a monk's list

i)

monk robes cinched up

for work

sweeping  - a typical monk duty

brewing - (more coffee than tea these days)

lessons, poems, prayers

dawn devotions done

the guitar pulled out

to play a new song.

ii) 

thick flat carpenter's pencil

stuck up under the brim

of a gifted baseball hat

marking out lines - 

crossing duties off the list

Love the Poets

sure there is always guru Gord 

then there is the younger ones...

John -  a master of sorrow

he'll break your heart sweetly

Benjamin - a young teacher from the hills:

there's nothing learned from resentment

Charlie - the man that time forgot

Colter - he's writing songs 

after a hard day ranching

keep the poems coming

all you poets

all you poets everywhere

tired monk tired

I know I should rise

(no grave can hold me down)

fight this (epithet) malaise

but this one is heavy

like wet monk's robe

soaked with lake water

too much 

fighting and fleeing 

wearing me out

past tired monk tired

ritual

brewing tea

morning coffee for the abbess

hoppy beer...in my daydreams

a pull

of whiskey, whisky, 

or Kentucky Bourbon from 1773

a last meditative puff

another pull

of a Benson and Hedges

J.E.D. March-19-1927 - January-30-2021

funny how it ends

...what's a better word for funny?

absurd (sorry for the language, 

but more like completely fucking absurd)

no soft "peaceful" slipping to the next world

or slow dimming of consciousness

more like hurtling

a head first hustle, just out, and gone

that's it

bit of blood on the floor

a grocery list

a new wheelchair

an old walker

no fine Irish wake

just a hollow Zoom funeral

anchor

my brother left

oh I remember that one

my mother left (so to speak)

at the same time

my dad?

gone to...long gone

left before I was even born, 

           and I was premature.

...so that's why 

I won't leave

I'm an oversized anchor

an immovable object - pure inertia

a monk rooted down deep 

right through the temple floor

praying for the saints

some will pray to the saints

seeking help for every lost cause 

the tired monk prays for the saints

little unbidden glimpses, prompts to pray

for struggling saints scattered over this world