Time (poem)

Does time really pass or are we passing time or is time passing us or are we passing cars and planes and trains going away from you and I never wanted to say goodbye but really I don't know who made the six months of two seasons together in your arms and it's only a matter of time dancing through the night and the day your eyes said more than words that you said nothing to look back for and nothing to look forward to moving in though the clouds which don't move just hold still while autumn turns to winter and the earth moves as I stand cold from the pain is tolerable in Winnipeg was not what I expected to see the days spent all my money and tears will be all I remember the stream down your face in the mirror showing for one night only I wanted to hold the sun shone over the snow melting six months and some time flew over the mountain back to where I was from that moment nothing changed the alarm on my clock as if I could control time

Things To Be Happy About (a partial list)

Technology
Laughter
A baby's curiosity
Friendship
The digestive system
Rainbows
Double Rainbows
The viral video "Double Rainbow"
Feet being pretty durable
Wounds healing
Family
Wool blankets that are already warm
Animation, CG, and movies, and words able to express what reality can't
Beer, beer, beer, and more beer and more beeer an  moer bre amfp om bwwwer
Rocket ships bringing our imagination to space
Space and the fact it's beyond on our imagination
The Internet
Cheese
Attainable goals
Treehouses
Candycandycandycandycandy
Music
Butterflies
Serendipity in everyday occurrences
History being in the past
Optimism when it's realistically applicable
Wikipedia
Rain from the inside of a heated room with no reason to leave for hours
Dancing alone in your room when the time is right
Pillows
The Pillows
The slow abolishment of the Dewey decimal system
Being able to express oneself in a multitude of artistic mediums
Colorful cupcakes
Being able to express oneself in colorful cupcakes
Smiles
Hot air balloons
Roller coasters
When fishing and the act of fishing becomes more enjoyable than the catching of fish but you still may catch a fish
A promotion in a job you enjoy to one you'll enjoy more
Barefoot on new cut grass in the summer with lemonade waiting
Porn and its ease of access
Planes can take anyone anywhere in the world so no one is ever too far away
Space
Spacecamp for children in the 3rd grade
Exploring a castle not on a guided tour
Art
Halloween
New shoes
Big snowflakes
Winning
Long drives with no destination without the constraints of time
Modern medicine curing over 90% of what we couldn't treat before
The power of one's own moral guiding compass
The idea of a picnic
Puppies
Kittens
Thousands of albums, shows, and movies can be obtained for free
Ginger beer
The sun
The moon
That one song from the 90s
Love
Poetry
Dreams
Pie
Bullying being cracked down on in schools instead of being accepted as "part of growing up"
Everything having an answer, even if you can't know it yet
Sugar as a sweetener and ingredient is abundant and cheap
Everyone poops
Electric bass
Hot baths & showers
When lazy is okay
The validation of your success
Compliments from strangers in the endearing way
Older couples who still hold hands
The warmth of the sun on a day when it's already comfortably warm
Fireworks viewed from beneath a blanket crowded with whoever is important to you
Planting, harvesting and eating vegetables that you've grown yourself
When buying something already at a good price and there is some additional sale that makes it even cheaper you didn't notice
Ice cream
Chinchillas
Drinking a cup of coffee and actually noticing the positive effect instead of just feeling shaky and bothered
Not smoking Virginia Slims
When you know the first kiss won't be the last kiss
Sunlight
The Sea
Reading Hemingway and staying in a good mood afterwardss
Flowers you don't have to pay for
Not being sick
Blue skies
Cartoons from when you were a kid (the only good ones)
Knowing the grandma's magic is a real ingredient in her chocolate chip cookies
Everyone is told a page to turn to, you open the book and are already there
Friends, both the people and your life and the nostalgia of the sitcom
The fact there is still mystery in the world
Calvin & Hobbes
When favorite celebrities are also kind, intelligent people
Green rolling hills, most likely in Ireland, bathed in sunlight
Sex
Dragons retaining a magical quality no matter how many times they've been (mis)interpreted
Cake, birthday or otherwise
The warmth of another's skin
Chickens being clueless and innocent about the barnyard
Katamari Damacy
Rolling up chickens in Katamari Damacy
Tea
Having the beach all to yourself
The last parking spot, yours
