three dragons

Many years ago a person emerged from the autumn fog with some long leashes and said look over there, and when I looked over there I felt the leashes slip into my hand, then there I stood with three dragons. I had no clue what their names were.

But over time it's become clear that the first is Ambition. He wants it all, from being a 007 coder to bringing down the house with a 12-bar blues solo, and everything in between. Basically a would-be badass at whatever looks cool.

And then there's the one I call Aphrodite, except, well, she's not what you might expect. You know that girl from school who trips over her own toes and just can't catch a break? Yeah. After a while the "blond moments" were obviously calculated for effect but she's starting to take hints. I think.

Finally we have Allure. Al's...something else, totally unaware of what the ladies want, especially when he's got a shot. Seriously. Once you've seen an awkward teenage dragon you've seen it all.

Now, put all that together for a traipse through the park. Can't remember the last time they were all on the same page, you know, off in every direction, stopping on a whim, no stone unturned. Not sure if my insurance covers scorching but so far we've been lucky.

Still, though they wear me out and try my patience...at the end of the day they're simply irresistible. Not everyone agrees, of course, some look down their nose, because, dragons should be stuffed into a cage and not roam around causing problems, messing up the landscape and disrupting people's lives with their youthful ardor.

That bothered me at first, till one day I was shoveling some dragon doo and it flew into a disapproving eye. Then, the strangest thing happened.

I smiled.

tutelage

beauty protects the skin
skin protects the woman
yet
sometimes
there's just no place
like
vulnerability

bird legs

as for the girl
the boys talk to
but rarely
about
the one who
comes to mind
at odd moments
and somehow makes
you feel
ashamed
they say she has
bird legs
kinda stringy
not much
to grab onto
until
one evening
you both walk out
to the parking
garage
as she plays
with her
keys those eyes
make the sales pitch
the smile
seals the deal
and despite the
bird legs
her leather sleeves
gently
crackle around you
she says i'm
a compulsive liar
you say i don't
believe you
raucous blazing futility
behind a pillar
about your waist
bird legs
get
what they came for
and as you
drive home
you can't decide
whether you lost
or she won
but either way
she is the
girl
you'll never call
who walks away
on
bird legs

Revolution Day

All the pundits will suddenly be correct
You don't know how long we've waited for this
The suits and the hippies finally agree
Belly buttons and aholes everyone's got one
Pot gut accountants been tellin us for years
Who are we to disagree
Schoolyard bullies got their own undies up their crack

tlc

Being good evangelicals, we swarm to the fairgrounds that May evening, to hear Leighton Ford, in-law and close associate to Billy Graham, as he strives to redeem the word "crusade" for both infidel and faithful alike.

The youth from my church waste no time, finding solitude for its own sake, along a paved trail to a bridge at the foot of the woods. Immediately a lit cigarette and maybe a beer materialize and make their rounds as the only bona-fide couple in the group studies French.

As I stand there agaze at the surreality before me, having been heretofore excluded from such extracurriculars, she reluctantly takes a hit of the coffin nail. Later on she tells me she wasn't sure why she did, "I used to smoke but I quit," just as she'd always revealed herself to me.

So I seek refuge, not really finding it in the grandstand, next to two chicks I know by name, as usual, engulfed with inane chatter about boys and boys. And so goes the entire service, even as I see one of the party crowd mope to the makeshift altar, and the razor-sharp chill in the air keeps on cutting. It's as if everyone there knows somebody else yet I evidently don't even know myself.

Afterward, in the twilight she has a choice. Being the alpha for once, at the ripe age of thirteen, I extend my mom's offer to take her home. Somehow I just know, then she hesitantly shuns the others and comes with me as several pairs of eyes hurl their daggers. We meet her dad at the agreed place and I hug her goodbye, but not before she tells me she's kind of glad she didn't go off into the night doing God knows what.

And so the lines were drawn. Some of them blew me off for weeks to come, but she rode a horse to my house and I escorted her back on my bike one summer's day, and so it was, till just over a year later. We got the call as I lie on the couch after school, ironically, having just seen her there not two hours earlier. At least she lived through my birthday as I felt sicker and sicker, until the next day, then she was gone.

