Tag: Naval aviator

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Poetry

Nature Poems by Ron Pickett

Hummong bird: From Public Domain 
THE OLD PELICAN

There’s a black phoebe on the feeder this morning,
She’s chasing other birds away.
Black top knot and glossy black bib,
Small, territorial, aggressive.
And we saw a pelican on the split rail fence

Doves in the dust, a dry bath for feathers and insects
Cooing sounds echo around the neighbourhood.
They whistle-fly a few wing beats,
Then they duck under the shrubs.
They will be back this evening
The big owl has been silent lately,
He will return soon.
We saw an old pelican on a fence rail.

Humming birds hover and dart,
Sampling the nectar, pollen on its beak.
The old pelican is too far from the coast.
There’s a seagull on the streetlamp,
Looking for the beach
And five wild turkeys scatter as we pass.
Hawks pose on the treetops, surveying their domain
Crows and sparrows are everywhere 
The old pelican rests before flying west, home.

THE BLUE AGAVE

They have been there.
The Blue Agaves: lush and strong with long hard thorns.
Today I noticed them, for the first time.
The way they reproduce.
Like a hen with chicks,
The baby Agaves are surrounding their mother plant.
Their pointed thorns are ominous, protective.
How can a plant act like a bird?
How can a bird act like a plant?
Like chicks with a hen;
Like an Agave with spikes.
The shelter works.
We’ll use it twice.

Blue Agave. From Public domain

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator. His 90-plus articles have appeared in various publications. He has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away With It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, 60 Odd Short Stories, and Empaths. Ron has had his poems published in Scarlet Leaf, Borderless Journal, and other periodicals. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

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Categories
Poetry

It’s Morning – Again by Ron Pickett

From Public Domain 
It’s morning -- again.
I couldn’t be happier.
The birds are harvesting moths.
Moths gathered around the night light
Young birds are learning.
Next, they will visit the feeder. 
It’s morning -- again.
I couldn’t be happier.
Black coffee starts every day.
The steam, the aroma, the flavour.
Familiar, but different every morning.
This day is my day! It's morning -- again.
I couldn’t be happier.
How will I use it? What will I make of this day?
What will make this day different, memorable?
Words flow; warm sensations surround me.
It’s the day I must make.
It’s morning again,
And I couldn’t be happier!
How many more days do I have?
Not many – even if I live to be a hundred.
Not many, so use them well!
I sense my surroundings.
I taste my world.
Touch the cloth, feel the surface.
Enjoy, explore, engage. I control my day.
It’s Morning again.
And I could not be happier!

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator. His 90-plus articles have appeared in various publications. He has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away With It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, 60 Odd Short Stories, and Empaths. Ron has had his poems published in Scarlet Leaf, Borderless Journal, and other periodicals. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Two poems by Ron Pickett

Painting by Rembrandt (1606-1669)
DIAGNOSIS

Everything is different today.
Everything is the same.
She walks a little slower,
Her head a little lower.
Her smile is gone
Her smile might never have been.
Her dog knows; they have a way of knowing.
Only three of us know,
We know what the doctor said.
The diagnosis.
Everything is different today.


CARE FOR YOURSELF FIRST

Care for yourself first.
Like loss of pressurisation in a jet.
It wasn’t a surprise, not really.
Are there any surprises left?
Still, I wasn’t ready for it.
The name sounded so final, so fixed.
But isn’t life final, certain?
After the hospital stay,
I focused on myself, my body, my mind.
I thought I would have lots of time.
Time to write, time to paint, time to connect.
Recovery takes a lot out of you.
Physical, psychological, spiritual. 
Care for yourself first. 
Slowly, I discovered what was missing!
Creativity and humour!
Where had they gone?
Will they return?
I used to find beauty wherever I looked.
I used to find humour all around me
I used to have leftover energy to convert.
They’re back now and welcome home!
Laughter, Jokes, Observations, Insights.
Excess energy to convert. 
It won’t last forever, sadly.
So I’m revelling in my creativity while I can.
Care for yourself first!
Then care for others.

