poetry

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

Theme

poetry

TV ads from
the nineteen eighties
and we all wonder
where the good times went

Failure to figure
our personal budgets
we struggle to find
how our money was spent

But that god damned
theme is
stuck in my head
And it probably will be
all night

But that god damned
theme is
stuck in my head

…

Alright.

Quite right

poetry

Aimed for deconstruction
but fortunately nothing was
Broken.

A few corners scuffed
and a paper-cut.
The drapes don’t hang
quite right anymore.

The door squeaks
the window leaks
The smoke detector
fires up at odd hours
in the night.

It’s not quite right.
It’s just not quite right.

But at least nothing was
Broken.

Christmas Cards and Letters

poetry

every day now,
another one comes
with smiling faces
shot in happy places
filled with happy couples
looking devoid of troubles.

but an honest card came today
obstaining from
pictures,
places,
smiling faces;
speaking of
illness,
pain,
divorce,
death
hurrying to get through the letter
hurrying to get through the holidays
looking for hope in a new year
with no reason to hope that
anything will ever be any different.

autofictionographic

poetry

the melodies rolling off your tongue
rhapsodical and fleeting
halfhearted lullabies
sung under your breath
the chemicals driving the motors
of your throat

ah, the whole worlds laughing
poet philosopher
sitting in your liars chair
humming your whiskey tunes
your face beaten by the roads
you’re already too tired
to travel.

A short walk up a long hill

poetry

It was a strange place,
the Cul-de-sac.

I could hear the
echo of my scraping
steps on the
flash-froze
Ice,
a crisp wrinkle in the
sonic architecture of
the small valleyed place.

100 steps I counted
not including the
careful, measured
paces up the last of the
concrete stairs.

Wind picked up
and suddenly,
the car would be gone
if I looked for it.

Wind fell down
and suddenly,
the car was still gone,
because I didn’t quite care
enough to make sure
that I had a way
Out.

Warrior

poetry

The red light makes the room seem warmer
than the furnace should allow
and coming in from such a storm
it’s welcome color on my frozen brow

I’ve feigned the Warrior, standing out
in freezing wind and stinging snow
but now that I’m upon my couch
in heated home, in candle glow

I don’t think I’ll keep up that show.

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