Journey

Journey

Life is a long journey.
The time you enjoy along the way
is not wasted time.
Each day you spend in love is worthwhile.
Everyone teaches, everyone learns.
Life is a great circle.
There is a time to spend staying at home.
There is a time to move on.
Time to spend idle.
Time to love.
Time to be busy at work.
Time to return home again.

Each person is an endless series of moments passing by.
You can give each moment its own reason.
Make sure the moments that are you
lend kindness to others
and always give you good things to do.
Love life and others as best you can.
Let fame and fortune come and go as they may.
But forever dream to strive.
Always strive to dream.

Forgive others their mistakes the best you can.
Realize you make a few mistakes too.
Try to be as balanced as you can
and when you get off balance
remember, everyone falls down every once in awhile.
When you are fearful
remember things are never as bad
as you imagine them to be.

Everyone lives life the best they can.
Everyones journey takes twist and turns.
If my life draws memories to leave behind
that are uncommonly true
and spread a little happiness to others
I'll have lived my life
as I wanted to.
 

Dewey Dirks-----copyright 2010

Good at Something

Good At Something

Paula tends bar down at the Corral
If ever you go down there
She's got a long, tall Miller, a sparkle in her eyes
A good ear, and a friendly smile
And if you've got a problem big or small
Paula will even give you a welcome conversation

She'd be surprised if she only knew
How far what she's happened to say has gone
With the desperate and lonely, and the forsaken
Who've walked through her doors
On a thousand slow Wednesday nights
And not wanted to leave her till dawn

There's a guy who comes in every day
Paula fell in love with him a long time ago
He's a blue collar man, down to earth
With a good, honest way about him
But he's already taken, and happy
She's never said anything
Hopes only the best for him
It's no matter, she tells herself
She gets to see him every day
And when she wants more company
There are many very willing
To give her all the time she wants with them

Two blocks south, and four blocks west lives Emily Blair
She's got a husband and three kid's
'tween the ages of ten and nineteen
Been married going on twenty-one years now
She works hard for her family each day
All she asks in return
Is that you pick up your own socks from the floor
Give her a kiss on the cheek when it's bedtime
And make sure you clean up all your food
Before you ever dare get up from the table

If Emily could jump forty years down the line
She'd be surprised to find
Three adult's always telling their children
“You know, your grandma always used to say...”
And, “Your grandma taught me this, now I'll teach you..”
She'd see her words and her love
Echoing the long years away
And though Emily doesn't realize
While he's at work or at play
Her man talks of nothing but her all day, every day

All the Earth is a single town
A small blue dot in a very big sky
Men are mostly good or bad or in between
We all are small town born
And each grow up to play a small town part
In a small town play

Sam is Emily's husband
He's been a welder since he was fifteen
Every day at five pm he stops by the Corral
Chats with Paula
Has a drink, says hi to a few friends
Then along about six-thirty
Emily stops whatever she is doing
And smiles when he walks in
He's grins  back, and gives her a kiss
Says, “Hi babe, how was your day?”

If you live anywhere in the tri-state area
It's likely you've driven across a bridge or two
Held together with beads carefully crafted
Born of the blue arc in Sam's old welding rig
Sam doesn't know it
But a thousand times a day, Emily thinks about him
Hopes his job is going okay, wonders what he's up to just then

Find out what you ought to be doing
You have but to ask, life will give you a job
Everyone is good at something
Sudden and sweet or long and very slow
In ways you see and ways you don't,
All you say, all you do
Touch the ones standing next to you
Take care that you do what you should

Sam talks a lot down at the Corral
To the biker we all call Slim
From where he came, no one knows
Slim's fifty-five and never put down his colors
He's always got a good word
His laugh is big, his smile soulful and warm
He knows what it is to ride alone on a long, straight road
Knows what it is to walk the sharpest edges
Slim's got a story or two
Lord-God if you've got the time
If you look across the years, you'll find them peppered
With crossed-up kids bent straight by him
A hundred times he's been at parties
And talked cranked-out pairs of bikers
Out of knifing each other

Slim and Paula got a thing on the side
But he knows her eyes are forever on another
He says he doesn't mind
He knows the man, and he's a good guy
He tells himself it's an ideal arrangement
Slim says that love is just another tie that binds
And one of these days, he'll hop on his hog and ride

Paula and Slim, Sam and Emily
All good people without a single doubt
But every day down at the bar
Sam breaks Paula's heart
While Paula is busy breaking Slim's
Two blocks south, and four blocks west sits Emily
Never knowing her good love has caused so much mayhem
All the while, the four spread kind tidings
In ways that remain unknown and hidden to them

