I wrote this in 2015. If anything, it’s gotten worse out there.
The customer is not always right. Sometimes, the customer is an asshole.
1) Christmas is on the same day every year. It is not the fault of the stores, the store managers, and/or the employees of those stores that items are out of stock three days before Christmas. It is your fault that you waited until 36 hours before dawn on Christmas Day to shop.
Let me say that again. It is your fault; yours, and yours alone.
2) Screaming at young people who make 19 cents above minimum wage over your lack of foresight, planning, and time management skills will not magically make this season’s hottest toys re-appear in the stock room. …
When is it time to wash your hands, to end
an amity once warm, now turned stone-cold?
Have you merely drifted on, not true friends;
time, distance, circumstance taken their toll?
Or is this jagged split, a razor cleaves
two souls apart, one spewing hate, and one
whose heart now rent, bled and broke, cries and grieves
for the acts that a once-friend has now done?
A toxic life, overflown with odious revulse?
Exult their exit from your daily sphere!
No longer need to feel your soul convulse.
They leave your life, poison a new frontier.
Daily wash your hands with water and…
Suppose you could re-cast your one life true.
Which parts wouldst writ for enemy most foul?
Which roles must needs be played solely by you?
Which bits still make thou hysterically howl?
One’s first mind; savor only bits of joy.
Kindness, smiles; doth art a quick recall.
I love you. I do. It’s a girl! A boy!
Mama! Dada! Lookit! Me walk, not crawl!
Perhaps the parts to keep are times most dark;
the moments when life deigned to squash your soul,
the ones when the abyss and you lived stark
where whence at end of day, gloom made you whole.
When all parts, fair and base, doth coalesce,
One’s lived a life that’s well and truly blessed.
{David L. Stanley:DStan58} August, 2019
My father chose to die, like Socrates.
Not hemlock, no. Still, death was by his choice.
He gathered us and said he was well-pleased,
that all who loved him were within his voice.
He spoke to all and spoke of erudition.
Life, he said, was finally at fruition.
I’ve done it all, by any definition.
He urged, fain continue the tradition.
Please, be well. Grant yourself the time to play.
Sail the boat. Go ski. Drink the icy gin.
Grill the steaks. Boil crabs straight from the bay.
The worst thing at the end? What could. Have been?
If you’re not having fun, I taught you wrong
Let’s play a round of golf, who’ll come along?
{David L. Stanley:DStan58}. August, 2019
I’m bringing sonnets back. If you’d like to join me,
give it a few claps, toss me a follow. Thanks.
It is true, not all deaths are tragedy.
So it is true, all deaths may be teachings.
All wish, may die in quiet majesty,
Leave this mortal coil whilst still seeking.
You lie in wait to die, and breathe your last.
What questions doth still ruminate within?
Was my spirit, love, kindness unsurpassed?
Doth face both test and joy with selfsame grin?
Ad astra? Fain extend a hand to all?
Lift up those souls who could not stand alone?
Comfort hearts of those whose lives went a’squall?
This be faith, down the hollows of your bones?
No qualms, then, for the goodness of your breath,
Thou shalt relish the finest strain of death.
{David L. Stanley:Dstan58} August 2019
Today, November 12, is my wife’s 70th birthday. For Cath.
Two lives together twine, glow like ivory
Both fair stronger than ‘ere they’d be apart.
No nobler grace, my bricks for her ivy;
no deeper grace are beats which share one heart.
When thine eyes tear, my heart doth truly break.
When thine spirit soars, it doth not soar alone.
When joy within erupts, all thirst is slaked,
I gaze with simple heart, a worthy throne.
My wife, ’tis your birthday, my love holdfast
You anchor all my flights of dreamscape mad.
Our love, for all times known, shall ever last
Fain please be my Sarai, years good and bad.
I am your Dante, thou art my Beatrice
On this day of love, seal it with our kiss.
{David L. Stanley:DStan58} November 2020
a thought for the morning. A rich, dark-roasted, ambrosial thought for the morning.
My brother wrote in his books. My late brother Michael died in 2012. He was just shy of his 51st birthday. He was left-handed, and his cursive had that slight, backwards tilt that lefties must adopt in order to write in a language that was designed for the dextrad. Amongst those languages which read from right to left, when Michael wrote in Hebrew, he generally wrote in block letters. As for his Urdu and Arabic, I doubt he was possessed of any written literacy. Yet, when his notes were printed, the tilt went the other way.
Why bring this up? In the winter of 2016, I opted to read more fiction. Classical, canonical fiction. My younger brother Michael had several lit classes as an undergrad that I did not. My fiction collection is post-1900s and he had a veritable library of pre-1900s work. I chose an aged copy of Guy De Maupassant’s Selected Short Stories. …
Dad had a proper send-off yesterday.
His ashes? Front and center as they should.
We let loose laughter; six months held at bay.
Yet tears flowed, as we recalled his deeds good.
My father was a healer, father, friend.
Son, husband, teacher, sailor were his, too.
Of kindness and of humor, knew no end,
all wrapped inside a prickly and proud Jew.
The softest touch, tough as nails commander,
things were done well or they were done again
Sloth slid in? All suffered with his candor.
Success! Relax, smell arbor and the glen.
To a good man, no harm can come in death
or in life, he recalled with his last breath.
{David L. Stanley:DStan58} August, 2019
I’m bringing sonnets back. Care to join me?
Then give me a follow and share with your friends.
We can do this. Thanks.
Pruning Our Lives.
Every fall, the men and women who run orchards and vineyards prune their flocks. They walk their land, survey their trees, and look at their notes from years past. Which limbs no longer crank out the fruit? Which limbs need to be trimmed back to allow new growth into open spaces? Which limbs are dead? Which trees are no longer worth the expense in time, compost, fertilizer, and water? For which ones is pruning not the answer; entire trees need to be pushed over by the tractor and split for firewood for the stove?
It’s hard work, making those calls. Farmers look at their trees with affection. They have a history with their trees. For farmers who worked the land as kids with their moms and dads, they might remember when the fruit trees were planted. For those whose moms and dads worked the land with their grandparents, it’s even tougher. The peach trees, the apples, cherries, the almonds — those trees provided shade and food and income for many years. …
About