Welsh corgis, preferably wearing embarrassing oufits
The winning play
The bold elegance of a cherry classic muscle cars
When someone write LOVE instead of FUCK on a bathroom mirror
Anything made by Pixar
Trying, succeeding; trying, failing, but still trying
That fantasy stays in fantasy, because no one really wants to fight a band of orcs solo with improper weapon training in a 120-degree desert with no available food for miles around just because a village shaman told you to go to a tomb where a certain fungus grows so he will teach you the spell to enhance the damage of your bow by 20%--even if you think you do want this, trust me, you really don't
Free meals
Toys
Free meals with toys
Chocolate
Hot chocolate
Making a difference
Angels, in whatever form they take for you
The fact that, with enough effort and determination and patience, anyone really can do anything
Finding the forgotten $20 in your back pocket
Epiphany
Enlightenment
My Little Pony
The release sound and feel of resistance in pulling the tab back on a carbonated beverage
Wisdom, when written down, becomes eternal
No matter how you look at it, when you take in the timeline of human history, we as a species and as a people are making progress towards something better than what we were
The idea of floating cities
The idea that human progress will someday lead to floating cities
Parties
Cleavage
Arrows that aren't telling you where to go, just helping you move forward
Santa Claus
Bacon
Penguins and their legendary monogamy
The fact practice really does make perfect
Roses, and all their compiled time-honored symbolic significance
Thinking you've eaten the last one, only to find one more
Science--the magic of reality
When the truth really is stranger than fiction
Pedophilia and underage sex is now a crime, where as in too-recent of history it was a bargaining chip for nobility and politics
Pizza
The magic of surface tension
Victory when it doesn't come at the cost of someone else's loss
Riding a bike down an empty road
Having five senses to take in the world
No matter how long the day is the sun will always rise again
Being a part of the generation making progressive steps towards gender and racial equality, even if having only occurred in the last 1% of human-time history
Breathing
Good books
Having a purpose
Naturally occurring beauty in nature
The fact no one can stay sad forever
Warm toilet seats
The realization something minor bothering you now won't even be a memory in a year's time
Peeling your bareback off a leather sofa
The first day of summer--if it's not today then it will be less than a year before it's back
The smell of brine of the ocean wind letting you know you're getting closer to the ocean
Marshmallows
Fart but no one notices
Headphones, a private world
Mothers having children no longer risk two lives to the extent of the past when giving birth
People don't die as much as they used to
Ideas are more powerful weapons than guns
There is always a way
Food
Memories of love last longer than memories of loneliness
L i f e
Whether sad or happy, humans having emotions is something to celebrate
Beauty is limitless--there will never come a point where every beautiful poem has been written, every beautiful picture is drawn, or every beautiful song has been sung
Oktoberfest is at most only eleven months away
Freddie Mercury
The smallest light only shines brighter in darkness
We're not cicadas
This list will never be finished
Most folks do most of their fighting in movies and games and fantasy instead of in reality which was where the majority took place not too many centuries ago
You are not hiccuping right now
Most dirty things can be cleaned
Sales of Guinness have been on a steady rise since 1754
If you're happy to be alive, then every second is another moment well spent, and if you are unhappy to be alive then every second is a moment closer to getting a long break
Inspiration
Not being on fire
Vending machines that dispense hot drinks
Random acts of kindness, by friends and by strangers
That all hangovers will eventually go away
Trees
Moonlight
Reading a novel about being stranded on a desert island
Not being stranded on a desert island
Reading a novel about being stranded on a desert island while not being stranded on a desert island
Being stranded on a desert island reading a novel about being stranded on a desert, if you're a big, big fan of irony or looking for tips

Sunsets

Sunrises

The fact eating raw fish won't usually end in disease

High school girls in Japan are required to wear skirts

Food now, compared to before, is plentiful and cheap

Killing other people is illegal

When a song comes on your iPod and it has a second follow through part, and that following song plays next, but the iPod is on shuffle

