poetry

on the whole thing about living

poetry

my life would read like a red cross
volunteer straight out of a brief
bio in readers digest or a lifetime
original movie. everything played just
right and everyone cared for in
just the right way. but really while
i’m tying the bandages around this guys
leg, or helping this old lady across
the street . . . while i’m scooping
poop out of the clogged septic tanks
or de-toilet-papering a house for a
neighbor, the whole time my head is
in town. at a pub where i plan to go
the moment the sun hides behind the
mountains. a place i know where i can
climb inside a bottle, hole up, and soak
into every pore, the brewed nectar of
the fruit of the earth. enjoying life and
joy in a bottle so many others are there
abusing. just waiting for the day to break
so i can hop back in my thirty-year-old
chevy truck and head back to do
it all again.

Winds of Change

poetry

There is a place between where I was—
Geographically straddling home (and where home will be)
Intellectually flailing at what I know (petrified of what I don’t)
Emotionally committed this cause (a compelling enigma)
Romantically ready, so ready (so far from prepared—but ready)
Spiritually tender and ready to be transformed (more than I can imagine)
And where I am going—

Like a flag buffeting in the wind
Declaring an identity which has been attached to another foundation
For as long as memory recalls

Flings loose

Willingly—terrified.
A movement begins.
This house grows wheels, bears the weather—no apologies, howling.
Purpose served, shingles tear up, await replacement.
A new roof—trappings intact.
The old precedes, but now concedes.
One is silver, the other gold.

The summer storms usurps a leaf from his stagnant perch
And for a moment—though turbulent and unknowing—
Deposits him to transformation of life yet untold.
Greatest mystery with only the promise of a seed intact.

Change and I have never seemed to get along,
But if it’s like they say and, “opposites attract”—
Then I suppose I’m right where I should be.

The Only One Worth Living

poetry

He was a Career Man
and a Red Cross Volunteer
and his life read just like
a bottom-shelf dime-store novel
with all the characters stuck
in all their own little worlds
and the two-tracks tying their
countryside together would freeze,
every winter, and split,
right at the seams,
but he drove a giant pickup truck
and didn’t abide by snow-drifts
or stuck tires, and the folks he knew
hardly knew him at all, hiding
behind kitchen cabinets and
dead-locked storm doors. No,
they won’t be joining him.
Not any time this lifetime.
So he drives to town each night
and crawls inside a bottle,
waiting for the dawn to break
it open so he can drive
back home again.

if you work hard enough you can get from anything to beer.

poetry

there is a certain amount of death involved when you purchase a heavy duty battery but what you really wanted was an alkaline and you get home and plug the crap into your electronic device and find the power is gone within just a few minutes.

you mourn

through things like overeating or returning to the store to purchase new batteries, but you know that something significant has taken place in your failure to purchase the right thing the first time.

because it’s relegated to the dump

and this saddens you as you are well aware of the environmental damage your two little wimpy batteries will cause to the landscape around the area far from your home but near to that trailer park where you know that guy who you bought a beer for once at that pub downtown

and this has brought you back to beer

which you must admit has made this full circle, even this brief bout with death, something less than as bad as you thought it would be because nothing calms your nerves or settles your stomach like bubbles slowly rising on the inside of a green or clear bottle and the flavor of a slightly too strong

ale.

like picking pistachio ice cream because it’s green, you’re not bright enough to read the sign, and too stubborn to admit the mistake, so you take lick after lick till the cone is clean and you smile with hubris because in your (very very backwards) book this is a tick under the category marked “win.”

poetry

like a child just learning to walk
i’ve wandered these halls in the dark
stumbling into walls
tripping over myself
and all the others here with me
wandering
believing we all have some idea
of the way out.

like a child just learning to eat
i pick up a piece and try to fit it
perfectly in the mouth hole
but find myself hitting nose
cheeks and occasionally shoving
a cheerio at great velocity into
my open eye.

i see you there offering me help
but

like a child just learning free will
i figure i’ll do it better myself thank you.

Oh High and Mighty! How you must enjoy your perches so.

poetry

The lights come up and
these transient souls start filing
out every door, the walls
of this dark place veritably
hemorrhaging human life,
pumping it in to icy streets
and flooding our Fair City
with cancer.

Their bloods will be poison
and they will cut it from one-another
and every being will drip into nothing.