Paula and Slim, both so good
At handing out wise advice
Are flaming fools when it comes to their own love life
And Sam and Emily, who have a love that will never know death
Never tell how much each one means to the other
All of them make their own mess
All of them draw their own straight and crooked lines
I suppose it only goes to show
That even the luckiest and most astute
Can act like complete idiots some of the time
 

Do what you do best
And you'll do well as you can
Everyone in life can find a groove
Everyone teaches, everyone learns
Remember the ways that you act
Always have more than one side
Wise to know, we all tell two stories
The fable, good or bad
Of what we seem to do
And the secret tale
Of what life has put us up to
Quietly, and unnoticed

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2009

Fifty Summer Fling

Fifty Summer Fling

With people, love affairs, and seasons
All the world through time rolls
Come first tender and warm spring rains
Followed then by summer and fall
Comes next the indifferent winter
When ignorance and amnesia of better times blankets all
Then doing what’s right
Makes you seem the fool

But every so often
Once upon an uncommon time
Two are met of mischievous and heroic delight
All the universe suddenly moves as one
Eyes conspire, and an electric air turns
So schemes the summer to shine for a lifetime

In all the rolling world
There is nothing like the touch of rare lovers
Nothing so good as their fifty year fling
Nothing so passionate as their enchanted embrace
Nothing so charmed as the endless summer in their kiss
Lots of things make this old world go ‘round
But only a romance of which stories are told
Makes it worthwhile

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010

Bravest Woman

Bravest Woman

I am a working woman
with children almost grown.
I'm nearly fifty.
I hope I still have a pretty face.
My husband died almost three years ago.

One cold winter day
a old man shot him dead
through our kitchen window.
He was the father of a thirty year old woman
and he thought my husband
was having an affair with his daughter
down at the bar where he used to go.  

Life isn't fair sometimes.
Oh God I loved my husband so much.
We were married nearly twenty years.
Lord God he used to like to talk
to people down at the bar.
He used to like to talk
to that woman down there.
He'd go down there and sit, I know.  
Lord God he used to like to talk.  

I stumble through each day.
I cry through through every night.
Sometimes I think I'm a broken woman.
Sometimes I think I'm broken.  
I don't know how I'll go on.  
But there's bills and bills
I've got to pay.
A home that needs cleaning
and dishes to wash.
Children who need lots of love.
Children who need advice.  
And a house with a hole in the window
that needs to be sold.  
How can I go on without my husband?
I don't know if I can carry the weight alone.
Lord God, I'm so alone.

I miss his voice.
He used to like to talk.
Oh God he used to like to talk.  
He visits me in my dreams at night
He cuddles me tightly. He kisses me softly.
He used to tell me,
“Jessie, you're the bravest woman I've ever known.”
Now I hear him in the night softly say,
“Don't miss me, please don't miss me.
I'm here with you now. Don't miss me.
Jessie you're the bravest woman
I've ever known.”  

I get so mad at him.
Lord God, he used to like to talk.
Liked to talk to the pretty young women.
Liked to talk to everyone.
Now he visits me in my dreams at night
He cuddles me tightly. He kisses me softly.
He says, “Jessie don't miss me.
You're the bravest woman I've ever known.
If you fall down, I'll help you up again.
I'll help you up.”
Lord God I miss my husband
He used to say,  
“Jessie, you're the bravest woman
I've ever known.”

Last night I dreamed of a great river
with a boat to carry me across.
On the river bank my husband was standing
I walked up to him and he kissed me
He said, “Jessie life is kinder than you think
Every night in dreams you don't remember
You travel to another land.   
There you and I are young again
And together we sit and talk and laugh
drinking iced tea
beside a great cypress tree.

When your days here are done
to that distant shore you'll travel
and if you still want me
I promise I'll meet you once again
beside that tree.  

Jessie, oh Jessie
You are the bravest woman I've ever known.
And the love we feel for each other
is that cypress tree we meet under each night
with roots so strong it will never know death.“


Dewey Dirks---copyright 2010

Points of View....

One of the things I'm asked most often about The Questioning Way is whether or not it's a book of poetry. The answer is no, it has a poem at the beginning of every chapter but most of the book is prose. The poetry used in the book is what I usually show people when they ask about The Questioning Way, because it's the quickest, and most satisfying way I can think of to briefly tell someone about the views expressed in the book. In a society that has become accustomed to getting information in sound bites on television, and as short bursts of text on venues such as twitter, poetry is becoming one of the most poignant and effective ways express a point of view in a very brief manner. Some people think of cutesy rhymes when someone mentions poetry, but I believe well written poetry is all about conveying ideas about every facet of modern life in a way that not only expresses points of view but the emotions propelling those points of view as well.

