Starting Out

To begin, begin, beginning, beginnings

A nice word, a nice concept

Something we all have experienced

Something we all know.

We start out, we can even start again

Begin, begin again.

It’s the first step, the first mile

First move, first chapter

It’s sunrise, the beginning bell.

We step into it, things are fresh, new

Untested, untried

And yet

We know what comes next

Have lived it in so many forms.

There’s the middle where beginnings

Get to play out, drag on

Can go a number of ways, not just well

As the beginnings might have suggested

Maybe not badly.

Life has taught us that both can happen

And eventually

The sequence fills in, unravels.

There’s that beginning

Then the middle

And, of course, there is inevitably

Like right now

The end.




       And Then Some

“Some” is an indefinite word

That is a pleasure to use. Say

I want some of that, and no one

Really knows how much, a sip,

A cup, a pint. They say, take

Some with you and run the risk

Of you taking more that they

Meant. “Some” also works well

In its compound forms. Say, I’ll

Be there sometime, and they will/

Might be waiting, sometime after

Five, sometime after that. It gives

Us such leeway. When I say, I left

It somewhere or someplace, they

Get to know how easily things get

Lost, the somewhere where things

Collect and remain caught in that

Indefinite world that our words can

Create. Somewhere over the rainbow,

The great somewhere, the greater

Somewhen where and when we will

Gather our indefinite, vague selves

And become something more than

The nebulous words we so often use

To cover the ambiguous lives we lead.




                   Forgettable

To forget, he forgets, I forget the forgotten.

It’s a matter of where it all goes.

The name of the star of that movie. It was

My favorite, but then it’s gone – a name

A whole frame of mind. My watch, my

Wallet – somewhere, distant, close up.

The forgotten are like that, away, gone to

Me. Now that you ask. You ask the author

The king, the kid who carried the story we

All loved, but I don’t remember who or even



When or where. The world we know now is

On its way into that other place, the land of

The forgotten, just slipped my mind. It’s a shuffle

Of the deck, a distraction, a slippery slope, a skip

A drop, a fumble on the five-yard line, a miss,

A mile, a search, an empty minute. Who was it?

Where did they go? When did I do that? What

Was that – the one that should have played out

So easily? Hell, they all/it is the infinitive of that

Guilty party – to forget. The he – who exactly –

Forgets, stumbles a bit, then asks. But, of course

I forget, I forgot. Then there they are, out there

Waiting there for us – all our forgotten.