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator. His 90-plus articles have appeared in various publications. He has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away With It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, 60 Odd Short Stories, and Empaths. Ron has had his poems published in Scarlet Leaf, Borderless Journal, and other periodicals. 

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Brown Water Swirls by Ron Picket

From Public Domain 
AND THE RAIN CONTINUES TO FALL

The brown water swirls,
Waves grow and break.
Huge trees are tossed like toothpicks.
Water flows over the weir.
And the rain continues to fall.
The brown water, heavy with sand,
Scours the riverbanks.
The water rises and broils.
Nothing is safe.
And the rain continues to fall.
They say it’s a hundred-year storm,
They say it’s a thousand-year storm.
They say it’s the changing climate.
They say the rain will stop.
And the rain continues to fall.
The brown water has secrets, terrible secrets.
Friends need to know,
Sisters need to grieve,
Parents struggle with why? Why?
And the rain continues to fall.
And the rain continues to fall.
From Public Domain

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Ron Pickett

Art by Edward Okuń (1872–1945). From Public Domain 
GRATITUDE

Some days it’s easy.
Being grateful.
There are so many reasons.
Rain and sunshine.
Clear skies and fog
Breakfast dishes in the sink.
Some days I have to work at it – gratitude.
Perhaps that’s good,
When I do that, search,
I always find something new and wonderful.
A WOW factor.
Today it was the swirl of leaves in the gutter,
Thanks to the wind and the rain.
A casual glance – it’s trash, refuse.
A job for someone and I don’t know who.
Then, my better angels look more deeply – closer,
I see the leaves as an integral part of my environment.
They’ve done a lot the leaves, growth, shade, seeds.
Now an even bigger contribution. 
They will help the next generation to sprout and grow and produce seeds. 
Next year there will be more leaves in the gutter,
More reasons for gratitude.
Thank you!
From Public Domain

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Seasonal Poems by Ron Pickett

CALIFORNIA RAIN

I stand in the covered patio.
I listen to the rain – the sound of the rain.
I force myself to dismiss everything else.
I focus on the sound of the rain.
It falls more heavily, I remember that sound.
Water gushes from the downspouts.
The rain slackens but it is still raining,
I can hear the sounds of the raindrops in the puddles.
I hear distant thunder muffled by the rain.
I must remember the sounds.
I let my perception widen.
I see the raindrops falling leaving streaks.
I smell the fresh smell of the rain.
I know the world is being washed and replenished.
I sun comes out. I’m saddened.

I know when it is the first rain of the wet season – but I never know when it is the last.

 
A POND IN THE SUMMER

The quiet following my intrusion slowly ends.
I sit, very quietly on a tree stump.
Birds begin slowly returning to their songs.
The tiny, flighty birds first.
Then the larger, louder birds.
A dove flutters to the ground raising a small dust cloud.
A heron breaks the surface catching a fish. 
Droplets from the struggling, wriggling fish leave ripples.
The water is tea-stained by the dead limbs and leaves,
And dust and pollen lightly cover the still surface.
A bullfrog croaks, and leaps into the pond.
A fish jumps, catching an insect.
The warm, languid water is the home of many creatures.
A squirrel lets an acorn fall into the pond.
A slight breeze disturbs the placid pond.
I stand up. Silence returns as I leave.
The intruder retreats.

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Tribes

By Ron Pickett

TRIBES


I’m distressed, dejected - in denial, 

I don’t see a way out.

Conflict, terrorism, wars.

Devastation, destruction, where homes once stood.

Winners – Losers – Neither - Both.

Tears and blood,

Blood and tears.

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel.

I see the signs,

I know what they mean.

I was an optimist.

I’m a depressed pessimist.

How did we get here?

How can we get out?

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel.

We are bright, curious, imaginative.

We are emotional, egocentric, entitled.

We form tribes. Tribes that we protect.

Tribes that protect us.

That is our past, our strength.

We fight other tribes, that is our future, our demise.

We are an endangered species.

Our only inescapable danger is us.

Tears and blood,

Blood and tears.

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel

Can’t we unite tribes to fight the common enemy?

