Scattered Thoughts from a Scattered Mind

By David Mills

David Mills lives within the aboriginal populace of St. Augustine, Florida in a small rented room on Anastasia Island. He spends his days writing, looking for sea shells, and surfing whenever possible. As night falls, you can find him playing bongos and singing karaoke in a neighborhood bar.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462894710

David Mills

David Mills has worked in the field of pneumatic conveying for over forty years. From 1998 – 2006 he was Professor of Bulk Solids Handling at Glasgow Caledonian University. He has published over 170 papers in the field, and has been working as an independent consultant in pneumatic conveying since 1996.

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Copyright © 2011 by David Mills.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011910982

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-9470-3

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-9469-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-9471-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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99562

For Doctor Ann

my love, my wife, my personal physician

and

For Richard and Susan Parham

who understand

Contents

Forward

The Past

Precious Few

Phone Calls From the Grave

Who

Castrated Clowns

Marilyn

Tossing the Caber

D-day

The House of Pain

Evergreen

The City of Angels

Playing By the Fire

Corporate America

Dark Room

Jimmy’s

Big Sue

Christmas Spirit

Strange Days in Wicked City

Triple X

Turn Out the Traveling Bard

Lavato

Times Three

Lovers Leap

Night Life

Music

Party Favors

Oceanfront

Jones and Company

Dancing

Downpour

Questions

Mind Roads

Rich Boy

Winter of Our Seasons

Thursday

Art

Shaking as She Came

False Prophet

Shelby

Tempest Heap

Storm Warnings

Sentry Post

Someone Special

Wilderbeach

Come Back

The Benz

Street Legal

Hollywood

Resistance

Big Hat Annie

Journey

Surfing

Tastes Like Chicken (Trick or Treat Part I)

Stem Cell

Body Broker

Shopping

The Market for Mischief

Don’t

Proof Positive

Love Games

Miller Time

CW

The Tube

The Pain Inside

Guitar Girls

TV Turtle

High Tide

Orphaned

Rest in Peace

The Black Behind the Blue

Player’s Card

Attitudes

Used To

Down Thirty

Around the Block

September Swell

Burning the Blue

A Prayer for Vietnam

Dreams

Congress Man

Jesus

Friends

Home Alone

Shock Value

Fat Farm

Diane

Precious Few (Revisited)

One-Eyed Jack

Cape Fear

Dead Air Dancing

Bricks

The Present

Comatose

Devonshire

Guard Duty

Plaster Paris

Holiday Vibe

Temptation Calls

The Edge

Marigold Mind

Anchorman

Out to The Desert

Constant Companion

Season Finale

Patent Pending

Blister Pack

Through the Glass Quite Darkly

The Deed and Damage Done

Sally

Gacy

Bundy

Cole

Prancing with the Peacock

Livin’ La Life Support

Welcome to the Tipping Point

Force Out

Something to Say

Lug Nut Larry and Sordid Sue

Coming Attraction

These Days (Part IV The Aftermath)

The Keeper

Rest Assured

Stay

Continuum

Time Was

Dead by Dinner

If You Love Me

When The Future Comes To Town

The Trial of Our Existence

To Question The Living Dead

Three Bridges and the Road to Nowhere

So Says the Prophet Dancer

Myopic Optic

No Lines, No Waiting

Thompson’s Gift

Where Dragons Go To Die

The One

For Lori

Final Cut

Reticent Sorrow

2012

Strange Times (deep water)

A Certain Departure from the Norm

Myna Copas Rules

Time and Distance

Jackson’s End

Spearsville

Bitches and Bailouts (Summer of Love 2008)

Blessed Are the Days

Time Out

On the Occasion of My Demise

Utterance

The Orchestration of Our Undoing

Time is Short and Daylight’s Failing

Webcams For Wendy

Thinning the Herd

Fresh Paint

Goo Goo For Gaga

The End of Days

Satan

The Light of Tempered Days

The Masters

Was Once, But Now Forgotten

Nine Lives Living

One Beer Short of Redemption

Necessary Evil

Points Unknown

Developing Story

Falling From The Edge Of Reason

Stuck On Stupid

Wide Open

All Hail The Chief

She Said

Do Over

Unlivable Loss

Full Moon Flexing

Maya Li

Test Pattern

Three Days From Rhombus

The Histories of Happens Next

A Case For Reliable Lies

The Measurement of Wealth

Jackson Camp

Homework

Four

Costumes

Soldier

Hell or High Water

Westward For the Talisman

Testament Day at Pine Lodge

Cheap Trick

Time Funs

The Hangman and the Knot

Personals

A Mother a Day

For Uncle Jack

For Garrett at Nineteen

For Michael at Eighteen

For Harris

For Judge

For Lila

For Paul

Celebration of The Lizard at Forty

Janie Craven and the Hazouri Boy

Ledger

Mr. Elswick’s Neighborhood, a Celebration at 60

For Mother

Somer

For Sandra

For Rick

Because

Fifteen

Expansion

For Carol

For Linda

Eddie’s Retirement

Meet The Parhams

Forty-three

Forty-six

Thoughts From the Pier

Who (Revisited)

A Twenty Game Winner

In the Sunset of His Years

Anna Nicole

For Eddie and Bev

For Axel

For Jane

For Savanna

Serving at Sixty

Jacket Man

The Fifty and the Five

My Buddy Lane

For Susan

For Gloria

For Dallin

Once (Which is to Say Eleven)

