How’s Tricks

I write poetry because I want to,
not because I have to.
I could let my internal organs
blow up in my peritoneum cavity,
spew out my belly button
like an overly excited fire hydrant.
Sometimes, they come like a shiny, wet baby,
with a gestation minute from yahoo to lookout!
Other times, the teasing tarts play hard to get,
show a little cleavage here, a slapped face there.
Whether fast or slow, they all arrive,
take in some air, run from PC to printer,
put on a white paper suit,
catch the red-eye-Postal-shuttle
looking for a good-time, publication date.

Initial Carving

I carved our initials
into the clear backs of falling raindrops;
they told the trees, and
before I knew it
we were the hot-topic whispers
spreading from wind to breeze.
I hope you don’t mind,
didn’t mean to be indiscreet.
Just thought they’d pile up
in shallow water graves,
and quietly go away.

Name Tags Required

Some days, my brain
rushes to forgetfulness,
like a fly to flypaper.
I jiggle and twist,
pull one thought loose,
and stick two others
in the nether regions of irretrievability.
You’d think a half century plus
of remembering in the nick of time,
the right name
would’ve been an easy find.

Dog Ear Dams

I dog ear pages,
always have,
probably always will.
I know it’s not copasetic,
book abuse of some sort, I’m sure.
I’ve been asked
if I wanted my ears permanently creased,
and folded after every conversation.
Of course I don’t,
they would eventually tear off,
making me look
like a half-eared Vulcan!
Bent corners aren’t man-made dams
diminishing the flow of bank-bursting words.
On the contrary,
they’re evidence of previous forays
into screeching, howling pages,
a comfort knowing the shadows
peering through the under growth of lines
have long been tamed.

Moon In The Lady’s Song

You bounced your songs
off the moon last night.
I listened hard
for the notes that were mine.

Shootin' eight ball
with stars in the sky,
left planet pocket,
fire-rum with lime.

whoa-oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh
whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

The lake had footprints
scuffed on her skin,
chasing splash-laughs,
and Friday night sins.

I heard of secrets
strummed on moonbeam winds,
I listened and listened
with hope what I'd find.

whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

They Look Like Me

I’ve read Oliver, Collins, Angelou,
taken a nip of old bard Bill,
Byron, Thomas, e.e., WCW, and even
Hemingway spilled gin on some verse.

Stood my words in front
of the reflection of theirs,
sucked their gut in, brushed wild hairs,
plucked a nose hair or twenty,

slid panty hose over bulbous stanzas,
covered metaphors with fat stubby fingers,
cracked the mirror with a flying keyboard,
they still looked like me.

The World Turned

We ranted,
we raged,
we spewed revolutions
like salty spit,
from tongues that knew
Lennon, Dylan, and how to Howl,
with hands soft as newborn snow.

We wrote songs,
and poetry, and essays
that enlightened heaven,
where angels pondered our words
like saviors and potty-trained prophets.
Dust laid siege to our feet,
the causes were neither lost, nor won,
now we know why.

A Thirsty Grave

His head can’t fit
through the neck of the bottle,
nor his hands…
nor his feet...
but drowns in swallows
from the upturned tide of liter seas.
Demons pluck light from his eyes,
strip by strip,
flicker by flicker,
like vultures on an asphalt feast.
Dark omens of bone-wall wells
overflow the drink of a thirsty grave.

Assembly Required

It’s quiet now,
after the tirade
of an afternoon
black cloud spitting fit.
I wonder if God was putting
lightning bolts together, using
an eight language instruction manual
with backordered parts?

Upside Down Day

Blood flows like water
shot from the bottom of a dam,
when perfectly laid out morning clouds
become foot-slippery pebbles
on an upside down day.
There’s never any warning,
some kind of bad luck roll of dice.
You run and run,
like a gerbil in a cage,
‘til solid ground grabs your feet,
and blue skies reflect in the puddles of sweat
wrung from the furrows in your brow.

Wild Hairs

Where do you go
when the last email is sent?
Do you snuggle-up warm
under the enter key, or
kayak hours of rollercoaster cyber-rapids?
Maybe, you wrap your arms and legs
around the night’s last note
of an old “beater” guitar.
Questions! Questions!
that don’t need answers,
just wild hairs sprouting
in the cracks of my thoughts.

Winding Down

Liquid sun crawls through her hair
like worms in a bait bucket,
yellow and dirty, grey tufts
of pillow-tangling strands.
No more hiding behind
plastic bottles of wash and wear youth,
she can’t remember why.
Hands on the clock slowly turn,
unwinding...