Don't Call Me Collect--God

Don't call me collect  --God 



Perhaps on some golden throne 
alive in the sky, you watch over each of us
--rain warm love, bathing one by one
man and sparrow with most tender care 

Or, like a child at play 
did you make the clock your grand experiment? 
then, called to dinner, you plan to be back at eight
wondering if we'll still be tocking 

Are you a big ashen bearded daddy?
with all the answers up there
will you spank us forever if we don't believe? 

Maybe you're a cosmic hippie 
you say "Hey don't you remember? 
ten thousand years ago
we all stood at Salisbury in ecstasy" 
Then, with hand to forehead you say 
"Or maybe it was nineteen seventy-one 
you know, all that acid still gets to me" 

Are you a wrinkled old man? 
stuttering, the very edge of senility
you wait at the gate, white picket complacency
We come home for a hug and obligatory visit 
the younger playing Grandfather for a free dime 

Perhaps you are a crone, ancient and wise
living in rock, road, brook, and tree
You made a hard, wondrous, magical land
where stumbling, we acolytes slowly learn of beauty

With fire on your finger tips 
maybe you throw lightning bolts
make floods, cause the sky to darken 
Perhaps you'll let five thousand faithful in 
"All the rest be damned!" you say as the earth quakes 


Perhaps one time, some time, ever time 
we'll be sitting in the park, you and I
Muhammad, Gautama and Einstein play dice across the way
cool green grass, white daisies, blue sky, shade trees 
I say, "You know, I wondered always if you were a figment" 
You say, "Don't we all, my friend, begin and end in fantasy?" 

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010

Pirate Girl

Pirate Girl

I know a pretty pirate girl.

She is a friend of mine.

We explore life, we joke and wonder.

When we talk from time to time.

Her spirit is a darting bird

—Flies high, free and happy

A little bit risky and a little bit wild.

Quick to laugh and suddenly wise.

Her eyes sparkle as she asks,

“Why so often do clouds in the sky

arrange themselves in such an auspicious manner?”

And sparking inside her heart, the finest treasure

saved for the day the right man walks into her life.

Now whiles come and whiles go

and for awhile all men are a pirate buffet for her to browse.

Every day is an adventure in nibbling

and she is like a pirate Popsicle.

Sweet, good to see and inviting to taste.

For awhile she’s trouble on a stick

for all those men she keeps on the line.

Here I sit and talk and explore

wondering how many whiles

this old sea dog might last.

Or perchance to don hat, pistols, and patch

and become that one special pirate man

who shows her where begins the real adventure….

Her smile comes easily and honestly.

Her laugh is joy personified.

And her dark eyes are a vast, wondrous ocean

for the brave soul who dares set sail

on a long and deep uncharted voyage.

 

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010

Thank You...

This month Thequestioningway.com reached the milestone of welcoming 140,000 visitors since coming online in Jan 2009. People from all over the world including readers from Europe, Asia, India, Japan and Australia have shown an interest in the book. Response has been outstanding, and I’d like to thank everyone who has come by the website to read about The Questioning Way and purchase a copy for themselves. As an author, I’ve long felt something is not worth writing unless you can put your heart and soul into it. The Questioning Way, although its is not a long work, too several years to write. Now that it’s in print I’m happy to say that in all likelihood it will be available to read for many years to come. Thanks once again for your support and kind words of encouragement.

You all have a very good day

Dewey Dirks

Bravery

Bravery

When I walked into the bar

Two kids were calling him out

One had a broken bottle, the other had a short club

Steiger was not a big man, and he was unarmed

But good lord, he had a look about him!

A chill went through the room and he stood to face them

Steiger squared up and said

“Before you start

With whatever problem it is you have with me

I’ll tell you this— I don’t care

What kind storm you think you are,

I guarantee that you have never seen the like

Of a few of the storms I have been through.

Now, you do what you think you want to do

I just thought you ought to know.”

Steiger waited

The kids stared back at him

I don’t think they knew exactly what to do

Finally, one of them pulled his friends shirt

He said, “Shit Jeff! Come on let’s go!”

Ole Jeff dropped his bottle and walked out of there

I guess he realized

He’d bit off a little more than he could chew

Steiger sat back down

And I shimmied up beside him

I said “I’m pleased to meet you

I think that’s the bravest thing I can recall seeing

Steiger took a drink and smiled

‘Said “Hell son, that wasn’t brave

That was just solid sense.

