Hand Me Downs

Bell bottoms
Ponchos
Head bands
Socks

Red Sneakers
Platforms
School Books
Locks

Yesterday
Found them
All in a
Box

Gifts for free
Gifts for me!

Aunt Hat and Red
Thank you
preacher, teacher
Too

And everyone
Whose come around
What do I owe
You?

Handkerchief
Mittens
Red scarf
Kilt

Prejudice
Red Scare
Swear words
Guilt

Politics
God fear
TV
Shows

Big Bible
Big words
Racial slurs
Foes

Apocalpse
Gossip
Scare tactics
Dread

Yesterday
found them
All in my
head!

Aunt Hat and Red
Thank You
preacher, teacher
Too

And everyone
Whose come around
What do I owe
You?

Lucky #7

The cure for cancer's
around the corner
Life'll be great
and a century longer.

When you crossover
from this physical state
God'll meet you
at the pearly gate.

Fulfillment for every need
Reward for every deed
Patience people, patience indeed!
Follow the shephard or take the lead.

Just a step more
one chore more
Just a test more
one high score more

Things'll be better than before!

Just have faith
in Lucky #7.

Desire' s desire.
To be filled another day
But while we're on the way
Bend down on a knee and pray.

Have faith you'll get things your way!
Yippie-tie-yie-yay.

Is that the ultimate plan
the ultimate promise or really the ruse?
Someday they'll open or bar the promised land
depending on what prophet you choose.

I'll take door number four!
Oh crap--it says I must live poor.
Should've remembered the path to health and heaven
Is always behind Lucky #7

Or how about six meals a day?
No smoking, drinking or acting badly
Yearly screenings and weird proddings
Or filling prescriptions madly

but sadly

Gotta wait til tomorrow to live forever.
Or pray that tomorrow you will live forever
Either here or there
somewhere there's a ticket to forever.

Every desire fullfilled
around the riverbend
Vestial virgins, sweet excursion,
delectable diversions

Someday
what's bad'll be good
if you act as you should
today

On this religion and science
completely agree.
Praise the blessed unity!
Of lucky #7

It Falls Away

I say this skin is mine.
What was it yesterday but a thought,
an impulse, that makes the flesh
restore itself?

Tomorrow, cells shall dry
and wither and rub off
what I call me.
Yet I will remain
for now.

Hair grows the length of a year
and roots show darker than the summer.
In spring, emmerging from the winter's cold,
I shall own hair long or short,
less or more, but different than
when summer ended.

Yet am I not me, still?
Do I remain still?

Nails and polish, teeth and gums
nose hairs, armpit fuzz
skin and stubble and eyelashes
found on the floor and in the bed.
Discarded without conscious effort.
Am I the food for bed bugs and roaches?
Have I left myself there,
and there and over there?

And what of my limbs more crooked with age?
What of those teeth and hairs?
What of my toes and fingers?
If tomorrow they fall away
Does that being I call "me" remain?

And of the senses that fade
Which one has to go to carry me with it?
My sight, my hearing?
Smell, touch, or taste?
Or that pulsing brain
that factory of reactions
that fades and forgets--
when does it stop holding the key
of "me"
together?

What cell
What fiber
what mineral
what spark
contains the essence
that heralds -- I am?

I am
It falls away.
I was
falls away.

The possessions
The riches
The body
The mind
fall away.

Impermanence.
It all falls away.
The ability to discern
some attributes
that make up
what I think of as "me"
ah! those things leave "me"
as a hollowed husk
of dried flesh.

So it is.
So then...
when is the definition
ever complete and true?

If I cast off the possessions,
the riches, the body and the mind
as I would effortlessly
let fall away the remnants of yesterday's
skin and hair
there
without the mind's thoughts
or hopes or fears
on the loss of "me"
what would be left
beyond the defining
and the undefining?

The omnipotent
omnipresence
of all
of nothing
beyond the essence
of the inessential
beyond what was or never was
or is or never is
or will be or never will be