Posts for June 7, 2017 (page 5)

Category
Poem

Panhandlers

These filthy panhandlers
need to get jobs

*puts car into park*

Have a good day, sweetie
See you at church Sunday
Be good


Category
Poem

Heaven

I love to walk into a room at night
And see only one lamp on
If it’s a Tiffany style lamp, even better
And it should be next to a leather recliner
Which is next to a grand piano
And the room should have hard wood floors
And the curtains open just enough
To let the moon shine in
And if there is a book halfway read next to that chair on a cozy little table
Just large enough for a coffee cup next to the book –
Oh yeah, and no one’s home but me.


Category
Poem

may I borrow your dream, Emily Carr

a search for primroses
interrupted by a little boy
who tells her

there are only daisies
to gather them
and as she gathers

birds start the wordless
racket they toss into
space every morning

with all the other
invisible somethings
with no names

to weigh them down
or slow the spin 
of their dance

until day comes 
and the birds return 
to hunting breakfast

while she wants
that nameless
invisible thing

that quivering light
on day’s edge that
throbbing awakening

that unbearable wholeness


Category
Poem

Serotonin

Where are you when I need you
not when my father or uncle dies
or my heart is broken or the dog
is run over because in those times
I am cold to the touch I am iceberg
lettuce I am frozen yogurt I am the
administrative assistant of my dreams
and no not when I’m feeling extra
bipolar and laughing at a vacuum cleaner
or dancing while washing the dishes
where are you when I really need you
when I’m holding my wife’s hand
when my children are flipping around
the playground when my submissions
are accepted when I need to feel the
sunlight on my skin when I need to feel
the grinning fire around me when I need
to not take things for granted because
that’s when I’m lost that’s when I’m asleep
like after a turkey dinner that’s when
I need assistance so where are you when
I need to absorb instead of repel where are you
when I want to sing at all the right times?


Category
Poem

Grand old archangel

Grand old archangel
All powerful like mighty thunder
In this grey hazy sky above me
Carefully guide me through
The mid-evil hostility of winter’s. discust
Cross me a cross the street
Tall perfect one
With favorable angel host
Whose lights are as bright as lightening
But soft as a constant glow

That holds my attention through
Any kind of storm
A glow that watches me 
In the center of God
And the universe

Category
Poem

Define Oxymoron: Science Journalism

I was deep in thought
remembering the mesmerizing beauty
of wild Walking Ferns by the dozens
on the moss covered face
of a massive slab of limestone five miles
on foot into unprotected forest
on Canada’s Bruce Peninsula.
This staggeringly brilliant image
was alternating in semi consciousness
with viewing a stand of Calypso Fairy Slippers
over a hundred strong,
hidden on a flat spot of a huge granite bolder,
deep in the pathless woods of Flowerpot Island.
In this state of detached reverie,
I poured milk on a slice of bread and spread
peanut butter into a glass I had arraigned for lunch.
Immediately I went to my computer
to look up the seven surefire, guaranteed, signs
that a person will get Alzheimer’s
within the next ten years.
Much to my delight neither of the accidents
of inattention I had just perpetrated
was on the list.
So I’ve got that going for me anyway—
which is nice, to quote Bill Murray in Caddyshack,
which, if you haven’t watched lately, you should.
I cleaned up the mess and ate a 1 pint jar
of Heinz Genuine Whole Dill Pickles
with a bag of Fritos Brand Original Corn Chips
the 9 ½ oz. bag, chased with a glass of Ocean Spray Diet Cranberry.
Unless you’ve been under a rock lately
you know your gut micobiome
controls everything else that goes on in your body.
As you would expect, most Americans
are out of whack.
The recommendation is that we need to eat
a lot more fermented foods, like pickles.
I also read that Americans are not eating
nearly enough salt, bacon and eggs, or dark chocolate.
Then Curious.com taught me
that there are now over 1100 phony medical journals
where all a scientist has to do is pay a fee
and their paper will be published,
and counted when Tenure time comes up.
This brings a frightening new meaning to the phrase
Publish or Perish.


Category
Poem

WHERE DID YOU LEARN THAT?

They busted him for distributing kiddie porn
He said someone must have hacked his computer  
It can happen, right?
Kinda scary, since there are hackers everywhere
But, wait—didn’t the police say that the photos showed his furniture and curtains in the background? And the carpet?    

What did your parents do to you, porn man?
I didn’t know your father
But your mom was one of my elementary school teachers
She taught us that slaves in the antebellum South were well-treated by the plantation owners
She claimed that the Civil Rights movement was just a bunch of Yankees stirring up trouble
Sometimes she bragged about you
I wonder what kind of education you had.


Category
Poem

AFTER THE STORM

AFTER THE STORM

Big clear drops of rain
on the green leaves.
The wind brushes the
leaves gently and
they shake and some
of the drops fall
down onto other leaves
or onto the damp
forest floor.

A spider’s web
formed perfectly.
The web bellows like
a sail in the breeze and
the spider sits in the
lookout nest in the
center of the circles
holding its thin world
together, waiting for
life captured, stuck
to vibrate the
sticky strands.

Dusk, mist over
the river.
A cow moos.
The birds are quiet now.
A lone katydid trills
hearlding the dark,
the last of the light,
the coming of night,
the woods grown still
and quiet.


Category
Poem

What Age Does To Me

The half moon scar shines

just above my left ear 

when I pull my hair back tightly.

Just like I wasn’t old enough

to see my grandmother’s index finger

was missing until I saw it, I didn’t see the scar

until was old enough.  I asked

but mama said “No idea how you got it.”

Over the years I’ve gotten tired

of hiding it. 

 

Category
Poem

No Rest for the Werey

The moon fills up and all
of the old itches return.
He catches a glimpse
of himself in the Mirror
as he rushes down the hall:
muzzle going white; claws
wearing down; that tooth 
that never grew back and
he wonders in the 2 seconds
before he leaps out the window
if just once he could stay home
and ride it out with a bottle of
George T. and maybe a nice
Glenn Duncan novel.