Maybe she does

Confusion in the mind

With the face projection certainty

Acting like you know what you are doing

When you don’t have a clue

Hoping for an insight

As you go along.

Your feeling grow stronger

Breeding concern

Maybe she does

Maybe she doesn’t?

And in the meanwhile

Time marches on.

More time apart

Then together

Give the mind

Plenty of playtime.

Wondering this

And wondering that

Will the Us

Come to be

Or no item to appear.

Oh how I hope

But if wishes were horses

Beggars would ride

And frogs would have wings

So as not to

Bump their rear end

As they hopped on the ground

So wish as I as may

And wish as I might

And wishing with all my might

It is outside my hands

That she likes me enough

To be my girlfriend

That she likes me enough

To want to be side by side

I have offered all I can offer

I want what I want

And she wants what she wants

Those wants to have to intertwine

For there to be an us

The only prayer I make is

That God’s will be done

For as much as I want her

I do not want her

If she does not want me.

If she can take me as I am

As I take her as she is

Then maybe an Us is born.

It is the waiting to know

That brings the confusion

And knowing that brings peace

Does she

Or does she not?

The petals of the daisy

Have their say

Both sides of the fence

First one way, yay.

Then the other, nay.

One more prayer I make

Please woman

Tell me what to do.

Should I go

Or should I stay?

© 

Rexx

Respect

Respect, a word that we use a lot, just what does it mean. To me respect is something I give everyone, but is something that everyone has to earn. That is to say that I will respect you until you give me reason not to. I will not insist upon our meeting that you earn my respect for you, I grant it as a condition of your humanity.

However, respect comes in different degrees and types. When I get in my car and drive down the road I respect the right of others to use the same highway and follow the rules of the road not just because of the law, but out of respect for other drivers. At the same time I demand that they return that respect. Cut me off and slow down in front of me and you are liable to have me zip around you and return the favor. Pull out onto the Interstate and drive very slow so that I have to slow down, and then you speed up will probably make me flip you off as I pass. I could go on and on, but you drivers know well what it is I mean.

As a form of respect I trust everyone to be what it is they say they are until I have reason not to believe them. Then in the words of that wise old sage, “Fuck me once shame on you, fuck me twice shame on me.” We are polite to one another because of our underlying respect for one another. When you bump into someone it is respect for that person that leads you to say excuse me, pardon, or I am sorry. Those who don’t do this are not only rude, they are disrespectful. Bumping into me and not saying excuse me is one thing, but to shove me out of your way is fighting disrespect.

To use certain disrespectful words the Supreme Court has called “fighting words” and is not protected speech. This respect has to be taught, it does not come naturally. If your parent did not teach it to you, the school of hard knocks will!

If someone is talking, and you just start talking over them, this is not only rude, bur highly disrespectful of the one who was speaking. If you walk into the middle of a conversation and start your own you are showing your disrespect for the ones talking and the one who was listening. And if you are in that conversation and leave the one you were in to continue on with the intruder you are disrespecting the person you were talking to initially. Maybe you don’t give a damn about their respect, but if you do, either for them or theirs for you, don’t hurt their feeling like that. Hurt feeling is what disrespect generates, and many time a rise of anger because of the perceived feeling of disrespect.

If you were sitting and talking with someone you like, and someone else walks up, and you just jump up and you abandon the conversation, and take off with that person without a moment to explain your action, if it were you that were left would you not feel dissed?

We live in a world of perception, of how we perceive others, and how they see us. How well our perception matches reality is a testimony to our insight. How we deal with other’s misperception of us is a judge of our character. The effort that we go to correct a misperception deepens upon who the one that is misperceiving. I do not care if most people think that I am an arrogant fool, for I know that as people come to know me they realize what other’s perceive as arrogant is actually confidence in myself and my abilities. But for some people I do care how they see me, it is way too late to change me into that which I am not, but a greater explanation what I am and how I act in the world may be in order.

The degrees of respect we allow others differ by that person important to us, and their station in life. Respecter of persons? Yes, for sure. Most of us hold those who are, or have, served in the armed forces in a higher respect than those who have not served. Of course the converse is true; some people despise the military and will spit on anyone, at their own peril, in uniform.

Until we have reason not to we give the police a special respect, not only because they can take you to jail, but because they put their lives on the line keeping the great non-respecters in line. Those who have no respect for your right to own and keep your property, and given the chance will take it for their own, those who would take your life for whatever you might have on you, those who cheat and defraud you. Those people have respect for the law too, but not as we do. They will afford respect as it furthers their cause, they will say excuse me when they bump into you, that is if they are not getting ready to rob you. They follow the rules of the road unless they are running from the law. Praise God that they are not the norm.

