long
wait, so let’s save it, breathe deep
and pray good thoughts for the sick
person who had a bad sex day.

Do unto others, as you would have
them do to you.

Do you want your mistakes shoved
in your face?

Or would you prefer everyone to
stay in their own lanes, try to
improve ourselves—

The judgement of others breaking
the eleventh commandment showing
no shame.

Man Hate

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Blog, Blogs, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Relationships, Resentment, Sex, Sexism, Women

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Health, Joy, Love, Men, Men's Health, Online, Peace, Relationships, Sex, Women

I didn’t hurt you, it wasn’t me.

Somehow, it’s lost on the resentful
the current circumstance, all a dance
of holding on or letting go.

We cannot let go until we admit
the problem, accept it, and take
an appropriate action based on
whatever code of morality or
ethics that tickles you peaceful.

***

I did not hurt you, specifically, I tell
her online.

I hurt me and about 15 girls growing
up because I failed to tell them
I loved them.

Too scared.  Too proud, I hurt them
and me at the same time—

it was an alcoholic thing.

Freud said drunks can’t express love,
and, well—I’m a drunk.

But it wasn’t me, I wasn’t the one
who made you specifically mad,
and yet I feel like I did—my point of
view, my quoting the bible,
which you call misogynistic.

Yikes, I have a lot to learn, you
know there’s always another side
of something—

But it wasn’t me, I mean—even if
I used the offending bible phrase,
my intention was good, not bad.

My stuff hangs down, makes sperm,
it’s a wild show of swirl and girls
in the head, trying to manage sex
with mutilated genital parts from
an operation I did not consent to
called “circumcision.”

Abused at birth, then growing up
with no talks on love, but plenty
of alcohol drinking and sports.

But I do not blame you for this;
you are a woman online, we hardly
know each other, but I’m sure if
patient, we would find we were
both fallible human beings, trying
to get along on this side of the dirt
before the stars and God conspire
with age to take us away, bodies
useless as our spirit soars forever.

Messing with Mom

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Blog, Blogs, God, Honor, Misogyny, Mom, Morality, Mother, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Sex, Sexism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Immigration, Ivanka, Joy, Love, Mom, Morality, Mother, Mothers, Peace, Political, Race, Racism, Trump, Truth

Men with stiff upper lips gather
in dark rooms, light cigars, drink
Scotch whiskey and avoid their feelings.

White people.

White men, holding hard to their
dreams of control and privilege—

the false narrative that “America” is
white, European, and manifest in
supreme destiny to be clean of the
riff-raff of anything not them.

Native peoples here were one with the
land, slaves brought in to tend it,
too.

And the men gather, not white-skinned
always, more like pink, red, sometimes
tanned against the sun, necks burned
to coin a derogatory phrase—
and shouldn’t we with conscience choose
not to use those?

Heaven knows the white, dark, brown,
whatever colored person is as good or
bad as the next;

We’re all prone to mistake.  To moments
of joy, perfect and true.

The smile universal, the love Ivanka
knows about even if Dad spits “Fuck you.”

The truth of the dream more than the
border of “seems,” something there is
that doesn’t love a wall and wants it
down.

I thought at first sound of a wall to
the south, “Okay, interesting, we all have
an option to wall our homes off from
the world, why not a country?”

Then I figured out that the term “wall,”
and “Build the Wall” next to “Lock Her Up”
at campaign rallies was a clear dog
whistle to the racist fear-mongering
masses, a racist explosion of “keep
them out,” they’re “criminals!”

They’re “animals!!!”

And Donald, sir:

So are you.  That you do not know
that is why you admire Andrew Jackson
and his Trail of Tears.

You have left the human race, you who
hold onto your racism and xenophobic
fear of others.

You are not animals at play in God’s
field with other animals—you who cast
out “different” as “worse.”

I love you.

We must love the oppressed and the
oppressor, for who at day’s end is more
close to death than life as the character
assassinator, the genocider, the angry,
stiff-lipped cigar sucker,

back rooms lit with the devil’s glare,
hoping against hope to turn your four-
year old heart into four years of
wrecking ball politics, hate, fear
and dismantling more than even CIA
managed in Cold War?

