Like a rolling stone

 Once upon a time you dressed so fine

Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

- Bob Dylan

A.M. Pacific

The morning ocean

startled by the infant sun

rests under a blanket 

of a million silver coins 

Elsewhere enraged

she tosses native fishing boats

like popcorn.

Note:

Just after the April 30 fall of Saigon and in the first week of May 1975, on board the USS Parsons somewhere in the Pacific near Okinawa.

Fast Car

"You got a fast car

I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we can make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
Me, myself, I got nothing to prove..."

- Tracy Chapman

https://youtu.be/AIOAlaACuv4?si=reNpI0u4FUSXUSWA

Are You?

 There is a borderline I touch.

I don't know when I touch it.

It is not as if I feel when I touch it.

I don't;  I don't think I do; do I?

I just touch it.

We all touch it.

This borderline we touch touches all of us ,

elusively, intermittently.

It starts at a point.

It stops at a point.

Am I touching it?

  

- April 1976, in port, Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan 

Where is the love

Where is the love? (Where is the love?)

Where is the love? (Where is our love?)
Where is the love?

Where is the love you said you'd give to me
Soon as you were free?
Will it ever be?
Where is the love?

- Roberta Flack & Danny Hathaway

I miss her voice on the radio.

https://youtu.be/ZcHPNUN-U8E?si=FTF48RobAwXEyRIC

Pointless maybe

Forgive the intrusion

but words are how I express 

me.

Mostly written words.

Attempting to be not too verbose,

preferring to be succinct.

Brevity is a virtue.

And these words?

Likely inconsequential.

Pointless maybe, but I hope not.

Just wanted to let you know,

thinking of you.

Werewolves of London

 I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand

Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London
Ah-hoo

- Warren Zevon

Stayin' Alive

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother.          You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive.                                                   Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'

And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive

- Bee Gees

Wake Up Everybody

As Black History month comes to a close, a song:

Wake Up Everybody

Wake up, everybody, no more sleeping in bed

No more backward thinking, time for thinking ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be

There's so much hatred, war, and poverty, whoa, oh

Wake up, all the teachers, time to teach a new way

Maybe then they'll listen to whatcha have to say

Cause they're the ones who's coming up, and the world is in their hands

When you teach the children, teach 'em the very best you can

The world won't get no better

If we just let it be

The world won't get no better

We gotta change it, yeah, just you and me

- Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes featuring Teddy Pendergrass

https://youtu.be/axmBtBOlbVU?si=R5diXiUyaEUhCgS9

Lent & Taxes

A long time ago, my father brought home a live chicken.  I must have been 8 or 9 years old.  Who knows where it came from.  Dad sometimes did construction work pro bono especially for his AA friends who needed help.

As Dad would say, some of them "did not have a pot to piss in".  (His language was at times colorful.). Their drinking had apparently drained their bank accounts and at times their family relationships.

Dad chopped its head off.  Ever see a chicken flap around after losing its head?  Scared the pants off me.

I felt like the chicken chicken yesterday.  It had been a busy day.

(Dad spoke at 12 Step meetings throughout Michigan. My hometown Chamber of Commerce once gave him a Man of the Year award  for his work.  Dad often spoke at Brighton Hospital. Brighton near Detroit was the first hospital for alcoholism and addiction  in the state. That is where Dad became acquainted with Bill W. the founder of AA.  Bill W also spoke there in the 50s.)

Yesterday, I helped a single mom with three kids.  Income in the mid 20s.  She will receive a refund of $14,600.  It is more than half her annual income.  She works at some church in the office.

You don't think her refund will allow her to maybe repair her car or maybe even get a substantial down payment on a better used vehicle.  Or maybe just some better school clothes for the kids.

Maybe she will actually treat herself and her kids to a nice dinner out on the town. Or buy herself a new coat or dress.

When I see sometimes that our clients don't have a "pot to piss in", well, sometimes it hurts your heart.

Then I think about a mother's smile when she finds out the amount of her income tax refund.

It may be Lent in some worlds.  In mine, it is tax season.  

Lent was first established by a bunch of old men at Nicaea.  The Romans required taxes long before that.