I Am 55 Today I Am I have seen fifty-five times the promise of light I have seen the rise of the Titan rocket and the fall of the Challenger I have seen the rise of Camelot and the fall of a president I have seen the rise of Dylan and the fall of Cobain I have heard the voice of a prophet crying in darkness I saw them kill Martin, kill Malcolm, kill Bobby, kill Jack I saw the rise of our consciousness and the fall of our aspirations I saw burning banks, burning draft cards, burning bras, burning desires I saw Watts burning, Detroit burning, Saigon burning, burning, burning I saw burning Vietnamese...

I try to do the best I can, The same as any other man To bravely face this coming year, As last year, when it first began I face myself there in the mirror, A few more gray hairs growing here A few more errors understood, My vision just a bit more clear I’ll face the year as children would And hope the future is as good As all the years I’ve gathered in, Remembering to knock on wood. For I know mankind’s greatest sin Is looking back at what has been, And think him master of his soul When watching a new year begin For as the world goes speeding in its course I cannot change it’s...

I am held fast by chains of fear and yet The day will come when fear will let me go So many fears that I could not forget And many fears to come I do not know When my young days were long I was afraid Of losing love and being left alone I yearned the comfort of my mother’s words My father’s arms as strong as any stone They both held back the perils of the night That I might set my face to the unknown In these dim days I find my fears the same Of being old, and living on my own Without my heart’s true love to hold my hand And comfort me when night begins to fall I fear one day...

There’s a fence I need to mend And some bills I need to send But, hey, the world’s not going to end Tomorrow There’s a friend I need to write But there’s a movie on tonight So if I wait it will be all right Tomorrow There’s that book I’m working on And I have yet to mow the lawn The moments here and then it’s gone Tomorrow. And when my yesterdays have passed And this today becomes my last The world will still be spinning fast Tomorrow Wilson/05

A body at rest Will stay at rest Unless somebody moves it And that my life Is as it is Most definitely proves it. So many things There are to do And yet remain undone And here I am Still sitting here With none of them begun I could get up And take a walk Or even wash some dishes So much of what We want from life Lives only in our wishes So many hats I might have worn So many roles to play I might have even Changed the world But here I sit today A body moves The way it does And so will keep on going What will stop it Newton said, There is no way of knowing Wilson/06

Symphony I Half my life is past Without a memory Planting carrots in a garden Drawing pictures of houses Making holes in the dirt and my knees Swinging in swings and climbing on ladders Singing simple melodies under an ice cream sky Hour after hour watching the clock in classroom Make one step backward before striking the time Flying on my bike past the chain link fences Until that moment when sun went down and I awakened naked II And then went so slowly towards the unrelenting goal Reading steinbeck and stanlee, singing in anger Notes chained by convention and sent to perdition empty handed Half...

Eve and God were walking on the path One and one, together in the light Long before she ever felt His wrath Before she learned of wrong and right Listening to His words she felt it burn A fire in the center of her heart Eve saw there was much for her to learn And knowing this was keeping them apart Desire burned and then Eve understood There was something more than what she had Being one with God would be so good And things the way they were, were now so bad In that moment Satan took his place And gave to Eve the fruit of her desires Mother Eve, who saw God face to face Took that first step...

You may find yourself At the bottom of a pit Hurling curses At the filth and muck That hold you down And you may find Yourself below Gazing at an angry sun Above your head Stars behind the clouds But what eats at you More than flies that draw Blood from your veins Is that you must reach For hands to help you out Wilson/07

How many things I touched today In my pocket coins and keys And little scraps of that and this I lay my fingers where I please I guess we’re all of us inclined this way As if my fingers long to kiss Everything that comes along Especially when you say don’t touch As if touching things were wrong This life is good and I don’t want to miss One sensation; each one means so much Words and smiles may touch a heart From the moment we see light We touch our world right from the start For touch is how we come to be, as such And God knows nothing else could be so right Wilson/07

A Pirate’s Last Words I am the last man of my kind And soon there’ll not be any Black spotted as I stand here With treasure not a penny You mean to see me here well hanged This hempen halter fit for me You’d hang me for a thousand slaves My human booty now set free But not a life I ever took That did not mean to take my head I took the ship, but spared the crew And for that you would see me dead How many fell in ‘61? Were slaughtered in your civil war? How many brothers, fathers, sons, Will see their families never more? But I am just a privateer And from the poor I’ve...