Eighty-three:

The banishing of Plump Jack:

If I am old, and plump,

and with white hairs 

do not witness it. Please

ignore my whiteness. Discount 

my innocence. I don’t want 

your reverence. I know by my color 

that I am damned. And if I am hated 

because I am white, and fat, then so be it.

If you can love only the pharaohs lean kin

then you can’t see me anymore than I am 

predisposed to no longer harbor a glimpse of you.

More is the pity. For what is unity without 

tolerance? What is us without we?

©️Mark W. Ó Brien

29Mar2022

 

Eighty-two:

My ornery old cuss keeps leaking out:

and I am no longer 

as convinced 

of my correctness 

as I was when I was young.

Also, I find I have little tolerance for stupid.

So please, stop proselytizing.

You don’t get to be an expert 

just because you have 

found yourself on a soapbox.

Everyone can still throw tomatoes.

And I would rather 

eat mine

than waste it on you.

©️Mark W. ÓBrien 

20Mar2022

Eighty-one:

#81 (Crypt 261.)

It is three in the morning and my mind asks:

“Who was Lillian Webster?”

What am I doing?

Why am I asking this question?

“Well? Who is she?”

Wiki says she was a starlet who was famous 

for a silent film named “Everybody’s doing it.”

The film is no longer in existence

so no one knows what everybody was doing.

Her boyfriend who was supposed to marry her 

was arrested for passing bad checks.

Three months after he went to jail

Lillian Webster died during an operation.

I guess we know what “everybody” was doing. 

©️Mark W. ÓBrien 

14Mar2022

Eighty:

80

“A visor for a visor.—What care I.”

My brother Jim bought a black VW Beetle

with a piece of duct tape 

on the passenger side fender. 

We called it it’s Beetlebrow.

The guy who sold it to Jim said:

That tape is a lucky charm.

Jim drove around with the piece of tape

on there for years.

Then he sold the car to our friend named Hat.

Jim told Hat the story about the duct tape. 

Hat ripped it off saying he was Going to paint it.

He totaled the car on the way home.

Car-ma. my brother said.

©️Mark W. Ó Brien 

01/22/2022.

Seventy-nine:

79

In the deep cold

of winter

I lay awake in the night

and wonder:

Will I live to see another 

Baseball season?

What does a tittle do?

Can you die from a 

sudden and severe 

attack of joy?

What must I do to

live my remainders without 

the intrusion of the world?

Is this too much to ask?

©️Mark W. ÓBrien 

15/Dec/2021

Seventy-eight:

78

On

days like this

when mountains 

touch clouds 

I feel as if 

Heaven 

is just there 

and were I  to 

walk towards 

the horizon line 

I might touch it

with the firmament

of  vaulted

thought.

Markle~

12July2021

Seventy-seven:

 77

That one time 

visiting me

when you saw 

sunlit snow 

striking off crystals

bouncing, childlike 

one winters day

scooping it up 

into your hands

as an adult

dipping your tongue 

into the delicious cold of it

“Would you never?” You said.

“Jesus it’s wonderful!”

~

21June2021

Markle-