Friends

Family

That we live in a nation where protest is possible

Chanting in unison

Long drives to a place you don't have to be on time to

Singing to yourself in the car

The lingering smell of sweet smoke

That monks still exist

Existence

Holding hands
Stars
The world is the safest now it's ever been
Hugs
The magic of language, communicating ideas, and the oxford comma
Less people smoke now than before
The angst will eventually pass
The anger will eventually pass
The gas will eventually pass
Dystopia is still in the "fiction" literary category
Love is limitless
You're alive right now
This moment
Water
Creativity
Strawberries

On Teaching Public School (a man in front of an audience)

    Let's review here, we're getting paid less than strippers to take care of ALL the kids. Y'all think being a parent is hard with your one or two--try hundreds, getting them in batches of thirty-fuck-five at a time (and many of us *do* have our own little beasts waiting for our tired carcass to come through the door). We gotta teach them morals, discipline, how their pee-pees work, and what do you have to do? Feed 'em? We gotta do this all education business with no inherent control outside of detention, which honestly, some kids like. And we don't just teach kids, we teach shitty kids too. *All* the shitty kids. All *your* shitty kids. These 'things' aren't our fault! But they become our problem.  We  must take responsibility for them, without laying a hand on them, and explain to the police officer why why all the sulfur tablets from chem went missing and the whole school smells like rat anus.
    We must work without using pleasant distractions to keep them entertained like legos, video games, or booze. We public servants are supposed to keep your kids out of trouble--basically stop them from being like all of you when you were kids--and here's the real kick in the nads, right: you expect us to teach them *languages,* and sciences, and fuckin' math! "Hey! You boys playing 'dick-smack' in the back, shut you're pie-holes and listen to my half-high rant about the numerous applications of the quadratic equation! I know you've never left this state, but let's learn what the USSR stood for--so what if it doesn't exist anymore? You are *totally* going to need this when you're flipping burgers and digging ditches later in life!" Shit, YOU can't even sit through lectures on this crap without whipping out your iPhone and text messaging a picture of your pap smear to your grandma. And you expect US to teach KIDS this? Try to get a monkey to wrap it's equally-capable brain around electrolysis and all you'll get is a fist-flung lesson in the magic digestion and alternative bio-friendly sustainable fertilizers.
    And if they fail miserably, skip school and don't do their work--it's the teachers. "Let's get the PTA together and talk about how badly the teachers are dealing with the demons of our loins." And then you, you "parents," have the audacity, to tell us, how to do *our* jobs. Because lord knows being a soccer-mom part-time-floral-shop-attendant gives you great credentials to critique the work of us war-hardened veterans of scholastic combat. I have a really fancy-ass fake gold-leafed piece of paper from a university you've never heard of saying I know what I'm doing, at least that's *something.* What do you have? Wistful memories of a trip to Tahiti fourteen years ago when you came back with extra baggage in your belly? Is granting the 'miracle of life' reason enough to tell us why we don't know how to do the jobs we were trained for? Give us funding for a few good pitchforks and perhaps we could keep them in line.
    So you say if we can't handle a kid--because more likely than anything they're just bored--then they need to go talk to the principal? The principal? Have you *seen* that guy? The principal… is insane. He's been here the longest! He's has to put up with shitty kids for generations! Hell, he probably had to put up with you! And if we bring your pierced-up, blinged-up, drugged-up, mental-apocalypse of child crying violence and suicide-disease into his office you will never see the elderly move faster. With such speed he will call solo meetings in which he may not be disturbed for days. The reality of the situation is that these are naps, but really they're more like self-induced escapes from the morbid pain of his own reality. He's had a full head of white hair since he was *42*. He farts loudly and sometimes hums "It's A Small World After All" for hours at a time, and we only hope to be as sane as him by the time we reach the age of retirement--you know, like around 74. And you know what? We don't question Mr. Principal. We only hope to have our heads less scrambled than his, but we knew we were all doomed the first day of setting foot into the realm of public education.
       Between staff cuts and stagnant non-reception pay raises, I have half a mind to join Buzz and Zed and Christalaquicia flipping them burgers, because at least I'd not have to worry about homework. Despite being saddled with the burden of *educating the next generation of the country we all live in,* you know, the generation of people that will be responsible for the caretaking of both your future saggy ol' ass *and mine,* teachers are marginalized and under supported, criticized and ignored. Because, you know, the apocalypse has gotta be coming sometime and the future of a species refusing to acknowledge a problem this size is pretty much already forfeit, as we await the true 'superior race' to descend from space and turn humans into organ cattle--which they will be capable enough and smart enough to do BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY GAVE TWO STEAMING SPACE SHITS ABOUT EDUCATION. Excuse the heavy scat, but with education in the shitter and me crying in the stalls right beside my students at school, I've been reduced to this, to saying these things in front of all of you, in blind hope that someday it might change. This country spends four times as much on defense over education. If you flipped that statistic around, we might not need defense anymore. Why can't we just be Sweden? Fuck stripping, I should have been a S/M porn star. At least then someone could get a ride out of the pain I and all other educators shall go through.