Janie and Johnny

Tumelson Time

For Howard

Fifty Nine at the End of Time

Jehovah’s Train

Boys By Day

Tommy Spader’s Story

What I Want

For Big Bob

A Good Man

The Bunny and The Birthday Girl

Thirty-Eight Special

The Tiger and His Tale

When I Close My Eyes

Mile Marker Twenty-Nine

For Swede

A Man Among Men

What If

Done Deal

The Road You Choose

Our Mama’s Love

For Mrs. Thompson

Psalms Twenty-Three Revisited

For Dad

the birthday card

Quotes

Internet Specials

Great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

Coaches’ Comments

Sixteen lines to make you smile

Thoughts on golf

Twenty-five rules of life

Random thoughts

Oxymorons

The importance of walking

Afterword

Forward

Scattered Thoughts is just that; a collection of poems and musings I have written, plus quotes and internet specials I have saved over the years. I hope you enjoy reading them.

As for the content of some of these pieces, well, that’s another story all together. My personal view of poetry is that it shouldn’t be explained at all. It should stand on its own merit and allow the reader to experience the width and depth of it without direction. Admittedly, some of the following are pretty abstract. Some are funny, some are light, and others rather dark.

When I look at them in whole, I just see life; the ups, the downs, the strengths, the weaknesses, and the sometimes that are truly bizarre.

With this said, I have occasionally added a note at the bottom of certain pieces throughout the book as I felt inclined to steer you in a given path of clarity.

I have divided the work into five segments:

The Past (1969-1989)

The Present (1990-2011)

Personals (to whom they may concern)

Quotes (favorites saved over the years)

Internet Specials (we all get them)

Many thanks to Bill Swicegood, Bob Hazouri, Carol Tatum, and Eddie Clanton who proofed most of these over the years and graded on the scale.

And to Jerry Howell for the same whose recurring comment was; What medication were you on when you wrote that one?

Silly boy, everyone knows I quit doing drugs a week ago Thursday . . . .

The Past

(1969 to 1989)

"But we suddenly stopped, pretending, as always, to have been rendered catatonic by more happiness than was good for us.

That was always the end of the show. After that we were led away.

Hi ho."

Kurt Vonnegut

Slapstick

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

Precious Few

Moments to share,

As shuttle has lifted,

Artsy response,

To breeding with gifted.

Second hand moving,

To reach for the prize,

Ray-banned immobile,

Forgivable lies.

Hour by hour,

The days empty glass,

Self-serving junkies,

Parked on our ass.

Phone Calls From the Grave

The dead inspire, they ride the fire,

Employment rested, soon retired,

So safe to sleep as willows weep,

In broken ground, six feet deep.

The call is made, the hand is played,

Changing realities unafraid,

Ice rain stinging with angels singing,

Operators waiting, your phone is ringing.

Who

Who can touch the envy in your eyes?

Who can trade you lies for lies?

Then back to bed for thee and me,

I’ll show you deceit, it’s something to see.

Castrated Clowns

Deep in the middle,

With no where to go,

Clowns abound,

In secret show.

Nickels to dollars,

Freedom of trade,

Tidy bowl talent,

Call for the maid.

Where shall we winter,

To hide the frowns,

Life is but pratfall,

For castrated clowns.

Marilyn

A life in size,

Blue ribbon prize,

Reached and caught,

Illusion.

Topped the charts,

Of broken hearts,

A plastic family,

Meltdown.

Gentlemen preferred,

While drugs allured,

The farm girl’s,

Early harvest.

Presidents weep,

Over price so steep,

Of veal,

In open market.

Fans forget,

As pimps beget,

Another clean-up,

For the constables.

Oh, Norma Jean,

What have you seen,

Behind the doors,

Of judgment?

Tossing the Caber

Silent conception,

Hand over mouth,

Weapons of foreplay,

Lovers gone south.

Testing response,

Seduction by threat,

Assassins by right,

Too soon, regret.

Man-child relations,

Original sin,

Songfest immoral,

Details at ten.

Dumpster décor,

Cats in the alley,

Stretched-neck syndrome,

New choices for Sally.

D-day

The day he brought his guns to work,

Was just like any other,

He’d kissed the wife and kids goodbye,

Had coffee with his mother.

The voices weren’t so loud that day,

They talked enough last night,

They opened his mind to claim the light,

They called him God’s delight.

Shame to say they all must die,

But lessons must be learned,

Eggs aren’t whole in bakery goods,

Nor safe in butter churned.

With this, the screen went peacefully blank,

No news across the wire,

He punched the clock to start his day,

And calmly opened fire.

The House of Pain

Welcome to the house of pain,

The source of freshened wind,

Welcome to the house of pain,

The place where lessons end.

We’ll dance away our childhood dreams,

While drinking deeply from the screams,

Of those who taunted faith’s compassion,

To spend their lives as friends of fashion.

We’ll wade knee deep the quarter mare,

Awash in blood of those who dared,

To walk the desert floor alone,

While separated flesh from bone.

Where names are etched in charred remains,

Where concrete cleaner clears the stains,

Of souls who sought the ticker tape,

A fool’s parade with no escape.

Welcome to the house of pain,

Where time is lost in depth’s refrain,

We’ll while away the evening there,

In quiet thought