#211. or, The Axeman (a poem)(mostly)

  

  Greetings all!

  Yes, I am still here. More or less these days. I wish I was taken with the urge to write more but any ideas that I do have, more often than not, get pushed out of my brain by concerns of life instead of being jotted down in my little black book of fabulous ideas. 

  Little black book of fabulous ideas. That's somewhat grandiose. Leaflet might be more apt. 

  Anyways, encouragement comes in strange ways and recently, more than once I've been asked, what happened? So, dusty corners of my creativity get a little light shone on them, long quiet gears start to rotate and BAM! My brain spews forth a poem. 

  While I'm chopping wood, no less. 

  Attempting to chop wood. Ya. that's better.

  Behold! It is what it is. 

                                                   The Axeman

The wood chops better, when it's Thirty-Five below. 

It creaks and cracks then splits in two,

like I had my strength of old.

I swing my axe with mighty blows

like I still was Twenty-Five.

But they fizzle out with diminished force

cause I'm nearer to dead than to alive.

And I'll pay for this, in days to come,

with my shoulder, knees and back.

If I don't die first, putting on my socks, 

from an untimely heart attack.

Perhaps I'm crazy, still splitting wood,

in fact it really might be dumb.

But it's something I can contemplate

in front of the fire, sipping rum.

  Inspiration is a funny thing. Maybe it's always there but you just need a friend or two to remind you? 

  Also, I pay someone somewhere once a year to keep the name Ken-inatractor so I feel obliged to at least put something here occasionally so it doesn't get stolen and used to sell inferior knockoff aftermarket tractor parts out of a child labour warehouse in a communist Asian country. 

 Actually, now that I think about it, saving the children is somewhat superhero-y?

  ..........in a cerebral kinda way. I'm way too tired and sore for any of that leaping tall buildings shit.