Today I'll Look for Beauty

This Sunday morning
from my usual booth at McD's
I thought to look for something new
For which my eyes to please

I decided this day to look for beauty
In actions, form and graces
And as I gazed, I was amazed
At what I perceived in those faces

The little dark eyed Mexican girls
Of an age no more than three
With umber eyes and ebony curls
Stared wide-eyed back at me

I smiled at such a charming sight
They smiled right back at me
Their mother turned, in a bit of a fright
To see what their children could see

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poem by David Whalen
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Quirks and eccentricities

Quirks and eccentricities (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours)

I have my favorite fork and spoon
Also gotta drink from my favorite glass
Never fasten top button or tuck shirt in
Guess that shows a definite lack of class

Never fold pages in books to mark places
Only one food item on plate at a time
Buy shoes that fasten with Velcro, never laces
And when thinking, try to make my thoughts ryhme

Arrange used creamers with lids in flower petal form
Always sit in a booth, never at a table
Read funnies first, in the paper, in the morn
Sniff every flower, whenever I’m able

When out for a walk,
I never step on a crack
I always pick up pennies for luck,

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poem by David Whalen
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Dodged Another Bullet

A sound as of a baseball bat
striking a cardboard box

Then… sudden silence
Cold and dry

A white car receding into the distance
A numbness creeping into my leg and thigh

Flat on my back, akimbo in the median
Looking up, confused, at clouds and blue sky

Books that I carried just a moment ago
Now they're gone and I don't know why

Slow realization that I'd dodged
Yet…another bullet

As I raised on my elbows
With a grimace and a sigh

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poem by David Whalen
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Their World, Not Ours

Their World, Not Ours (free verse)

Watching the doves and chickadees
From my patio,
looking into another wild world
Wishing them to alight,
Like my parakeets, on my finger
Bringing back a precious memory
From my youth…

Out of the shade of the dense forest
And into a glade of soft grass
An unexpected dale of tranquility
Sun shining warmly through natures skylight
Into their world,
not ours

My gun at rest on my shoulder
eyes gazing in wonder
At this shallow valley, a sunlit Eden

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poem by David Whalen
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Please Pay Attention Pt 1

Pay Attention Part One

Your eyelids begin to flutter, shy morning light yearns to peek in
Savor that fleeting moment between worlds
Mind, not in the dream world, nor totally awake
Savor that pleasantly confused state of mind
Of household sounds distantly intruding
Sift languidly through tattered remains of diaphanous dreams
Extend and enjoy this common to us all morning experience
That the majority of us completely ignore

Really pay attention

To your soul-mate, still asleep across the bed
Hair tousled o’er face and pillow
Look closely at that sleeping face and see the lines and wrinkles
That you, the kids, and daily life have imprinted on that brow
Don’t see her as you do every day. Look very closely
See her not, as you know her, but as a stranger would
See her as a unique individual, not with the sort of faceless familiarity

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poem by David Whalen
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Fog, Yet Another Point Of View

Fog, Yet Another Point Of View

Near Fisherman’s Wharf, quite late at night
Tendrils of music and mist mix together
Slim young ladies and slender young men
Street musicians, with grand aspirations
Dressed a bit tattered, on lonely street corners
Used as impromptu stages
While fingers of fog probe…searching tentatively…
Testing and tasting

Self-written songs ghost into the night
Tremulous voices, hopefully singing
Few people stop, even less truly listen
Some dropping change in foam cups at their sides
All the while fog sniffs like dogs, at ankles and feet
Touching, licking, testing and tasting

Too young to truly know of their songs deep emotions

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poem by David Whalen
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Don't you just hate it? (or is it just me?)

Don’t You Just Hate It? (or is it just me?

Having a doctor who looks eighteen years old
Not having two socks that match
Havin’ nausea and diarrhea, along with a cold
Usin’ public bathrooms with doors that don’t latch

Noticing no toilet paper, way after the fact
Toilet paper that tears vertically into confetti-like strips
While goin’ bouncy-bouncy, your dog noses in on the act
Movie stars silicon inflated, gross, fat, puffy lips

Teenagers inexplicable, selective deafness attacks
Unrecognizable substance, in your drained coffee cup
Havin’ a flat, late at night, and no spare and no jack
Noises your knees make, every time you stand up

Closed tellers and herds of bank employees doing zippo
Hot seats in the car and jumpin’ in wearin’ shorts
E Z open caps that really aren’t so

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poem by David Whalen
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Busy Day

Plans for Today

Listen to the doves cooing
Have coffee on the patio
Solve the Mideast crisis
Devise ingenious scheme to make millions
from working out of my home
Stare into the fridge a while
Take a nap
Solve the oil shortage
Come up with that clever comeback, that I couldn’t
Come up with years ago
Study for world lit. exam
Take a nap
Try to remember what it was I forgot to do
Travel back in time a bit
Lament the fact that birds won’t let you pet them
Wonder why people act the way they do
Figure out how the Egyptians built the pyramids
Figure out why

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poem by David Whalen
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Growth And Trees

Growth

Trees are conceived just as humans are
from seeds the striplings rise
Yet rooted to one place
They grow
No choice where their future lies

Subject to nature’s way’s and whim’s
bearing the brunt of chance
No option, no choice
No vote, no voice
they perform in the wind, their arboreal dance
And they grow

Like young children they blossom with grace and wonder
With litheness, with vibrance
Innocence thereunder
filled with awe and wonder
They grow, oh how they grow!

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poem by David Whalen
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Awesome understanding of everything

There were times when I was a very young child, that a feeling…
A sense of well being would flood over me. When I felt completely
At ease with…and understood fully the great scheme of all things great
And small, without knowing exactly just what it was that I understood so
profoundly, nor why it made feel so good.

That was so long ago. But then inexplicably It happened again!
While sipping morning coffee and reading two versions of Jean Auel’s
“The Mammoth Hunters” one in Spanish and the other in English, while
Taking my morning coffee at McDonalds in Walmart.

My weary ol’ eyes drifted from my books upon which I had laid my glasses,
To rain clouds misting over the mountains that rim the Vegas valley. I rubbed
My eyes and then my brow…and that was when my childhood epiphanies returned.

Sitting with eyes closed, fingers wrapped round my foam coffee cup, That sense
Of wonder…of profound peace, serenity and complete understanding flooded over
me once more….And for a few precious seconds I knew all…and had the answer to
Everything!

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poem by David Whalen
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