Carnage?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Daddy
brought that home.

Mine did every once in a while,
but I forgive him, love him, and
honor the God racist misogynist GOP
sellouts claim to worship by staying
small under Him or Her.

By listening.

By accepting that Mom brought us here
and deserves our respect!

Not a border full of Cops taking
their children away as a deterrent
to make up for your lack of gratifying
sex.

Go back to the wives of your youth,
Trump and criminal sympathizing supporters,
honor your father and mother, but first:

Repent.

Admit we stole this land.

Not for you, dummy, as I smile to tuck
in your shirt, little guy.

We admit truth to make the world
better

Diapers and Dementia

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Blog, Blogs, Health, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Aging, Health, Joy, Love, Peace

The Hebrew patriarch used to live 900
years, call it a day, was “gathered to
his people,” and passed away in peace.

We live shorter lives with more on the
planet now, and there are at least two
distinct camps:

The deists and the atheists use different
words to describe the same things,
which is fine—and in the end, words
are fictions, as Borges wrote.

We want to feel a part of something,
feel good, loved, connected during our
lives, and when it is time for our bodies

to expire?

A panic ensues for some who did not
prepare for the moment, keep loved
ones close, families between this or
that belief, just knowing it’s easier to
let a “doctor” decide.

We turn our will and lives over to
White Coats, to cold offices with
test tubes and vials, experiments
going the extra mile

to hope and fight and extend our
physical lives.

But at what cost?

Should we extend physical lives deep
into dementia?  Should we keep loved ones
in hospitals to end lives, while we keep
busy “doing me?”

What if we took a timeout and gathered
to our loved ones, prepared ourselves
for the transition, from physical life
to spirit?

We could do without the diapers.
The pain. The cost—both financial
and emotional!

We could be free the moment we let
go of this fear of the body expiring!

I almost died last night, because years
ago I overdosed twice, messed up my
insides.

Now, if I don’t get eating right, I go to
bed and risk not sleeping through until
the light.

I fight hard, and some fear of death is
natural and good!

But, if we pray and connect with Mother
Nature or God well enough, we’re sure
to get some peace, allow and accept the
beautiful transfer of our aging lives and
spirit to all that we loved and has loved
us.

“Terrorism”

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Crime, Criminal Law, Law, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Tao

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crime, Joy, Lao Tzu, Law, Love, Peace, Poems, Poetry, Robert Frost, Sense, Tao, Tao Te Ching, Terrorism, Truth

is a myth.

We’re trying to group and organize
our thoughts and conditions,
what racists do to keep things easy.

Brand a group or situation “X.”

Mark the spot of a crime “Y.”

The devil loves conflation, combining
and confusing, hates when we make
decisions, loves when we lump and
generalize.

Declare something “Good” or “Evil?”

Judge not lest ye be judged was not
a religious statement, but true.

Ask not what your country can do
for you, but what you can do for
your country was not political but true.

It’s a tragedy when murder happens,
but does it help to label the evil with
further labels like “terrorism” or
“terrorist act?”

Evil is evil, wrong is wrong, and to go
further to categorize is to welcome
a slew of lies.

Muslims.  “Radical Islam” are terms
born from these lies, we start witch
hunts against a group instead of fighting
the evils inside your own heart.

Gandhi was right, in part, and at the
time of his murder was a great voice
for peace.  (why he was killed)

Did terrorism kill him?

Irrelevant, your honor, it was wrong,
unfortunate, and God shall punish
all such acts, where God could be:

Good
Orderly
Direction,

a Higher Power, or just good
common sense.

A good fence.  The neighborhood in
check, my mind and body in balance
because I prayed first,

then acted.

Or did nothing—the spiritual way
of the Tao.

Aloe

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Nature, Overcoming, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Strength

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Earth, Heaven, Joy, Love, Overcoming, Peace, Peace of Mind, Poems, Poetry, Truth

I can’t remember the last time I
saw my green ivy, up the walk
along the steps, the rocks of
my entry, smiling saying “hello.”