Open To Interpretation

I’m not responsible for interpretation,
just stretching these lines like new fence wire
wrapped around the punctuation to keep it taut.
If someone hangs wet hubris here, what is it to me?
Flapping cloth of thread bare ego?
Maybe they like to look second hand.
I’ll just pull and twist and tack and start again,
the lines aren’t meant to keep anyone in.

(This poem ws not written as a response to anyone, or any event. It was penned as a challenge to use the word Hubris in a poem. Maybe not a good one, but it's done!)

God Is

in the tea bag
permeating hot water,
rising as steam.

in the grimy pockets
of the “work for food” man,
waiting for change.

in the dust on blinds
seeing and not seeing,
silent and still.

in the dark shadows
of a circling hawk,
God is…
God is…
God is...

Georgia Coast Sampler

Scrub oaks belly-bowed,
scaly-skinned beach guardians,
too many blows to stand tall,
not ready to lay down.

Spanish Bayonets—
yucca gloriosa,
remembering wars lost
flying white-blossom flags.

Brown pelicans
endangered, but surviving,
fall from the sky—
dinner guests uninvited.

Barrier islands, like salt licks
to the Atlantic’s tidal tongue,
piney-stubbled, stepping-stones
for hair-down breezes, and
bareback riding, marsh-pony suns.

View From Shore

Canvas hands held tight
the reigns of wild winds spooked,
the lake churned up
green and fractured,
whitewater dust.

Long flowing letters
of calligraphy-blonde hair,
raced across
a blue-marquee sky, advertising
the sailor’s holy grail.

Angel Of Hardwood

I could mop the linoleum floors
that call this house home.
Scrub their hides free
of every step and scuff made,
on the thin-skin of flimsy rubber backs.
These old tiles need
to stay pine-scented fresh,
the angel of hardwood,
with scrapper and nail gun,
is circling nigh at hand.

Bath Time

When grey, mother-angry clouds
chase off sun-seething taunts,
leaves wiggle and cheer
expecting a cool afternoon bath.
No soap to get in their eyes, nor
cotton covered fingers
shoved in tiny dark holes,
hiding whispered secrets
only you and I know...

As Long As I Can

I wonder if you’ll love me
when time comes
to wipe away a trail of beef and barley soup
from a shirt someone else buttoned,
to a fissure of lips and forgotten teeth
that once set wild fires raging in your ears.
Will our memories dance in fragrant flower fields,
or become casualties of this war I’ll lose?
Your hand is tender against my cheek,
I’ll press against it, as long as I can.

River Cat

Pristine ripples chit-chit-chattering
with stone cold faces,
like white-haired ladies on a Sunday afternoon;
the river preens and licks and purrs.

Shadows dance between dimpled banks
playing like children with whispering winds;
the sun smoothes her skirt over grassy whiskers,
the river preens and licks and purrs.

Winding bends echo secrets of root-fingered giants
massaging the fur on watery skin;
she raises her back to the soothing touch,
the river preens and licks and purrs.

Ideology War

The cold called for a truce,
my fever evaporated like fog.
I still have the damned cough,
it refuses to lay down arms.
A rogue band of thugs,
hiding behind mucus-stained,
bombed-out lungs,
sniping at non-combatant sips of coffee,
terrorizing daily conversations
with the hack, hack, hack
of its germ spewing ideology.

Cyclic Reunion

It’s hot!
Hottest Summer on record,
some experts say.
Is the brown grass browner?
Dirt in dust drier?
Are rivers of salty sweat
running like class 5 rapids
over butterfly tattoos?
My knowledge of such things
is not so well refined.
Last night it rained.

Indelible Flames

I know so little
about this art of words,
like a child playing with matches,
I spark and smoke, and
set tiny pieces of paper on fire.
Read, read
write, write
flash of fire…
burnt stick smoldering.
I want to set a house ablaze,
watch meaty black-smoke fists
bruise the baby-blue-face of sky.
Sirens shrieking,
bells dinging,
neighbors in semi-circle,
wide-eyed clutches,
searing their nostrils
with indelible flames.

Appointed Time

Red, deep red
ripe tomato, sitting
on the windowsill.
Your fate has been determined,
the knife’s being sharpened.
What crime did you commit?
Which potentates offend?
A gruesome execution:
head severed from
the smooth skin
of a fat round whole,
body drawn and quartered.
Meat and entrails with sweet onions
washed in vinegar and oil,
lightly salted and peppered,
for this thy sentence served, amen!