If you stop and think about it,
weird creatures, human beings.
Born to cry and laugh, learning
and finding all sorts of things
to do—hopes and dreams in
between. You did or didn’t do.
And then when the time comes,
finito, it’s over and done.
Any questions?
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Chris Hanch 6-30-2022
Something happened to me between the day
of my birth and the age of three. I opened my
eyes, got my fingers to work and was capable
of pointing. I was able to shake my head, say
the words yes or no, accepting or rejecting
that which was presented to me.
From that day on, I was set on a course of
learning right from wrong. I was guided in
childhood by elders and my own personal
discoveries. Not all rights were right for me.
And as I grew more independent, some
wrongs, like refusing to eat my turnips and
broccoli as a matter of taste and preference
was left up to me.
As a teen, I learned that parents, teachers,
clergy, bosses even presidents could be wrong.
The world of mankind could be one hell of a
contradictory and messy place. And given the
minor part I played, much as I tried from time
to time, there were so many things I could never
change.
I had to learn about control, what I was capable
of doing, what couldn’t be done by me, and
when to let go.
With age I have learned to accept change. Right
is not always the right it used to be, and wrong
albeit sometimes acceptable now remains pretty
much unchanged. Except for broccoli and turnips,
that is. Given the bitterness, I have grown to
acquire a taste for such things.
Frequently, I still tend to point my finger and
shake my head in judgment of good and bad.
For what it’s worth, now at the pinnacle of my
life, given the big picture, likelihood is, except
for me personally on occasion, good or bed,
I can’t change a goddamn thing.
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Chris Hanch 6-39-2022
In my nighttime imagining, I am a child
of seven or eight at home watching my
mom and dad. Mom is on the couch
reading her novel. Dad, in his favorite
chair with the news paper, smoking
his pipe. The Half-and-Half Tobacco
smoke sweetly streams through the
amber light and white living room air.
I look up from my drawing and for
the moment am content and secure.
No friction,no fighting, no words,
just a mellow glow, sweet pipe aroma,
mom, dad and I. The settled in peace
and quiet. And for the moment, not a
worry or care of which I am aware.
None of us have begun what is yet
to come. What else am I to know?
I am but a child at home, seven or
eight years old.
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Chris Hanch 6-28-2022
Apartments, so many places
I have been and lived.
Small places, studio
and one bedroom mostly.
Being a photographer and
artist I would decorate
the pale white walls with
my own work, adding
some picturesque interest
to the dull surroundings
of my existence. Now,
having grown older
and likely facing the
last place I’ll be
occupying for the
rest of my life, on these
dull bare walls, I have
decided not to hang
any of my works.
Old age, you know,
should you live to be,
it only grows and grows.
And for me, nowhere
else to go. I’ve already
been.
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Chris Hanch 6-27-2022
They are over, my friends, over and
over again, the days without end,
the glory days where I could eat what
I wanted to eat without fear of the
slightest threat to my health and well
being.
Past and gone, times where my cells
aligned forming a shield of impene-
trable steel, no arsenal of violence
or mayhem could penetrate. Over
are the days patience and a few
aspirin could outlast the petty
bothersome annoyances of bodily
aches and pain.
Bullets, atom bombs, cancer,
hurricanes and ruptured appendix
were fatal conditions which plagued
other weaker or less fortunate
specimens than I.
But gone now for me are those
impenetrable days where fear of
susceptibility to fatality did not
affect me adversely. I stood chin
up, bullet proof and ten-feet tall.
Gone are my excessive and dare-
devil days of impunity. With age
and little foundation of prudent
and preventive precautions of my
defiant and reckless past, the aches,
pains and disabilities I face today
have come home to roost.
Now is my time in the barrel—
the Piper must be paid. Even
George Reeves and Christopher
Reeve who were far more renown
as supermen than I had to eventually
face their comeuppance.
Proof, even the fiction which you
may have believed as true can only
get you so far. Pain is pain, dear reader.
Mortality is the reality. And all the
aspirin in the world won’t alleviate the
inevitability of that.
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Chris Hanch 6-27-2022
Born into this
wondrous act
of biology—
a blade of grass,
the tree,
DNA gone
into the
double helix
making
of you and me.
All living things
are related
that way,
you know.
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Chris Hanch 6-26-2022
Some days are lonely
Some rainy and gray
Some days are speechless
And no reason as to why
Some days are filled
With thoughts which
simply begin with
You and I…
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Chris Hanch 6-26-2022
After me someone will reach for an apple, a pear,
a peach at the grocery store.
After me someone will feel and breathe the cool
and sweet mountain air.
After me someone will stand on a sandy beach at
sunset and see the brilliant glowing sky turn into night.
After me the sea, the stormy sea, a concerto
then a symphony.
After me the madhouse then peace and tranquility.
After me bells will ring, a child will cry as the old
man rages, the oak sheds its gold autumn leaves.
After me doors will open and close, dust will gather,
flowers bloom, murmurs abound in a crowded room.
After me glory and doom.
Ships will sail, coupled boxcars ride the iron rails.
Birds will perch on telephone lines and sing after me.
After me razor blades, basketball and roller skates.
After me prom dates, high school and college graduates.
After me dreary, cold, warm and lovely days.
After me festive holidays and anniversaries to celebrate.
After me itches which irritate, muscles will ache, pizzas
ordered early shall arrive cold and too late.
Fresh bread and Peter Cotton Tails, nursery rhymes
hard times, duck blinds, treasures and gold mines
after me.