(this part is about pirates)

    Brian's hands burned beneath his gloves, a stinging pain only mitigated by the numb sensation from rope cutting into his circulation as he strained and loosened, pulled and tightened. He taught everyone on the crew how to trim the sail but he still ended up doing it more often than not. Being the only one trained in seamanship was the strongest attribute he brought on board, though sometimes he wished he could be dumb muscle Lenny or Terrance the smart-with-plants guy. They got breaks. When you live on a ship, the guy who knows about ships rarely gets to take much time off. Or, instead of getting a different job on the ship to relax, it would be better not to be on a ship. It would be better to live on land again, near a grocery store and a Denny's, and be a computer programmer instead of 'first mate.' It had only been a little over a year and he was surprised how much code could be forgotten in such a short time. So much had changed and been cast aside since the Crash.
    Slack in the sail brought his attention back to salty reality as he reeled in a little tighter on the line, straightening it to catch an easterly wind that was barely blowing. The crusted seawater stiffened and cold air stiffened gloves on the outside but inside the mix of sweat and brine  brought another sharp pang of pain. Waves lazily slapping the bow and the smell of seagull shit rushed his thoughts back to now. Thinking of the past was only going to make you want to hide at the bottom of a bottle that isn't there. Being present is what keeps those who are sane remaining that way. Accept and move on. No more buying TV dinners to take back to a TV-less apartment, no more Denny's Grand Slams, no more sharing comic links between cubicles and getting paid for it. All you have is now. Though the mind can't help but wander. At times like that, the best medicine for sickness for the past is loosening an letting a little more slack into the trim, releasing your grip and letting a little more of the salty residue into the bleeding cracks of waterlogged hands beneath bulky black gloves bearly keeping out the cold. Pain, perhaps the most effective way to stay rooted in reality, had taken on a entirely new meaning to the word when used in the world today.
    Shit luck. Winds die down, the sail furls and droops. Now creeping along against the current, the next landfall seems to have gotten farther away. Dammit. The crew would be in deep shit should any other roaming ships come across their little operation--the outrunning of a particularly nasty bunch of heathens aboard a 60'-sum had taken every last drop of their diesel reserves. It's common knowledge to have a back-up back-up supply, but this time their jolly roger was jolly well fucked. Though this wouldn't be the first time it seemed as though living would be more up to fate than the decisions of the crew.
    "Dammit. Just fuck." Deacon let loose another f-bomb. Fifty-third one today. Brian had been counting.
    "Mmhmm." He secured the trimming line and stepped down to the lower deck to join the rest of the crew on the worry bench.
    "How long you think it's going to take for the wind to get back this time?" Lenny was shaving. He had to be the only one stupid enough to not let go of old luxuries, not even bothering to notice rust accruing on the blades. Best fighter who gets into the most gore and it'll probably be tetanus or something like that which kills him.
    "Reckon… two three hours. It's not the sailing season." You just couldn't shake Terrance. He'd already seen more than enough since the Crash that 'nervous' and 'scared' were a couple of the many emotional wires long since cut. "Best take the time while no one's got particular jobs that need getting done to talk about the next trade. Or raid. 'Sup to the folks on the receiving end which they want."
    "This one should be trade. These colder parts, ain't no one got the will to fight much here." Deacon took out his buck knife from the leather holster stashed in his boot, sharpening it. A nervous habit. Probably to get ready for what he knew would turn into a raid, like they all had lately.