But the King of the Mountain
will stand unmoved, watching
and waiting until he is still
the King of the Mountain and
the only one on the Earth

ZvH

poetry

the walking dead look alive
but move at a glacial pace
with no structure to keep their attention
from wavering, from fading

their nervous tissue is dying
so they can only feel a selfish pain
and the pent up anger
from years of holding a bored stare
is the only thing burning in their dead hearts

with human money they buy serum
to keep their decaying flesh fresh
and then, like lemmings with an
entitled sense of dignity
they walk in line to the graveyard

and reserve a place
for their dead body to rest
empty like the void of space
and just as useless

a foray into the underworld: there are no freaks anymore just friendly neighbors wearing white smiling pure form smiles and jovial acquaintances with nebulous eyes and slurpy revolutions. And also, distant relatives with their dogmatic dogs and inebriated cats scowling over yesterday’s newspaper. Why can’t they just stay home? That’s what walls are for, to keep the crazy crazy ! Don’t worry me, I am busy with despair …

poetry

I am done wishing
for the wind to come
for a voice to whisper
for buoys

for I have unloved another and another
claiming the moon as my excuse
for the open window in my heart
and the vagabond somersaulting over and over
my brain’s wheel and chains in a
dull shrill infatuation for a body and the next
until my poor toes, dipping deep in dreams of water cool, and gray carpets of 10yrs dirt,
yelled “nothing comes when you wait”
not a bridge, a ladder or even a rope

So I am done wishing
for there will be no higher ground
just the godless amphibian within
clutching on invisible lines
tying worlds together in an unholy carcass of love
watching it flicker, turn bigger and disappearwith sorrows of winter past

Friday Morning in the Universe

poetry

I wake up late,

again.

I think there’s birds chiming from nests in rain gutters sloping off the roof.
But it might be telephone pole construction at the end of the block.

This window, blinds included, a sorry excuse for shade.
Winter sun blazes my unopened eyes like interrogation lights.

Sweaty. Smells like…. sweat. And stale spit.
Fissured lips, sandpaper tongue, copper to taste.

Paper due in four hours and twenty five minutes.
Won’t start before the stars and sun’s rump come out to play.

My DNA, stacked, circles the world a 100,000 times could care less
about removing hairy legs and atrophied cheese toes
to swing, stretching, jerking and groaning
like some prehistoric poultry: Eeeeyegeahhha!

With thoughts like, “How did the Catskills get their name?”
did a cat really kill someone and if so why didn’t they just
name it after the cat’s name or maybe it didn’t have a name
or maybe it’s the skills of a cat. Stupid.

Stupid. Stupid – what’s going on today? Just fifteen more minutes.
I’ll skip breakfast. Shower? No. I’m going to be hungry.
But tomorrow’s Saturday? Here’s to hoping.

School

poetry

I have spoken with your elders and
the ‘ayes’ clearly have it and
I am not quite qualified
to practice in your hallowed halls
nor play the psalms you hold so dear;
the sounds I am you will not hear.

But I can rest so foully deemed
and easily too, it’s true.
I’ll spend my time making music
and you can do whatever it is you do.

The Dishwasher’s Son

poetry

His family, a gang of dishwashers
come to make their fortunes from the harshest
fields of Hungary so many years ago. His kin
kept clean hands and a tight ship and
not so many amenities, save for liquors
to burn out the bits that made one
Socially acceptable on Friday Nights.

He hardly knew a day of rest and slept,
for the most part, atop a stack of rags
collected from his travels through the city.
His teeth were yellow and his hair near black
and the scars across his cheek and arms
made obvious his penchant for knife-fighting.

But he was a Gentle Man overall, with a
quick wit about him and a too-soft smile
that could send a gal to fainting. And though
his hair was only cut so often, he kept
the toes of his boots clean, and the hems
of his cloths were never in much disrepair.

His repute was not so bad and not ill-founded
and not so existant, save for the weekly
game of cards he’d been known to take to
with his brother-in-law. He never won too much,
but he never bet too much either, and so
was not to be scolded when he found his way
to buying another bottle.

When last I saw him he was still a Dishwasher’s
Son, but his head was held high, and though
he never said it, he was proud a man as
any I’d ever knew.

He Does Not Even Know, I think.

poetry

It is a trifling discomfort to know
that somewhere, out there,
in the great wide world,
you are still alive and able,
at will,
to speak.

Would that I could silence you
till thy kingdom come, you’d
be as silent as death, or
the warning letter that fell
from the post box yesterday morning.

Your shoes would be buried
in a square you’d hated
with a shrine for all you stood against
erected atop their grave.

I would dance there, most nights,
and conjure curses against your
Family Name,
with a book of strong words in one hand
and a bottle of strong spirits in the other.

But you walk still,
and breathe and speak
and though it is a discomfort,
’tis a trifle and nothing more.

Our Old School Dance

poetry

The music played all night
it was late December if I recall
and the spread on the dining table
was glamorous and all-inclusive
the moodlighting was spot-on
The frost on the windows made
picturesque
by dancing candleflames and
sparking camera flashes
and the dances were slow
rather tedious in point of fact
with hands on hips and feet
hardly stepping but it looked right
and the music played extensively
yeah, it never really stopped at all

fatigue

poetry

every time you gotta fight
to keep the cold from sinking in

the shiver lies dormant in your spine
you don’t wanna let it out

this time, you were doing so well
save one gust in a blustery storm

and now that it’s snowing
the shiver wont wait to get you

you let it out, you damn fool
and now it shakes you wherever you go

try and sleep it off, make it go away
spend time under artifical suns

how many times has it been now?
and with each time it takes longer

longer to sleep off
longer to get warm