I keep looking for my destiny

under trash can lids

in bibles

on the freeway

in the faces of people, I know

and the saddest thing is

none of them have a destiny

because they believe in nothing.

They were put together

by chance,

but that doesn’t mean,

I don’t have a destiny.

People drive fast to get to their destinations on time

but they arrive at nowhere.

I have always been in the slow lane, in a second-hand heap

that gets good gas mileage. I have been thinking for many years…

what’s obvious, is odious.

Drivers competing in traffic for a better spot

while I cruise at 5-under the speed limit

knowing

there is no hurry before death.

I understand why

people want to be able to do

what they want to be able to do

—it’s just a repeated expression,

until the end.

Let’s say you have everything:

a southern style house,

a Steinway piano,

a super car—

it doesn’t matter, if you can’t play Wagner, like the demons from hell.

Submission to the world is a fool’s errand—so I find myself reading my bible

and it says I have idols.

I believe the bible. I also believe that living a quiet life, while satisfying to some, is worse than solitary confinement.

It’s being sealed, inside your own head, like a can of tuna.

I want to go bad.

People have resisted

my attempts

to open my own can.

It isn’t about having it all—wisdom is chasing after the wind.

Have you ever been a kite, soaring above the clouds?

I sat is a board meeting, a few years ago, and suddenly

I felt superior, over the whole thing, like

this isn’t my life, only a brief intermission

in the urine-soaked seats, before the explosion of popcorn

and the adventure on the silver screen.

My friend tells me, my writing is getting pretty bad

His dad tells me, I should shut-down my blog

“What will women think?” He asked. “Don’t you want to go out on a date?”

This is a blow, below the belt, but I can’t live without words

“My blog is an expression of who I am.”

“Then, you really have problems,” he said.

How a man gets from point A to point B, says a lot about him

And what he says to others, says even more about him.

It’s funny, the echoes of my co-workers resound in my head

like dead tuna, I missed with my toothbrush

“You’re replaceable. You’re not a very interesting person. You should buy a motorcycle, rather than driving that heap of a truck.”

I go to the supermarket, and stand in line

and when I try to buy cherries, the lady tells me, “They’re 5.99.”

“Oh—I thought they were 1.99.”

“Only with the digital coupon.”

I could tell she wasn’t going to help me.

“I guess, I don’t want them,” I said.

“I’ll do it for you, just this once, but it’s the last time.” She swiped her card and gave me the deal.

“Thanks,” I said. She ignored me.

People have moved on, while I have stayed the same.

Dreams die slowly—seldom overnight. They keep us alive, until they don’t. They are like dead disappointments.

I water them, but they die, anyway.

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked—he is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields fruit in season. The wicked are like the chaff that the wind blows away.” Paraphrased Psalms.

I believe

feelings break-out of the soil

like prickly plants

in a desert, where faith is tested

with no clouds in sight.

I want to be the rain, hitting piano keys

in the discarded dump

making

my own music—

to be that worthless piano

that somebody trashed

while the neighborhood beyond

hears the songs

of faith.