One night a neighbor sprayed
poison on them, ‘cause that’s
where I live!  Los Angeles, the city,
“civilization” without sidewalk
security,

litter on the streets.

Crime and lack of care, but
there… There we are, finances
have you where you are for now,
trying to make the best of what is…

There were a couple aloe cacti
on the rocks, as well—and when the
ivy died, taking away my green,
the aloe grew, started to take over.

Something there is that doesn’t
love ivy-killing spray, rises up
in the fray, becomes the ship staying
the course in the spray—

they tell you to walk away, to
not see your uncle buried at
Arlington with full honors but
you go anyway.

The orange of the flower replaces
the green of ivy goodness, as we return
home every day.

The hate cannot steal the hope and
its neverending growth and ray,
the devil a coward when you call him
out, then Decide.

Ahh, he hates a decision as you
stay your own path against the tide.

Self-doubt, used to be their shouts,
you block it out and advance on
heaven, a narrow walk for only
certain, chosen soldiers who look to
left and right, even dangerously behind
to help another onto the trail
before we die triggering eternal life.

Aloe Vera is tougher than the poison
as is to death life.

Accepting my Balls

29 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Acceptance, Anatomy, Blog, Blogs, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Acceptance, Aging, Atheism, Balls, Birches, God, Joy, Love, Nature, Peace, Power, powerless, Robert Frost, Spirituality, Truth

As I see and feel balls sagging
from right to left, left to right,
I like to think someone’s been
swinging them.

But swinging them doesn’t bend
them down to stay.   Nature does
that.  Time, age: you wake up, and
your rocks dropped.

***

This can be a sad event, and was
for me, especially when I felt
nothing much happened in my
youth, no great wear and tear

that would leave an item or thing
stretched out or overused,
necessitating the sag, precipitating
a change, a drop, the swing—

Sad!!

I turned thirty years old, and
they dropped.

It was not at the brink of death,
closing in on very old age but
thirty years in, thirty times around
the sun, and they sagged!!!

I wrote several books, a screenplay,
thought of all different ways not
to think of my sagging rocks;

wrote about kids, a Kids World,
figured I was done so give the world
over to the tight-balled and perky
youths, think of myself less and less,
that’s it the ticket is to be more and
more Selfless!

***

That didn’t work, and I stayed depressed,
did the twelve steps on the problem
at last, and it went away for a time, the
depression about sagging—but then it
came back with a vengeance!

***

Then one day, it went away.  I accept
my sagging balls because they’re here
to stay.

What’s more, I’m powerless over them,
my age, and this rock spinning through space,
giving me cool ideas to write as long as
I walk on her and thank.

The best way out of a good depression
is to do nothing, wait for it to pass,
accept all things and Thank.

Redemption

28 Monday May 2018

Posted by Bill Watkins in Amends, Blog, Blogs, Poem, Poems, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Redemption

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amends, Love, Peace, Recovery, Restitution, Retribution, Slavery, Truth

A song of chains precedes any
of freedom.

We must state our cause, stake
our place in goal and dream

before the winds of change make
us more than we seem,

the perfect beings that for days
and weeks of life cannot

be supported—even the strongest
beams, gone are the memories

of the true line, until instead of
the flammable drink,

we humbly on paper or screens
opine!

God give us a soul, a season, a path
under foliage and civilization’s
litter on the head of first peoples and
nations we in Europe so arrogantly
bestowed.

Could it be that we escaped a way of
life over there, in our old world, only
to force that way on this American land?

I sound mad, but am only trying to report
the problems with the sound

above our homes, the helicopter hell
and siren fort—

1607 the British in armor seeking fame,
riches and glory.

We may have gotten them; but at what
cost?  And is there any going back to
make amends, to balance things,

to redeem our forefathers who often
forgot to slow down, breathe, and thank
God for our land before stealing more?

There must be, if the slave song
can make us free.

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