Open fires, bald faced liars, worn out tires after me.
After me broken arms, lucky charms, wooden barns,
soy bean farms.
After me boys and girls in Levi and Wrangler Jeans,
hockey games and diamond rings, nuts and bolts,
rubber bands and balls of string.
Before and after me, all these things I have and
have not seen. The many things I have considered
and what’s more, a lot I have not.
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Chris Hanch 625-2020
The Earth is endowed with an Equator.
Surrounding its circumference at the middle,
it was constructed that way.
The broker sells investments which in certain
circles could be said is his or her stock and trade.
A good play on words is always appreciated
by those who count themselves among the
esteemed purveyors in the lexicon of words.
Does Thomas Fuller's 1732 proverb, a
stitch in time saves nine, still apply today?
Careful, what you say, a slip between the cup
and the lip may come home to haunt you.
Does, take it or leave it, sound more like an offer
or a threat to you?
I always thought it would be cool to circumnavigate
the Globe. Circumnavigate is one of those words which
seems to roll off the tongue. Besides, at cocktail parties,
it impresses the ladies.
Pardon
Me? Would You Happen To Have Any Grey Poupon?
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Chris Hanch 6-24-2022
I had friends who passed away
while on a spacecraft to Mars.
I saw them boarding
and waved goodbye at liftoff.
It would be a long journey.
I am not an astronaut.
I stayed at home on Earth
where I belonged
and survived the next few years.
No horses where injured
in the making.
Either way
come what may
eternity lasts forever.
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Chris Hanch 6-21-2022
A day after Father’s Day, I got to looking
at an old photo of my dad and me I had
posted on Facebook. Then, there was
another photo my grand daughter had
posted with her dad (my son) paying a
heartfelt tribute to her dad. I got to
to thinking how proud dads are of their
kids, especially after they had grown into
adulthood. Now, it’s fine being a dad when
your kid is a baby or a child, but to see
them grown up to be the fine upstanding
adult person they have turned out to be
gives a dad a whole new perspective of
how precious and important being a dad
really is. You’ve done your job, brought
a good and decent person into the world
who has your bloodline and carries your
name, a person who will give the world
all the special gifts they possess. Oh
sure, you were no perfect dad. You made
your mistakes along the way. But this is
your child and of them, the special
individual they have grown into
adulthood to be, you are so very
proud. And your button-busting
smile from ear-to-ear in those posted
photos says it is so. That, my friends,
is what love’s got to do with it.
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Chris Hanch 6-20-2022
Hay bales sunning naked
in an open field
Trash barrels Polka dancing with
no lids
Only one was granted
random access
Converts carry toxic candles
to their own demise
Koalas sing a happy birthday
song a cappella
It’s forty miles and a toothache
to the next watering hole
You sense the senseless
on the last day of school
Be-bop doo wap wails
at the sock-hop
Ridiculousness rides the rail
to elsewhere
Tangerine pustules mar
the surface of the Sudetenland
They told you to hold on
then hung-up the phone
What’s the use, you say?
Tomorrow there’s a chance
for rain
How many poets does it take
to fill the restroom?
Get a broom and sweep up
the rest of us
And you thought van Gogh
was insane
Sometimes Mondays and punctuation
count for nothing
Do it all over again
Rinse, repeat…
Three frogs wearing bowler hats have no feet
You’ve been warned
no more smart phone for you
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Chris Hanch 6-17-2022
Imagine if you will, being born
something else. Trillions of cells,
and only a few arranged differently.
And then, brainwaves forcing your
behavior to dictate your day in a
more primordial way, lets say,
animal instinct rather than human
reasoning. You, no work, no play
no friends or family to understand
and get in the way. Just you and
your daily routine. Food, shelter,
constantly on the lookout for
predators. Imagine if you will,
having been born as something
else. No memories, no fantasies, no
vocabulary, no need to explain, no
philosophies or reasoning about
life and death, thoughts about the
before and after, just the daily
routine—food, shelter, mating,
ever on the lookout for danger,
day in, day out, every day the
same. No cell phone, computer,
toothpaste, deodorant or
automobile. No meetings to
attend, no prayers to say, no
bills to pay, stopping on occasion
to scratch behind your floppy ear
with a hairy hind leg while foraging
forest, field, tree or stream for a
certain delectable meal to eat.
There are lots of would-be folks
out there , you know, who were
never born to be like you and
me, and just a little tweak of a
few cells out of trillions made
the difference, you see, making
what we have come to realize
you as the you you are and I here
and now contemplating the reality
of the me I was born to be. 14-billion
light years and trillions of stars in the
making, you and I. What were the
chances of that? Mind-boggling crazy,
wouldn’t you say?
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Chris Hanch 6-15-2022
For eons dust has settled
over the history of man.
Sweep away as he may,
dust will forever remain.
They say every breed of
dog today is descended
from wolves 25,000
years ago.
Infants are born crying,
what then prompts them
to naturally form their
first smile?
Cicadas transform from
nymphs buried in the earth
seventeen years before
burrowing out above
ground into the light.
The recently launched
James Webb Telescope
promises to reveal
more images from
the Cosmos than
were possible before.
How much wood could
a woodchuck chuck if a
woodchuck could chuck
wood?
(There are no applicable
rules in English that say
a poem cannot end in a
riddle. Hey! Diddle,
Diddle. Live with it.
Class dismissed.)
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Chris Hanch 6-13-2022