We give our parents a higher respect they others because of their position in our lives, if we respect our children we will teach them why they should respect others. We respect the priests and preachers because of their position in society, as we do school teachers, and politicians. Politicians, ah that’s a tough one. We hold them in higher or lower respect depending upon whether or not they are of our particular persuasion.

Now to the respect that we give the one we hold dear, that respect comes from the love that we hold for them. Because of the relation we owe more respect, not less. And as we give it to them we expect it back. Asking for respect is not the same as controlling. If we are dating if you start kissing some guy on the dance floor you have dissed me, and for sure hurt my feelings, and probably made me angry enough to at the very least leave the joint. If I were to do the same thing with someone else I would be just as wrong, and should be ready to break up before I ever did such a thing. Now there is a different between actual disrespect and perceived disrespect, but not to the one who feels dissed.

Respect is very important to me, I take offense whenever I feel I am being dressed, what action I take depend on upon not only the degree of disrespect, but upon the situation. I am not going to fight a fight I cannot win unless I have to. That fight might be with the asshole that shove me out of his way, or pushed his way between me and my girlfriend, in the latter case I would be much more likely to throw a hand. Or that fight might be with my girlfriend, if wining the fight means losing the girlfriend, then I will swallow my pride, let it go, and try to explain it later.

© 

Rexx

Reward

I was driving home the other day when as I came up on Wildwood to the junction with Mahaley there was a snapper, right there in the middle of the road. I stopped the truck, got our, and walked back to where he was. Picked him up, and as I was walking back to the truck he was snapping at the air as I was holding way back on his shell. But he was pissed, and wanted with all his heart to heart who/whatever it was that had taking him from his chosen path.

I laid him down in the bed of the truck, jerking my hands away before he could spin and snap my finger off. Getting back in the truck I drove on home, and turned into the driveway stopping in front of the gat in front of the pond where I got out, went back to the bed where the snapper was. Standing on the running board I reached down, picked him up, and walked over to the pond where I dropped him into the water at the edge of the pond. He looked up, turned around, and swam to where the water was deep enough for him to dive, and dove out of sight into the muddy water with no idea that he had been rescued, just a profound irritation at my having interfered with its life, and a great desire to snap my fingers off!

How many times have you helped someone and they disappeared from your life with no sign of gratitude? Well if you were doing it for their thanks you were doing it for the wrong reason. You should help other for your own well being, not their thanks and gratitude. If that is your reason for helping then that is your reword or disappointment. If you do it just because you can, then you store your reward in heaven.

© Rexx

The Race

Here we were again, Taz and I
Having cantered the course ,
One half mile from start to end.
Now standing beside the trailer
Waiting for the flag to drop,
I intently watching the hand
The hand that held the flag.
Taz pawing anxious inside.
Then the flag was drop,
And our time began to run.
Opening the trailer door,
Taz walked out onto the ground.
Putting my foot in the sturp
I swung onto her back,
And without urging
Taz jumped into the canter
Which we held as we crossed
the wooden platform 30 foot long.
Slowing to the trot just long enough
To grab the proffered rope which
I dallied to the horn as Taz Jumped
Into the gallop, not even slowing down
As I drop the rope dragging the log
And charged to the first turn.
Barley loosing speed we turn right
And headed as fast as Taz could go
To the jump strait ahead.
Unhesitating over and on down
To the next turn, we passed the judges
At a full run to the next turn.
And there they were, three small
High, but not to wide hills in a row.
Taz was as eager as I and we went
Into the first one way too fast.
As Taz came across the first one
At the top she jumped and I lost my seat
As Taz started down I was still going up
And when she hit the ground I was slammed
Hard into the saddle and bounced
Bounced right over her head
Landing flat of my back on the ground
Right in front of Taz.
Taz is 16 hands, and the hill was over
Eight feet high, a real long ways
To the ground, but I never let go of the reins
But I did loose my hat.
Taz, excitated by the race, drug me around
A while before calming down.
After she came to herself, I stood
And remounted and continued on.
Taking the second and third hill
At an appropriate speed.
Then down into the water ditch for 40 feet,
Out of the water, we made the next turn
And started the last quarter mile.
A hard sprint with two more right turns
As hard as we could we charged to the finish
It was a beautiful fall I was told,
But I only finished 9th out of 22 riders.

Looking For The Lost Step

All the many, many times I have danced alone because no one could follow the song that danced through my body, leaving my mind in complete acceptance to the dictates of the music as I gyrate, whirl, and spin around the dance floor my feet picking the rhythm and beat of the song they will follow. Fast then slow changing from the lead to the bass then to the rhythm, from the voices, back to the guitar, then to the drums across the floor the music takes me like a comet throuth the universe.

