One time I decided that I had had enough. We all have, I guess. Why, just the other day, I turned on the news and discovered that time had stopped — yes, really stopped! — but just in one little village in upstate New York.

Well, I thought that was strange, and didn’t really trust it, to be honest with you. I have an old girlfriend who lives there, so I called her.

“Hi, John, are you still up to no good?”

Well, of course I am! “Hi Darlene, is it true that time has stopped for you guys?”

“Sort…

Sadness rules,
or so we think,
trouble ahead,
trouble behind,
Casey Jones, who’s
on my mind,

And is he on yours,
too?

What’s the plan?
Who wants to be Sam?

I don’t.

But the whole wide world,
at least for us humans,
looks a bit bleak
now.
Madness rules in a sea of fools,
while gladness slapped me on the back,
anyway.

Does that even mean anything?
No, John, chaos just wants to talk
with you.

With me?
Go away!
You outlived your stay!

But madness, chaos, storms, death, and disease,
invited themselves to party with all
who thought
normality had returned…

OK — I’ve decided that reality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t know why, but, somehow, it’s lost its charming bite.

Perhaps something happened. It checked out and went sleepy bye, forgetting to set the most rudimentary alarm.

A jet airplane flew by my window earlier this morning. I could hear it throttling down for a landing, but when I looked out, a bluejay flapped by, squawking at me, instead. The airplane had gone. Perhaps the passengers just wanted their privacy.

I’m sure that ringing bluejay was squawking at me, or, perhaps, at the two black winged…

One time there was a dollar bill who was lonely and thought he could get a lot of other bank note friends by becoming a writer on Medium! I know it sounds odd, but these things happen.

His girlfriend had gone through a currency change operation and was now living in someone else’s computer under a new crypto name. He hadn’t seen her in weeks.

Nevertheless, that courageous dollar bill carried on. Medium started actually paying him … in stories!

He decided the 2 minute ones were best,

But when he tried to buy a miniature air conditioner on Amazon…

“It’s so hard,” the man said, as his wife turned to him from above a heavy cast iron frying pan, full of eggs, cheese, and, of course, potatoes.

“What’s hard, Kevin? It’s certainly not the part that I need,” she volunteered, as her husband sat, heavy and dejected, at the long kitchen table.

He knew she was right, that the high flying job he had once had, talking farmers out of getting storm and flood insurance, had now come to haunt him with shame.

“I can’t help it, Florence,” he told her. “We’re broke.”

They were, you know. Like so…

Just today, I decided to write something optimistic.

“Why the hell do you want to do that?” my girlfriend asked, looking up from her morning coffee.

“Well. I figured after four years of Trump, over twenty of Putin, seriously too much of Kim Jung Un, and all the other psycho “leaders” of the world, we need something to look forward to!”

“You’re being optimistic again.”

“I’m sorry.”

I got up from the breakfast table and then went into the closet to write.

It’s true. I’m too scared to come out and say things may get better. I type, vainly, with…

If you fear being normal,
the techniques of being invisible
are so easy to learn.

If you fear being a river, just feel the gravity
pulling your water
out of all
those highest
sun touched mountains,

And the sheer slippery
joy
of the whole
forgetting to ask
the meaning
of all the non-effort,
liquid,
bubble loud popping,
non-friction
laughing,
adventure filled thing,

And any timid fishes
who forget to follow

You.

******************

One time a mountain river decided to visit the city. As she wasn’t used to people (and dogs and children,) she was a little overwhelmed at first, but…