Day: April 21, 2010

bent

poetry

your life at two feet six inches
all for a curable disease at 1
your legs fold now like jello
in half across a board you use
in a wheelchair-unfriendly home
raising your child
(you were lucky enough to bear)
in hopes he walks straight
through every day

Your table

poetry

Boy, do you realize how crooked your table is?
When I entered the kitchen, it was the first thing I noticed.
Not the Everest of smoking hot classics
Or the expensive gin, although it did look tempting.

We sat at that landslide-waiting-to-happen for forty minutes
While the cat watched nearby, its glassy eyes diverted
One eye on us and one fixed on the wobbly leg,
Waiting for a downpour of cutlery, tail set and ready to run.

A year later, I bet that poor table is still holding on.
Under salt and pepper, books, red wine and elbows.
Wondering, with all its splinters and tomato sauce stains
How someone so shrewd, could be so damn neglectful.

the end is nigh

poetry

and i will not repent
my enjoyment found in
the sight of your leaving,
relishing the view
of your backside
metaphorically walking away
out of my life for good,
never to be met again
on this side of eternity
or on the other,
allowing heaven
to be heaven still,
secure in the knowledge
that you won’t be there.

Stay Dry

poetry

I saw three men standing
in the shadows by a swimming pool
in rags and coats from the
previous season, breathing
heavy fingers fighting open
pop-top beer cans whiskers
shaking under the wind’s slight
duress and I stopped.

there they stood by the pool
forlorn considerations of
jumping right in, cans and coats
be damned. Of course they
chose to stand and eye instead.
Only a fool leaps and leaves it
all behind, they said. Yet there they
were, with nothing but coats and
cans and rags and whiskers and
the opulent gall to say anything.

They did not jump. They only drank
and stood and eyed and sighed.

But I will enjoy this swimming pool,
for I left my coats and rags
in someone else’s town