Sometimes events outside our control can turn us into a hypocrite.

 

One of the many things that have never made much sense to me is the decision for a person to get a tattoo. People change their minds and their tastes about every six minutes, more frequently if they’re a teenage girl. Styles change quickly and often leave us wearing yesterday’s clothes. Tattoos are so much harder to update.

 

What kind of long range plan is involved when a person gets a polychrome tattoo of Big Bird riding a bicycle on their chest. Or how about putting the name of your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend or boyfriend on your upper thigh.

 

Nevertheless, I spent last Wednesday getting a tattoo. I didn’t mean to, but it is apparently required as part of my upcoming radiation treatment. Who knew? Not me, which says a lot about my own long range planning. And the worst part is they’re just dots. They don’t even have some deep meaning related to my philosophy on life.

 

In any case, this seemed an appropriate time to post Tattoo Haiku (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) which consists of four haikus related to my still-prevailing opinion of these things. Go ahead and trash me. I am a certified “old abutment”.

 

Tattoo Haiku

 

They call them “tramp stamps”,

Tattoos where a spine should be,

Flashing underwear.

 

Polychrome tattoos,

Branding wearers forever.

Colorful cattle.

 

Tattoo’s objective.

Drilling beneath the surface,

To find someone else.

 

Yesterday’s tattoos.

Faded graffiti painted

On old abutments.

 

 

Ode to the Doors is a new old poem. This is its first exposure to the light. For those of you who missed the sixties, this may seem irrelevant. But The Doors were the gatekeepers to the late sixties. More than the Beatles or Elvis or the Stones or anyone else, their music captured that era.

It is perhaps telling that by 1971, with the death of Jim Morrison, they were done. But for that brief piece of history, from Vietnam to the drugged-out corners of America, they were the ones that caught the vibes and flung them back out at us.

Writing a poem about poets is hard. I have chewed on this for a while. 

I hope I have captured a little of where they took us.

Glenn K. Currie

Ode to The Doors

I guess Jim Morrison had it right,

Sixties were darkness deceived by light.

Doors slammed shut, and Doors opened wide,

Anthems that floated on changing tides.

The stoned out lyrics were made for Nam,

Heartbeats to children searching for psalms.

They also broke through to the other side,

Walls of sound where survivors could hide.

I listened there to share the insanity,

And once back here I liked the inanity.

In either place the message they send

Is this is the end, this is the end.

Copyright Glenn K. Currie 2014

People get in a lot of trouble when they don’t look where they are going. It’s okay to learn from mistakes but not to let yourself get overwhelmed by them.

Every day gives each of us a chance to do things better, to make smarter decisions, to turn a new corner.

Missed Opportunities (Riding in Boxcars, 2006) is meant to be a wake-up call: A chance to avoid stepping on the banana peel…again.

Glenn K. Currie

Missed Opportunities

Life is full of missed opportunities,

Chances for romance, salvation, success.

Paths never taken and never resolved,

Unmade beds, where the mind never rests.

They play like old records, grooves worn too deep,

Over and over, the needle repeats.

Too painful to leave, too painful to keep,

We go round and round, reliving defeats.

And in the process of chasing regrets,

Too often we’re caught, looking away,

Staring right past, missed opportunities,

Soon to become, old records replayed.

Riding the Green Line (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) is about the traps we set for ourselves. We are all travelers on this earth but it is easy to get devoured by the beasts among us.

 

The Green Line is the snake that searches us out and then swallows us as we strap ourselves in to our choices.

 

We live within the beast and become a part of it, traveling through life’s stations and wondering each year how we got older.

 

It is the place where we hide, wrapped in protective coverings, and look inward in the reflections from its windows to see ourselves gradually disappear.

 

Glenn K. Currie

 

Riding the Green Line

 

The Green Line rattled,

 A snake winding through the jungle.

Riders lurched, trapped

In the belly of the beast.

 

Dry sparks filled the air,

Arcing through the darkness.

Saliva spit

From the serpents mouth.

 

Travelers, strapped to knapsacks,

Or wrapped in newspapers,

Huddled within themselves,

Listening to metallic screams.

 

Grit-filled eyes of the beast

Winked at caution lights

And stained station signs

Pinned to cavern walls.

 

It stopped to search for victims,

Then dove back into its cave,

A black hole turning light inward,

A mirror for the souls.

 

Riders stared at themselves

In the yellow glow,

Slowly disappearing,

Devoured by the Green Line.