(for a friend I'll always miss)

our year

Mostly children in January and quasi-adults by December. One time this kid actually asked me why I cut in the lunch line, because I'm a senior, all I had to say. Despite asserting my maturity I manage to land a paper wad into the same girl's lap, twice, from across Mr. Runneal's study hall.

You only need to know three words to get by around here: Attitude, attitude, and attitude. Of course the trick is knowing which one of those to use in a given moment.

The Berlin Wall had fallen on our watch and suddenly we have Russian hair band called Gorky Park in league with the regulars. One day a freshman gal comes up to me to bum change for a snack and belts out BAAANNNG BANNNNG.

In the courtyard we'd bum around on the grass and I half-listened to dudes brag about what they do with their girlfriends and contemplate give or receive if ever faced with a prison situation.

We were doing graphics on those shoe box Macs in computer science class and someone is told to erase a cat's tail because it appears too phallic.

As we descend stairs to the gym for commencement someone points out how this is the last time we'll all be in the same place at once. As I say goodbyes afterward I can't help notice all the hair pins on the floor, amazed at how many it takes to attach a girl to a mortarboard.

When the events that summer took a turn no that one could have imagined, people I talk to never cease to remind me how numb-brained stories always fill in the void before the truth is revealed.

I say some things I should have kept to myself but usually pass up a chance to say something I should have. Didn't take the independent living class but could tell the discussions are priceless.

You are your car. You are your GPA. You are your personal and team stats. You are what you create. You are the college you start in the fall. You are your charm. You are your group of friends. You are your reputation. You are your look. You are your image. You are your future.

Every time I see MTV it's that chick singing about her succotash wish.

Bush Sr. builds a shield on foreign sands, and inevitably someone tells me I hear they're gonna start draftin'. That same evening, as I cross a snow-dusted parking lot from Taco Bell back to the store where I work, I could swear for a brief second I was riding on the back of some transport truck in full fatigues. Some of us were already on their way.

While chasing a deal on car wax I come across one of our gals and was surprised at how much she told me in maybe fifteen minutes, and how much she reminded me of my girlfriend from another school. Funny how we're all made of the same ingredients yet each with a unique recipe. Really should have gotten her phone number.

When it comes down to it, you are your heart.

Duke Fabulous Reporting

WELL this is certainly one for all the ages and a few in between. It was last Saturday or maybe one a them other days, and I found myself ex-akkitakillay where I was, in a rental boat on the edge of the lake with not much more than a net an' a bucket. Lately my fryin' pan got to hankerin' real bad for some frog legs an' so there's only one thing left to-do. I say. So here I am a tryin' my best to troll along tha shore line and catch a few so long as they don't hop quicker than a body can swing a net. Well at first the pickin's are right slim but finally there's this great big daddy rascal facin' tha other way, and just as I'm right on 'im there's a knock-knock on the side of the boat. Now, seems to me a feller might expect a knock-knock at a door ever' here an' again but when he's crouched precarious on a craft it can bear, as we say, un-expected results. This bein' the case, imagine my very own surprise to see that bullfrog hop right along cassidy and all the while beneath the Duke's very own shadow. Right after the big splash is when I hears a giggly kind a laughter back tha other way. So I clears off my peepers best I can to find THE orneriest grin behind a snorkel mask that might - an' jest might - have had somethin' to do with my personal state of hydration. So as we make our ways back to the dock 'bout half an hour later ol' Harley who runs the bait shop just stares and shakes his head. As we get out he starts in, dad-GUMMIT Duke! How many a them there frogs you have to kiss 'fore one of 'em turns into a prin-cess? Well by then I pretty much had ta answer tha man so I let a wink and say, I say why, jest the one with the prettiest legs can'cha tell? Anyway hear what the Duke says. Them ol' English yarn-spinners were sure onto somethin' when it comes to a lady and a lake. Duke out.

(with hopes that a certain frog-catchin' uncle a mine gets back out there real, real soon...)