River life

"Segurokamome winter" by 藤谷良秀 - 投稿者自身の撮影.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via
Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Segurokamome_winter.jpg#mediaviewer/File:
Segurokamome_winter.jpg

The seagull, his bill and body facing south,

Allows himself to be swept north on the tide.

Tired of the ride, his wings spread and carry

Him into the lazy sky.

The tugboat doesn't so much pull its barge

As it pushes it downstream, passing another

Headed up. The birds have abandoned their

Watery perch to sail circles above it

As the jetskis roil the river alive with boats

And sparkling  with waves

"Barge and tug in NYC" by Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA - Barge. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barge_and_tug_in_NYC.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Barge_and_tug_in_NYC.jpg

The new defines New York

with thanks to Lydia Davis

Pigeons fighting over a piece of pizza, developed a fondness for pepperoni.

Suddenly,  they crave meat.

Man with many pigeons in Washington Square Park, New YorkCC BY 2.0, JoeInQueens from Queens, USA - DSC_0063 Uploaded by maybeMaybeMaybe

Handsome

Klopfholz mit BeitelnCC BY-SA 3.0, Janekpfeifer - Own work

You certainly would not like his looks,

But he is genuinely handsome, with his sculpted beard,

No rather, it is chiselled against his face,

The grey standing out against the burnished oak 

In delicate fine lines, his is the face on the prow,

Or perhaps of a captain sailing gallantly and gamely

Into the wind

Memory

I envy you, remembering

The addresses of your childhood

I remember nothing, not even

Grudges or the names of 

Friends and neighbors

If memory is all we have

I have only you and our years

Together, I remember all that

Every touch, every tender moment

Memories like that are my blessing

My consolation for all my unsung past

© Tamara Beck

April 30th, New York City

The daffodils, defeated by the rain,

Can barely hold their heads up,

Stems soaked and heavy, but

With no sun and all this cold,

Scrunching down may well be preferrable

© Tamara Beck

Mass destruction

By Bull-Doser (Own work) [Public domain],
via Wikimedia Commons

The weapons of mass destruction
They are our cars and our
Carelessness, all politicized
Turned into matters of belief

Do you believe that the ice caps
Are melting? Or that our  baby
Planet is more than a few thousand
Years old? Remember when dinosaurs
Roamed the earth next to man?

I, Steveoc 86 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
or CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Man won out by the grace of god,
Or the grace of his intellect-- another
Of god's graces

Religion and science at war with reality
Losing ground

© Tamara Beck

Constructs of time

By Morio (photo taken by Morio)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)
or CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Do these constructs of time

Strike you as silly like

They do me? Today is

Spring, because it's March

21st but the 19th, that was

Still winter and come June

Summer will begin and the

Whole universe is expected

To tow the line, obey the

Law of the seasons in a timely

Manner, flowers are to bloom

And leaves to fall, cold winds

To blow and rains to pound

The hard earth, each in

Their turn, each in their time

© Tamara Beck

My side

My side of the story usually comes with an apology.

In this case, there will be none.

The truth requires no apologies. I will tell you the truth, my side of the story.

As it turns out, there is nothing particularly exotic about the truth. Tellng it may be a novel experience for some of us, okay for me. But truth is not a rare bird with wild and colorful plumes. That is more like the lies with which I am so accustomed to embellishing my stories.

Truth is a plain creature, generally hatless and sometimes hapless.

Is it scary? It is not. Unlike the famous line, it is easy to handle. The truth is just oddly normal. It has its own pattern, like lines on the paper from a lie detector sheet. It's steady and forthright.... which does seem like an oddly circular way of describing it.

Let me just tell you and you decide.

On that Monday as the working world was heading of to jobs and lounge lizards were barely opening their eyes to cups of coffee black and sweet, I was minding my own business. By that, I guess I mean, inattentive to the people that passed and lost in my thoughts. There were some groceries I was needing to buy and some mending I wanted to attend to.

Someone a little tall and quite burly rushed by as if determined to get there before anyone else. The speed and force was really all I noticed. He went into Joe's store and out as fast with something in his arms. He staggered a little, I thought under the weight of whatever he was carrying, righted himself and then stumbled. He dropped at my feet, the bundle in his arms first. I caught it, picked it up on its way down as it were, and took it away with me.

I'd be lying if I claimed I was headed striaght to the precinct house when the cop pinched me. He jumped to a policeman-like conclusion that I was Burly Man's accomplice. The truth is I was curious about the package that had fallen into my hands, and wanted a chance to have a look-see. I was not averse to handing it over to the police, really, just wanted a little time to explore the contents.

So there I was caught red-handed at something I had not done. An innocent bystander, holding a smoking gun.

The truth looked a lot fishier than any assumptions to which you could jump.

The beginning of a short short story. © Tamara Beck

Mementos

Our lives may end like this, too

Carted away by 1800JunkToGo
Workmen picking up the detritus

Things we've kept far too long

Well that I did, you would
Have thrown them all away
In time's past

We could have kept the memories
Without the stuff

You would have thought
Unbothered by sentiment no longer
Remembered, or maybe

Remembered just enough to make us smile

© Tamara Beck 

March 7, 2014

Where there were

© Tamara Beck

Where there were buildings

So familiar as to be forgotten

There are great big holes in the ground,

Waiting for cement and cranes,

And that inevitable uplift to 

The city skyline so familiar 

As to be anticipated 

© Tamara Beck

Origins

Will the moment we learn with complete certainty where

It all began, the origin of our universe, be the moment

Life

ends

Will when we learn who we are and how we began be our
Ending?

Is that a fact?

Facts are not really facts-- they are tempered in the prism of opinion and judgement.

Resolve this

It's 2014, but it could be any NEW year....

Stressed by all the resolutions you've made?

Try to simplify: you don't want to be a completely different person.

Resolve in smaller increments-- you can always make better choices.

For instance, instead of resloving "to lose weight," determine to make better choices in food; rather than "to work less and relax more" resolve to choose the projects you undertake more wisely; a resolution "to quit drinking or smoking" will give you greater success as a resolution to make better choices about your health. Look for success.

Resolve to minimize the stress in your life and maximize the pleasures.