Time-Clock Oasis

“One day, you’re gonna realize
who you are.
I never needed you
to tell me I’m a rock star.”



They are sexy, real sexy. Oh, so rock and roll.
Ideally, I would be talking about seeing a girl band, hard rock, punk, or bubble-gum indie. But, unfortunately, this chord-crunching ecstasy is elicited by some middle-aged dudes with convex bellies, who couldn’t turn on a horny light switch. Well, I find them sexy.
Daddies they must be, and day workers. And I guess those are their devoted wives, up front, cheering, snapping photos.
The lead guitar player is shredding some pretty serious sound. A beautiful inlaid instrument graces his sure, steady hands. The drummer is soloing over distorted screeches that do not beget images of the insurance salesman the guitar player probably is.
The singer and the bass player are real classic rockers, the only ones who look the part, with their long, unkempt hair. The bassist jumps on and off a beat-up couch, at intervals.
Tonight for them is like some sonic trip through the 80’s, through days of high school, AC/DC, The Beatles, The Eagles; young, rebel hell-raisers, smoking and toking and beer-bonging their way through the education they didn’t choose, but now, barely, begrudgingly appreciate.
And this waking dream, this weekend avocation, is an oasis at the end of a time-clock week. It will break its momentum only when someone’s hip goes out, or Alzheimer’s makes it too hard for someone to remember the chords.

the same blanket

the air is grainy,
like an old-time
phonograph, scratching away;
a slight tint of blue
pushes through my
seeing of sidewalk and storefronts.

I am in dream time,
riding my lady’s bike
down the sidewalk at noon.

I did a deed today, a good deed;
I volunteered for a couple of hours.
And, riding home,
I realized I am something more than evolved primate,
something less than Mother Theresa;
yet I am under the same God’s blanket,
hiding from the sorrows of selfishness