Now brave? I’ve seen brave a time or two”

Brave is jumping back over the wall

To save a good man down

As the bullets come flying back at you

Brave is being alone on your bike

And trying that corner at seventy

When there’s gravel, the sign says twenty-five tops

And you know what’s gonna happen

If the ground takes a swipe at you

Now, that’s the kind of bravery that faces death

But braver still, I think

Is the kind that faces life, son

Brave is being a single mother alone in the big city

You come home every day to two little ones who are hungry

And you know the only thing

Between them and some serious hurt

Is you and your shitty job

Down at the 7-11

There is a kind of bravery

That hopes beyond all hope

And still tries to get things done

When just about everything in life has fallen apart

All the chips are down

And all you’ve got is a pair of three’s on the table

There is a kind of bravery that has a dream

And still keeps crawling on

When you’re only half-way done

As all the bills keep coming due

And for all the world it still appears

That you don’t have a ghost’s chance in hell

Of ever seeing it all the way through

Then there’s the kind

That loves deeply and loses

But dares to try and love again

And the kind that loves easy

And dares try to find room in their heart

For everyone

If you face death and lose

Well, you’ll be dead and gone

And nothing much will matter to you

But if you face life and lose

Then you have to live

With what has happened to you

From “The Questioning Way by Dewey Dirks Copyright 2009

Doubt

Doubt

Don’t doubt that you’re breathing

If you try you can increase

Your ability to understand how and why

Unless you’re a hermit high up in the hills

And you haven’t seen anyone for forty four years

Don’t doubt there’s a few people in this old world

Who care about who you are and what you do

If you try you can increase your ability

To understand what they’re saying to you

And see their care and actions for what they are

Don’t doubt that you’re strong enough to weather

The stormy gales of time

If you try you can increase your ability to recognize

When the storms have passed and you’re okay

Don’t doubt you’ve got all the emotions

The powers that be gave everyone else

Don’t doubt they can be made useful

If you try you can increase your ability to recognize

When a solution is passing your way

Isn’t it good to hate prejudice?

And even petty jealousy can make you strive harder

Don’t doubt that life talks and listens to you

If you try you can increase your ability to understand

What it is saying and why

Don’t doubt that everything you see

Everything you think

Everything you feel

Everything you do

Are raw materials

That can be put to good use

Don’t doubt that you’re an artful craftsman

If you try you can increase your ability

To recognize a job well done

Some need to doubt

That they’re foolish, stupid, or crazy

Others need to doubt that they’re always right

Don’t doubt that doubt can be good for you

If you practice it gets easier to know

When to stop and when to start

Good to make your best guess

Then ride the storm or go with the flow

Always remember when you’re most in doubt

Set a high sail and follow your heart

From “The Questioning Way” by Dewey Dirks copyright 2009

Waiting Flight

Waiting Flight

Moving with pen
my hand draws in idea, a feathered form
Restless, reaching out
a thought strives flight Often eager, sometimes sad
my heart beats making sweet life
Forever it’s expression I’m seeking

Always almost finished yet never quite completed
vibrant their meaning clasped in graphite
shimmering my words are waiting
caged here on this page

Freedom is found
only in emotion given to you
My thoughts remain unfulfilled
until their reflection’s been mirrored
finding flight in eyes of another

Dewey Dirks Copyright 2010

Power...

Power can corrupt you. As you grow in life, always be on the watch to stay true to your ideals.

Hope...

Faith, disappointment, laughter, quest for knowledge, hope, and success, are universal among humans. See? Five upsides and only one downside. That’s not so bad.

Creativity...

In nature creative energy can be destructive or constructive and there will always be a an equal balance of both in the universe. Order and chaos always balance themselves.

Ideals....

Make sure to stick to your ideals.  At the same time be open to change.

Too Much....

It’s good to strive for success in life. But too much striving can be a bad thing. We all need to take the time to slow down and just enjoy life from time to time.

Love Released....

Love means letting go when you need to. Love released into the world will return to you many times over again and again

Love is....

Love means letting your children pretend to be whomever they want to pretend to be. It means kicking them in the ass when they need a kick. It means kissing them when they need a kiss. It means fixing whatever is broken when they can’t fix it themselves. It means letting them go out into the world to seek their fortune when they grow up. Don’t worry, they’ll call all the time and come by to visit when they can

Love is....

In my experience, love can be stronger than amnesia, hate, greed, death and faith. Is there anything stronger than love? I really don’t know nor do I care to find out.