Author: Roger Mugs

beer, pipe, poop, lard

poetry

as the rings rise and hold steady
slowly thickening the medium that is the air
making it harder and harder to see our friends
sitting across the table as we hold a beer
and thumb over pipe after ring blown
through ring talking beer and then poop bad
idea after bad idea returning to already argued
points again and then once more simply to remind
us that none of us is anywhere near to the perfect
we’re glad we never dreamed of and then
it’s off for a midnight run to the arches of gold
where they say if satisfaction wasn’t found in the
beer than maybe it can be found in a quarter pound of
lard

inspiration – once a luxury – now a memory

poetry

reading through old poetry
to revive old memories or at least to remember
there are more colors out there than red

more feelings than blissful indifference?

finding less heart than i remember feeling
purples less bright than the reds i recall
memories more dull than the grays implied

reasons to believe

poetry

you can fight against the urge to die but
you’ll only ever find that 100% eventually give in
to scratch said itch and

if this is all there is to life the
hope you have will fail you soon as you realize
these are bad betting odds

and then you re-evaluate your hope

of type number 2

poetry

for there are times when
one language wont suffice for the things
we try to funnel from our brains
down and out our mouths
so we settle for adding another medium
perhaps words on the page – screen
might suffice for the

gaps we put in our thoughts
and then it hits us

three more words for the word thought
might suffice for this here thought

until the wind blossoms or the grass sets

poetry

those things so out of place they
strike you as beautiful because when
children wear hats only old folks should and
even the dogs take to driving gloves you know the
time may be right for renewal or something like it where
people take to the streets with pitchforks and
hoping they’ll kill something before something kills them they
give up on home brew kits and
moving slowly inside choose to
hide their children from the outside knowing
full well the crop circles could themselves
invade our grocery stores tomorrow and this
scares only just enough to tickle our
imagination to life again and forget how
things should be and turn once more to

just exactly how we made things to be in our heads
in books we read and stick figure drawings we made

afternoon ponderings on my dream of sitting on a porch and smoking a pipe in my old age alongside a well behaved bloodhound asleep and listening to the blues which only one of us appreciates but niether is quite sure whom

poetry

and all of these things in a bucket
to wrap and pull and laugh so full
pouring out languished thoughts

on fairytales and old car lots with
never painted old white doors greyer
than the wooden floors we sell

to folks who need them not and then
sit and laugh and watch them rot as
worm and moth destroy the dreams

the children hope they will employ
to tender moments in times to come
and slender frames to roll into a couplet

gray

poetry

flower petal lost and found tub
filled with withering beauty
so fragile the color will change if you
touch your fingernail to its skin
and you think

we burned crayons to make them gray
when we were so small we didn’t yet
notice there were flowers
in this very box

the crowd rolls in

poetry

like shared experience so far removed
from their reality
we find no one to share it with
foot is placed in front of foot
and decisions are made as though
everything is normal when
everything is definitely not normal
and you find yourself standing
in a crowd holding things you cannot
explain
but no one is wondering about them
for they cannot begin to fathom

on thoughts and things you forgot

poetry

left alone to my own devices
i find the thoughts i’ve pursued
lead to the emptiness at the end
of the same hallway from the night
on which
thinking i was alone i stepped into
the dark to search out the movement
is sensed and when you jumped
out to say a big ‘boo’ i
nearly scraped my head on the ceiling

and then wondering why i came to
the conclusions i did
i go back to my poor habits
leading further into darkness the fear
encapsulating my emerged emotions

graphite crap

poetry

the tip of my pencil is no longer made
from lead but i’m told has been swapped
for something called graphite
they claim it will kill me much slower
but i’m afraid before it begins to affect
my body or even my brain it has already
killed my plight

for if that which i use to write with has
no affect on the longevity of my life
i find i must seek for acidic paper
or take up drugs while writing so i can
bleed over these pages and hope
the future holds something terrible
as i spit out my fears on the page

begging the last few words will somehow
be dabbled in blood from my sweat filled
brow.

alas, i’m too hopeful and perhaps too healthy
which helps my dreams for the future