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

The Life of a Leaf

By Ron Pickett

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
A leaf settles slowly to the ground.
It flutters and weaves in its fall.
It lands and rolls over and over,
It stops behind a small rock.
Its productive life seems to have ended.

In March, it began as a yellow-green bump.
A bump on a limb, high up on a tree. 
Then, May, and June, July and August 
Those were the productive months,
Oozing sugars and other nutrients.
Removing CO2 -- exhaling Oxygen.
Doing leaf things.

Then, the colour changes back to yellow, then brown.
Its grip on the limb weakens and it slowly falls.
Now, on the ground, a new existence begins.
Its productivity is not over.
It nestles with other leaves.
Narrow, broad, round.
Turning brown and crisp, fragile.
A walker shuffles through the leaves,
They mix and disintegrate.
Pine needles add to the pile.
A bicycle rolls through the leaves.
Leaves are broken and chipped.
The pile changes as pieces are smaller and smaller.
No longer leaves.

Then dust; mixed remains from a thousand leaves.
The dry, cool air breaks down the leaves.
Matter that once produced food for the tree.
Now seemingly useless and discarded.
Then the rains come, the dust slowly dissolves,
It seeps into the ground enriches the soil.
Roots pull the material in, 
It moves up the tree.
It nourishes the spring growth, 
Buds form on the branches.
Yellow-green bumps.
Bumps that will become leaves.
Leaves that will give life to the tree.
Leaves that will fall.
Leaves that will turn brown, turn to dust, be dissolved by the rains.
Taken up by the roots and nourish the tree,
Emerging bumps that will become leaves.
And it repeats, and repeats, and repeats forever.

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Voice of the Webb

By Ron Pickett

A Cosmic Tarantula, caught by NASA’s Webb Telescope. 
You can’t hear screams in space -- but they are there, in abundance.
I look at the horizon:
The distant hills are covered with trees and shrubs, and grasses.
The fronds on nearby palm trees sway gently in the warm breeze.
I see a small pond with lilies and reeds and even pond scum,
And I feel good, alive and strong and even essential, significant.

I listen to the sound of a Black Hole.
It is a hiss with modulation, but it is somehow ominous -- deadly,
Atavistic, I’ve heard it before.
I look at the pictures from the Webb telescope.
They are gorgeous, incredible, brilliant, unimaginable.
They take me back to the beginning of time.
The stars and galaxies and nebulae are lacy and soft,
Like a necklace or a lovely ball gown designed to enhance natural beauty.

I re-enter my world. Twenty miles deep air protects me, guards me, gives me freedom.
I feel the heat from the sun -- 93 million miles away; it is vital and terrifying.
I look at the photos from the telescope again, and it is beautiful-deadly.
I can’t escape the chilling reality that I can only be here as long as the pond is filled with water,
The sky is filled with air, and the vicious world outside my earth is kept at bay.
I can’t get close to the stars, the vast dust clouds that are birthing stars.
And I can’t get them out of my mind – I want to play among the stars.
I feel a chill of impending doom, but I don’t know where it comes from.

It is the voice of space, of the Webb. 
The hiss of a Black Hole,
The echo of the Big Bang, 
The beat of the spinning pulsar
It is clean and crisp,
Dark and muddied.
This is the voice of our parents.
This is the sound of our death.

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

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Categories
Poetry

Tell Me What I Should Feel

By Ron Pickett

Courtesy: Creative Commons
Tell me what to feel!
Please tell me what I should feel!
I read an obit this morning,
I need help!
I knew this person,
Worked for him,
Was a buffer for him.
Tried to keep his craziness from becoming an infection.
I should forgive him.
It is supposed to be a good thing to do.
For me, I don’t understand forgiveness,
Besides, I’m not the one his example killed,
I’m not the surviving family, only a surrogate.
The social environment protected him – but not the rest of us.
Now I know. Now I’m smarter. Now I know it was fuelled by alcohol.
I should have been smarter then, stronger.
I should have always been smarter.
I should be smarter today –
It’s been fifty years now, so 
Tell me what should I feel!

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International