Tangerine Dreams

A flash of color,
sweet cinnamon skin
starts to remind me,
that we’re not really kin.

Tangerine Capri’s cuts

low across neat hips,
protruding tube top
makes me lick my lips.

A navel on soft caramel

blaze my eyes like sand,
burning this front seat rider
sitting on his aching hands.

Seventeen with hard pants,

but I did just what I should
and forgot my hot teenage dream, but
damn, Aunt Jeanie sure looks good.

Taskmaster Porter E



Doc and Lynda



No one could be a tougher taskmaster than my father, he expected much of me and even more of himself. He is still with me and as he raises his bar at eighty how can I help but find another hurdle to jump? Excellence was his reputation and even my early attempts to undo it could not even scratch the surface.

The Taskmaster!

My mother is gone but shed no tears for me,

for she left me a wealth of herself in the words
that sometimes flows like the ink from my pen.
She still gives me an understanding nature
asking no more of anyone than I ask of myself,
but my father, Porter E, he put the rod in my back
and the rod to my backside to make a man of me.

With him, anything less than the best was too little

if more could have been done with the same effort.
He taught me that fat meat is indeed greasy and that
it is better to let sleeping dogs lie than to barter with trouble.
His hand still guides my soul to search further than I
would have looked if left to a back without a spine;
to question all and especially those things that
are not to be questioned, for they are the most
vulnerable to truth and reality under close examination.

He is still with me and we engage in active intellectual debate;

not to showoff or change minds but to exercise our own;
he still teaches me not to become too comfortable with the world
and not to worry too much about if there’s a next
and to know there has never been a doubt of his love for me.

Donald R Barbera Copyright, December 2000

Ven Reposa Comigo

De: Don Barbera, ã1999
 

En el azul terciopelo de la obscuridad,

un hilito plateado del rayo de luna
flota a traves de lo alto de la cama
formando un resplandor electrico.
Los dedos de la briza del mar
pasan suavemente sobre las altas ventanas,
agitando la pureza del palido satin,
formando divinas siluetas sobre el suelo.
Un chispiante triangulo de anil,
llueve su placida luz de luna
en los altos postes de la cama, cuniertos de gazas
flotando en las reales alas de la noche.
Ven reposa conmigo a la luz de la luna
y ayudame a contar las strellas en el cielo.
Pon tu cabeza sobre mi almohada,
pon tu atuendo sobre mis piernas.
Ven reposa y eschucha las agiles canciones
de la mar que nunca terminan.
Deja que el centellar del claro de luna en tus ojos,
me hipnotice a lo largo de mi vida.
Deja que la suavidad de las sabanas te acaricie;
Deja que te envuelva la calida y chispiante luz de las estellas.
Deja que mis fuertes brazos, te envuelvan en un calido abrazo;
deja que mis ojos sedientos se ahoguen en tu cara.
Ven reposa bajo mi comoda proteccion,
aceptando sin miedo toda mi precencia.
No hago demanda alguna que no sea mi deceo,
pues yo solo deceo que Espiritu descanse aqui en mi corazon,
donde retengo todas las cosas mas cercanas,
lejos de la pillante luz del dia,
manteniendote cerca de mi alma bondadoza,
dejandote escoger si te quedas o te vas.
Cuidadosamente envuelve mi corazon con tus brazos,
reposa conmigo y viaja a nuevos y lejanos lugares.
Une tu espititu sutil con mi paz interna,
pon tu confianza en mis manos, dame todo de ti.
Presiona tu dulce cara contra mi pecho
y la vision magnifica de la noche.
Entrelaza los dedos en un calido apreton
y dejame ser el guia de todas tus visiones.
Nos elvaremos mas alla
de las preciadas puertas de la eternidad,
solo tres millas mas alla del placer puro del extasis;
entonces bajaremos en el oscilante y torcido camino del infinito,
y tomaremos la salida, cuatro millas mas alla de la divinidad.
Nos deslizaremos a lo largo del borde del Universo
y nos propulsaran revasando la velocidad de la Luz;
iremos do veces mas alla de los limites terrenales
y veremos el mundo rotar, formando el dia y la noche.
Regresaremos al ambiente de los besos de mar en el cuarto de anil
y salpicaremos con suavidad, el firmamento de la mente.
Las calidas sabanas nos daran co gusto la bienvenida a nuestro regresso,
Dejando para otro tiempo nuestra experienca del Universio.
De regreso, en el azul terciopelo de la obscuridad,
el solitario hilito plateado del rayo de luna,
todavia flota a  traves de lo alto de la cama
formando su ondulado resplandor electrico.
A mi lado,  observas silenciosamente la escena
y teines pensamientos que no puedo adivinar.
Mi mente vaga, mis facciones permanecen iguales,
hasta que una gran sonrisa aparece en mi cara
cuando to contestas que Si.

Woodside Park
By Don Barbera, ã1999

While you were gone on business, I decided to catch up my exercise;

because I’ve been eating too good and have started to worry about my size.
I laced on my favorite jogging shoes, threw my stuff in the back of the Mark,
called mamma and said I’d be there later, then I drove off to Woodside Park.
I hadn’t been there in years, but it was a place I often thought of;
because it’s impossible to forget the place where we first fell in love.
Ran with the flowers on nature’s trail, until I worked up a glistening sweat,
I ran to the glade where we used to go, drank some water and sat to rest.
I hadn’t been sitting long, when I saw a couple beneath the trees;
I smiled quietly to myself, because it made me think of you and me.
I gazed with pleasant imagination, Taking in the loving view;
but the smile slid from my broken face, when I realized—it was you.