ACCEPTANCE

I'm stuffed into a silver suit....   is it enough to be the attendant pumping gas into a car driven by someone who works the night shift at a factory making parts for one small component in a rocket engine? no — not when you want to fly so let's have another space shot

only this time not a carefully picked — highly trained physically fit super intelligent astronaut this time chosen by national lottery an unqualified overweight over sixty beer drinking sports fan like me someone who still doesn't know how they go to the john up there what a moment it would be the world watching as I’m stuffed into a silver suit strapped onto the capsule couch slapped on the helmet bolted in counted down and blasted off sent up into the night into the stars out — so far I’d give anything to be back where I am right now +++

AFTER WORD — In rummaging around for something to post this week, only a couple of days before Christmas, I found myself totally empty handed. Surrounded by the commercial glitz and glitter that started a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving this year, with a senseless war continuing on with no end in sight, and with our planet under relentless attack what with global warming, global dimming, and heaven knows what else, I find myself yearning to get away from the hollow "Peace on earth, good will toward all" that is constantly ringing in my ears.

This feeling brought to mind the poem above, a piece written quite a few years ago having nothing to do with the Yuletide season. It is a bit of free verse that sent me off into the stars, so far away that in spite of everything it makes me feel good to be exactly "where I am right now." Cancer ridden and against all odds, I'm alive, feeling well, with Billie Barbara, my dear wife of 54 years, still at my side. Some of my middle-aged children and all of our three grandsons coming home for Christmas, I have decided that settling for "where I am right now" is not a bad gift to give myself this season. 


THE BIXBY BRIDGE INCIDENT
 

Suddenly, the wind touched my hair and I became aware of myself there on the bridge. the cup looked half empty the big hand said forty-two past and the word if there was one was tired then suddenly the wind touched my hair and I became aware of myself there on the bridge a weary old bird ready to leap from the nest and fly blind to the breathing sea below me in my best bulky-knit sweater calmly inching forward a great sadness in my blue-gray eyes — hair blowing aware now I paused and listened to the night for motor sound and looked for lights but the world was empty no one was coming to witness my final scene — the grand finale

and it was such a fantastic dramatic moment I decided to come back and tell you all about it laughing — shaking my head I drove home but it wasn't until I saw the shape of my own house that I discovered the cup had been half full all the time I was told recently that of all witnessed suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California not one — not a single person has been seen to go off on the ocean side the horizon side all — as of this writing have been seen leaping back toward the city and that would be a hell of a thing to discover half way down once years ago I hung by my heels was swatted — whaaaaaah — and decided to suck air and live on a bridge near Big Sur, California in the summer of ‘71 I faced the same decision again and as I write this I realize I am three months old today +++

AFTER WORD —I thought that my "3rd" birthday poem would be a fitting and proper way to start the year off. Some have referred to it as a suicide poem, which is way off the mark.

The way I look at it is that each of us has three birthdays. Why we celebrate the "1st" one, the birth one, has always been a mystery to me. Our "1st" birthday only gave us existence and that is all. I mean, rocks exist.

Now the "2nd" birthday usually happens when we are ten to twelve years old. Actually, I was 13 when it suddenly occurred to me that one day I would die. Right there, playing in our driveway, I had my "2nd" birthday and realized that I was mortal. I must admit it was a scary moment but I received two valuable gifts that day — the gift of being fully SELF AWARE and the gift of TIME. Little children wander out into a busy street and are late for dinner because they don't fully know that they ARE. But when you realize that a day will come when you won't be any more, that is the day you know for sure you ARE.

Well, the poem above is about my "3rd" birthday. While out there on the bridge the moment that I decided not to jump is the moment that I chose to BE. "Chosen existence!" Like when a drunk or an addict goes into NA or AA. That day is a "3rd" birthday. I feel that too many among us are here and know that we are here but that is as far as it goes. We know that we are going to die but we don't really believe it. So this is an important birthday. And you don't just have one. I have had many. Like when I'm driving down the highway depressed and see a truck coming and think all I have to do is turn the wheel and.... but I don't. Happy 3rd birthday Ricky!!!

So, I hope you too find this week's offering a celebration of KNOWING, BELIEVING  and BEING!!


