Who am I?

Who is John (Jake) Cosmos Aller
You ask me?
I was born October 30, 1955
In Oakland, California.

On the same day
That rock n roll
Was first announced
Coincidence?
I think not.

I was born premature
Told I would probably be blind
Deaf and mute.

But I somehow survived
Although I am part blind
Part deaf, and have bad, evil teeth
And have a learning disability.

I coped by becoming a genius
Reading at the 16 grade level
In the 3rd grade
And becoming a fast reader
Comprehending almost everything.

But a bad speller
With sub-par math skills
Had all the child-hood illnesses
Cheating death 22 times
In my life.

Went to high school
In the turbulent early 70's
In Berkeley the radical
left-wing center
Of America

During the rise of the Nixon
Counter-revolution.
That continues to this day.

Went to mostly minority schools
Where white boys were a minority
And no majority existed.

Did not go to a mostly
white environment
Until I went to college,
And encountered culture shock,
When one of my classmates

Complained I was playing
Too much N.... music
for his white boy taste.

He had gone to a 95 percent
White high school
Where white students
Were only 40 percent
Of BHS student body.

I told him he was jealous
The blacks had the best music
And we became friends
Of sorts.

Went to three different colleges
After flunking out of one
Of them,

But I overcame my failures
And somehow graduated
Joined the Peace Corps
Did graduate school,

I became a diplomat
Overcoming the odds
Only one percent ever make it,
Taking the test
Until I passed the damn thing,

Served 27 years
Serving my country.

How that happened
I still don't know
As I was the least likely
Diplomat you would ever see.

I gradually learned
How to be well, "diplomatic"
Despite my wild poetic nature
as the Chinese would put it
A Confucian by day
a Taoist at night.
.
Hiding my inner
Charles Bukowski side

While I served my country
Advancing US interests
In ten countries around the world.

Along the way I visited
All 50 states
And 55 foreign lands.
Living in ten different countries
And five different states.

And learned how to speak
Korean, Spanish and Thai.
Who knew that would happen
I certainly did not,

Until now I am retired
For five years
Writing a blog
Of my neo-beatnik poetry
And mild political rants.

I don't care anymore
What the man thinks
And as the end approaches me
I am filled with the what if game,

But there is one thing
More than anything else
About my story
That is extraordinary,

I dreamt of meeting my wife
For eight long years
Then one day
This unlikely fairy tale romance
Came to life.

And I married the lady of my dreams
And am still married 40 years later
How the hell that happened to me
I will never know.

And that my friends
Is just some of what makes
Jake Cosmos Aller
The one and only.