    "Should I go get Zac from topside?" Brian itched his pocked nose. He could still feel a lingering tingle from where a new scar on his schnoz hadn't completely healed over the scant meat below.
    "Nah, let the little psycho in on the trade plan and it's quickly going to become some scheme of how we can take over the town. Dude's obsessed with getting something back under his control." The knife sharpening intensified in strength somewhat noticeably.
    "Yeah, guess we need someone staying out on top case a fast boat comes following our wake. But watch it Deacon." Brian shot him a sharp glance from behind the itching of the nose.
    "Listen now, Mr. Brian Forbis, seaman extraodinaire, I know you two came on this rig together and you'd seen some shit together before that and all, but that dude, he's just a few more kills from tripping into bloodlust."
    "Hmph. If anything he's just acclimated better than most."
    "There's getting used to it, and there's getting to like it. Just saying, you know how things work, he goes nuts, and he goes down."
    "I know. He knows. Anyway, that's for another time. For now how we gonna get trade started when we make landfall tomorrow."
    "Tomorrow?" Terrance quit picking at something that may have been stuck in his teeth to chime in, though his hand wasn't completely out of his mouth before doing so, so the word slurred. "We'll be lucky to make it by night, and it'll be more likely the next morning."
    "Nah, the wind'll be back here soon. Just on a little break but it won't take to long to get back." Brian was now next-to-newest since Terrance came aboard three months ago. It still felt like there was a little competition going on in the pecking order.
    "So then how about what if we find a big town, but then go find a smaller town, and hit the smaller town before hitting the big town." With arms crossed Lenny ventured a bold Lenny-plan. Arms crossed meant he was thinking. He didn't cross his arms very often. It didn't matter much when he did. "We could find some extra guys in the trade who maybe got beef against the bigger one, and get them on our side to go raid that place."
    "Len, that sounds more like what Zac would try to pull," added Terrance, back at whatever was stuck in his left molars, though still tossing his two cents into the pool. Brian hoped he was running out of that spare change. "Besides if they wanted to attack, they'd have done it already. They don't need a couple pirate yahoos to get them roused enough to sack and pillage."
    "But--what if the… how about if the big one--"
    "You mean to say, what if your imaginary big city instead wanted to wipe out the little city? And we could get on with the big city to crush the little city in return for some more diesel or something?"
    "Hey hey! Now you speaking my language, graduate school college boy!"
    "Shut it fatty." The hand come out of his mouth. "Least I got something I bring to the group other than my ability to sponge bullets."
    "Fucking shut it you two, now come on." Fifty-four. "We got four tomato plants that look like they are coming up now from Terrance's plant house below deck, that's gotta be enough to get at least a gallon of diesel from a small city or a big city. We don't need to stir nothing up here, not when it's this damn cold. What we really need is--"
    "PIRATES! PIRATES! GET THE GUNS, QUICK, THEY GOT A SPEED BOAT AND THEY'RE WITH THE REDS THEY GOT THE REDS FLAG, PIRATES! GUNS! SHIT!" Zac lunged to his bunk for the hunter's scoped .223.
    "Seal off the lower deck Brian, stay low until you get the word." Terrance unsnapped his hip holster.
    "I know the routine, get up there!" Brian knew Terrance was the smart one, but if anyone had to die in this attack he knew who he'd prefer.
    "SHIT GOD DAMN THEY GOT A FUCKIN' ROCKET OR SOMETHING!" Zac was already on deck and firing by the end of his sentence.
    "Fuck, just what we needed."
    Fifty-five.