December 2024 Monthly Roundup

A new year is almost upon us, Waywards reader. My, how these years keep finding themselves in our rear view mirrors, am I right?

Since you might be partying until the ball drops tonight before busily refueling with luck-conferring black-eyed peas, perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t have any published articles for you to read this time around.

Today I did write a good chunk of a forthcoming piece, the one I believe I teased in a previous post. I suspect you’ll see it early next year.

I’m also still working on that book I told you about. But I took a little time away from that project the second half of this month. I resolve to get back to it the new year, even as I’ll be teaching again and working another paid part-time gig beginning in early January.

As for the poetry you’ve no doubt come to expect, well, I penned one poem this month, sort of. I wrote the lyrics to an instrumental recording I was kindly gifted. I’d like to gain more practice putting verse to music in 2025. Maybe I’ll craft a song-poem worth sharing before too long.

For now, you can enjoy the words to what I wrote to wrap up 2024. You can find them below this photo I took of my Buddy when we made a return trip to Mt. Rubidoux here in Riverside last week.

With Her Kiss

I keep believing in us, and you know that for certain
But you shut the blinds and then you closed the curtain
Now life is like a gothic film directed by Tim Burton 
A nightmare animated by the lack of a beautiful person
But you’re not to blame. I’m culpable… Curses! 
The pain is real, and reality keeps on hurtin’
It probably will ‘til my corpse is in a hearse. And then?

Then the pain won’t worsen; I can watch her from the stars
From afar, can we still heal each other’s scars? 
I gather you descended from Venus and me from Mars 
Must we wait to co-create and cultivate what’s ours?
I get by and survive, while secretly counting the hours
Remember how I came, like Roland to the dark tower
Like Rob(b)er(t) to King, I write, and it’s about her

Oh, Oh, Oh, I remember how
No, No, No, I can’t right now 
I desperately desire, but don’t want to recall
How you raised my spirit 
And that wasn’t all 
You elevated when you came near it 
You know how much
I still miss you 
How you gently touched 
My scrotal tissue 
How I long to kiss you
But only if
You decide 
To intertwine our lives
And arouse, with your kiss 

I know I swung, missed, then hit a foul
Opportunities lost make me scowl
I’m up at night, like an owl
I’m none the wiser, and still I vow
To never let you throw in the towel
I was consonant to your vowel
We moved in harmony, sweat on my brow
Bodily rhythm so naturally endowed
Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh
If only we could relive that somehow
The bliss conferred by your kiss
From sunup to sundown
But a mighty storm is a-blowin’ now

In the wind, an answer to the question I’m posing?
Kind of like our friend Dylan told us
I bring an olive branch and roses

Let Paradise behold this!

What will my angel there respond with? 

If only with, with her kiss
If only with, with her kiss
That’s what I miss 
Oh, let her respond with...

With her Kiss 
With her Kiss
With her Kiss
With her Kiss 
With her Kiss 
With her Kiss
With her Kiss

With that, feel free to take my hand, you trusty Waywards reader; ah, yes, “give me a hand o' thine,” and then perhaps “we'll take a right goodwill draught,” for, well, you know the rest.

See you in 2025!