Then, there was a time I found someone who melted into my steps as though they were a part of me, breaking away from me only to return to continue our search for the lost step that brought us together. Into the Zen of the dance, the whole world becomes nothing more then the dance with the music taking our souls to worship God. But she, like the rest, never to dance every dance with me, or I with her, and for she, as each before her in turn has walked off the dance floor without me, and left me to my own devices.

I dream now of this one, the one I wish to dance the rest of my life with, oh she said that she could not, but then she did and turned herself loose to the music, to the dance, and to me. Until she returns to me I will dance along, and when she returns maybe we will find that lost step together.



©Rexx

Looking

Ah, being in love with love

Makes for a hard road to walk

For love is ideal

And relations are real.

Infatuation!

Now that is a burning reality!

A hot burning fire

That consumes every thought.

But as the fire roars down

To its ember, infatuation ends.

And if love is not born

Then the relationship dies.

Cold and dreary are

The dead desires

Of a burnt out

Relationship

 Leaving the jilted lover

An empty husk

A form with no depths,

Filled only with memories.

Memories that light the fires

The burning fires of desires

Desires to find true love

Loving the ideal love.

Ah, the ideal love

Where does it exist?

In whose heart does it burn?

And can it live in reality?

I believe that it can and does

And not just in a dog’s heart.

Just not for all of us,

For some it is delegated to a dream.

Life Worth Living?

The following is a response evoked from me by a question posed: Who get to decide if a life is worth living. A friend of hers had just been told that she had a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a child with Downs Syndrome.

Left for itself to decide, in the overwhelming majority of the time the self will decide that life is more desirable then the most horrible life. I am reminded of an event that occurred some years back when I was taking my Mother and adopted brother for a ride in the Smoky Mountains near Chimney Rock.

The road between Asheville and Lake Lure are laid out just lovely, very, very curvy, but the curves are set such that you can traverse them at a high rate of speed by cutting across the oncoming traffic lane. This was of the time of year that the foliage had died off because of winter and you could see in time to make your decision to cut the corner or not in plenty of time to do it safely.

I was driving my mother’s car, a Chivy Capri, Mom was in the front seat, and Jim, my adopted brother,  was in the back. I was just rocking that car, just under the ability of the car and up near my ability to control it. I do not know about the rest of you folks, but for me, that is when driving becomes enjoyable, when you are at the edge of your abilities, the rest of the time it is just a chore that has to be done. When we got home that afternoon Jim told my Mother that though he had never flown before he felt that he had now. Sorry, I regress.

The point of this story is that as I did a power slid around one long slow curve a cat ran out from the side of the road. Ran right into my left front wheel! I beaked down and in my rearview mirror I could see the cat dragging it’s hindquarters off the road. I backed up to where I was near the cat, and got out of the car. It was in real bad shape, paralyzed from the waist down, an eye half out of its socket, and blood running from its eyes, nose, and mouth.

It was in my mind to put the cat out of the misery that I had put it in, and walked toward it very slowly, speaking in a low, soft tone telling it how sorry I was for the condition I had put it into as I put on the glove I had taken out of the car with me. The cat was having nothing to do with it, as I got close it started dragging its broken, pain racked (I am sure) body away from me. Before I could reach it, it took off way faster then I could run, for believe me I tried to catch up with it as it dragged its broken body away from the mercy I had in my heart. It, at first went of the road, then turned and drug itself along side the road, and found a culvert it could crawl up into, which it did.

No mater now reassuring I tried to sound, no mater now well I tried to make my intention seem, the cat was not going to deliver its life into my hands. What life it had left it was going to spend, as it deemed best, pain racked and taking each of its remaining breath through the bubbles of blood in its nose. It was not given into me the right to decide if its life was worth living or not.

When a parent makes the kind of decision that you have put before us there are more then just the life of the baby involved. If you can afford to pay for all the additional expense that you know will come along with the birth, you have every right to spend your money and time as you see fit. I do not believe that you have the right to expect someone else to pay that expense. Insurance companies have the right to set the criteria of what they will pay for, and what they will not. If you would have the government pay for it you are forcing me, the average Joe taxpayer, to pay for your decision.

Another consideration that the parent must come to terms with is the fact that a child with Downs Syndrome will most likely out live them. I have know sever people who, in their old age, had a Downs Syndrome child, though in their forties, still a child. I used to live next door to some folks in this situation, my children, five and six, played with their boy, and he, near thirties, played at their level. When his parents died, he have to go into a nursing home, his life, as he knew it, was going to change dramatically. He will never know, once they are gone, the love and comfort that they chose to give him as long as they could.

The answer to the question is that life worth living is going to depend upon who answers it.  The cat said “Hell Yes!” I said that he would be better off dead.  The mother who just conceived a child with a big chance of being born with Downs Syndrome will have to decide.  I know what the child would say if it were asked, but the mother she has to decide if she want the rest of her life to be anchored to a six year old.  I will not judge the decision for I see both sides.