ODE TO A REMOVABLE PARTIAL DENTURE

 

... but on the counter top   — in the sink it appears sinister! feigning nonchalance like an adolescent purchasing a prophylactic I furtively bought a tube of Fixodent today a disturbing experience although I am no stranger to the realm of crowns bridges and caps... remove the fixed frontal facades and I’m left with nothing but pegs notches and gaps the sunny smile you see is not the one I displayed in youth but once the dentists artistry is cemented down and the tongue wearies of exploration one tends to forget the truth receding hairline trifocals - liver spots all have been taken in stride but not this recent oral acquisition this sculpted wire amalgam

barbed and hooked where it bends pink cocktail olives stuffed with ivory pimentos skewered at both ends in place it magically fits in but on the counter top — in the sink it appears sinister like some gleaming surgical device left here by intruders from outer space perhaps an instrument of torture dating from the Inquisition my natural exuberance curbed by this cruel Spanish bit and to think for the rest of my life I must play host to this illusive parasite this spiny-finned pilot fish watching it dart in and out of my mouth knowing that it is secretly holed up somewhere in there waiting to eat and although it does feel good to dine with molars again symbolically the moment this metallic interloper was parked in my mouth marked for me the beginning of the end +++

AFTER WORD — I doubt that if you are 25 or younger you will understand this poem. I mean with your whole being. If you are 50 I think you will find something vaguely familiar about the Ode above. If you are 75 or older you will probably think I wrote this week's poetic observation about you.


COMING HOME..
 

Oxfords hastily bought — a size too small. the continuing story of a traveling salesman continues this time we find him running out of an airport gift shop with a cap pistol and a doll a surprise for the kids but like oxfords hastily bought a size too small

(the kids I remembered were not kids at all) "I think I've been gone longer than I thought." cried old Saint Nick as ever ho-ho-ho-ing as ever coming and going giving the children puppies for Christmas... never there when the dog died but it's okay Dad — it's all right they say there is no such thing as a bad parent they say even people who batter their offspring are doing the best they know how to do and you can tell that to the boxes that were never opened you can tell that to the shoes that pinch +++

AFTER WORD — This time of year is a retrospective time for me. At the height of my career I spent at least half of the year out on the road "Coffee Table Dancing." And sadly that was when my kids were young and could have used a father around the house instead of off dong his thing in hinterlands. Of course my children, now in their late forties and early fifties, have forgiven me. But around the holidays I find myself lying on the bed staring at the ceiling wondering about all the dance recitals and football games I missed chasing after my dream. 


BACK TO BASICS
 

Something like a spelling bee from a system of education wherein if it can’t be measured it will have to be ignored comes word that entire high school assembly required to sit through a poetry reading

left at the bell convinced that they had just had a free period the report cannot be verified though as the teaching staff also took the event to be a free period and spent it in limbo otherwise known as the Faculty room and who can blame them? they know you only emerge from something like a spelling bee with a clear unmistakable winner the rest of us the functionally illiterate 5,000 are left with seven loaves and two fish to divvy up for dinner and don’t ask for more the age of miracles is past +++

AFTER WORD — Back when I was on the road, I would often be called upon to do an all-school high school assembly and because of being someone with reading difficulties I wrote song lyrics first and then began composing what I call "speaking poems," accessible verse crafted to be performed — to enter the ear, rather than lie lifeless on the printed page waiting to be eyeballed. Being a bit of a bard really helped me with a high school audience.

I always found that once I let the students know that I was alive and there in person — not an image on a DVD, TV, movie or printed page — that I was a living breathing human being with feelings and that I would call them on it if I saw someone in the audience treating me as if I wasn't there. I then would begin my reading and invariably a couple of students would start whispering, giggling and nudging each other. As promised I would stop mid-sentence and say: "Hey, you there in the fourth row. Why are you talking while I'm trying to perform a poem? Don't you know that I can see you?" After that I would tell the entire assembly: "I'm going to leave the microphone now and go down and read those students the poem I wrote about my friend's son who committed suicide while on an acid trip by putting his head on a railroad track." Then, true to my word I'd jump down from the stage an go to where the disruptive students were and recite the afore mentioned poem to an assembly hall that had suddenly become absolutely silent. After that I'd climb back up on the stage and from then on the students were quiet and respectful and would even laugh at my attempts at humor. In 35 years on the road this approach never failed me.

One thing bothered me though. There always seemed to be a conspicuous lack of teachers in the audience. Which would prompt me to ask the English teachers to please hold their hands up. Usually, there were very few. So I would say to the kids: "Hot dog!! You are going to get to teach your teachers a lesson! When next you meet with your English class, ask your teacher what she or he thought of the poet you were forced to listen to." If you discover that they weren't here you can say: "Well, how am I supposed to know if the poet was any good if you skipped out to drink coffee in the faculty room while we were forced to spend 50 minutes with a poet! Maybe next time you will also attend the required assemblies so that we students can get your take on the event." I must admit I have always had a very perverse nature! :o)

Ric Masten

SUN-INK PRESENTATIONS

37931 Palo Colorado Road,

Carmel, CA 93923

(831) 625-0588  

Fax: (831) 625-3770 http://www.sun-ink.com/   

ric.masten@earthlink.net

On-line WORDS & ONE-LINER page.

http://sun-ink.com/WordsOneliners.htm 

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