drunken toast to the woman i love

i toasted from the cheap martini glass
to the woman i love
and i didn't stop there
in my drunken missing
i toasted everyone who love her
ice cubes clinked
and the chill of the night
when we decided
to make each other our world
blew in my hair again
i smiled wide
like i did when she hugged me
remembering how we walked
arm in arm over the mississippi
on a stone bridge
promising to keep
the love we had as kids
and found again
to be the love
we toast on drunken nights
when we're not together.

i gave up

i admit that some time ago
trying to save the world
was something i gave up
it was my only goal
for quite some time

i grew up believing it
laid in my bed at night
a seven year old boy
swearing off the evils of the world
in effort to free it from the people
who didn't understand
like i did

sometimes i think
it was fear that drove me
to think i was going to die
before eighteen
so that i didn't have to live
in a world that was slouching on
to self destruction

at sixteen i felt guilt
for every unkind word i said
and it might be at this point
when self confidence and worth
identity and all that messy psychology
started to make it's way
into my activism
my so called integrity

this journey peaked
when i hung quotes
by mlk and dorothy day
on the outside of my dorm room
when i dropped out
to touch the world outside of books
and essentially save it

started to give up
when a friend died at 22
i saw him stand on his head
and laugh that day
later i touched his cold hand
to feel death as real
started to give up
when i realized all the rivers
that i'd paddled ran down hill
and the world was something
different than i imagined

i gave up more
when i made bad mistakes
believing that because
i never meant to hurt anyone
it would never happen
i ate myself alive with integrity
and i poked many people with pain
i was trying to save the world
while loosing myself

i have hung up my cape these days
and left the saving game
with my big brain i think it's not important
the world's for existing not saving
whether i'm here or not

take what i can get

dandylions have poked up their golden heads
they're vibrant freckles in green yards
hearty enough to grow in cracks in sidewalks
i notice in my six block stroll to the bus stop
watching the season change to another
in only six blocks i have the time to wonder
if this spring is different
or if it's always been like this, i take what i can get

i don't mean it quite like it might sound
like an opportunistic bastard
looking out for good old number one
it's not the attitude that follows to the tables
of the smorgasborg or all you can eat buffet
can't leave without trying the apple crisp
i'll put it on my plate just because i can
force it down my throat, store in distended belly
it's not the grabity grap in the shopping mall
two-for-one bin of pink plastic flip-flops
buy it because it's on sale, can't have too many of these
it's just really an amazing value

my take what you can get
is neither the begger nor the thief
my take what i can get
is standing in the rain storm
knowing it will pass
when it will pass
till then i'll take the view
of rain falling on open water
ripples from each droplet
travel till absorbed by another

my take what you can get
is feeling thankful
for the young woman singing
and with light fingers
playing keyboard at a simple service
for my father's only sister
who had a sudden stroke mid fifties
leaving him alone
the last of his family to die

it's an attitude
that doesn't leave
lying on my floor aching
for the way
people, the world, it
should be

it has me strolling
with eyes looking outward
and bright spots along the way
during a simple stroll in spring