Fighting rooster bright blue barrel homes
Litter the fields of the homestead farm,
Like trash fallen off a garabage truck ….
Fields that great grandpa tilled,
Took a clod of dirt
Pressed it between his palms
Pinched it between his forefinger and thumb
Feeling–
What to plant
When to plant
Where to plant
To nurture; then, harvest
Feed the family
Feed the animals
push good life on…..
Never
Prostute the rooster
Never mock
His beloved dirt.
It’ll feel a hundred and four
High tide nine thirty-four
We’ll be mostly spared
The deluge of the south
Our Meteorologist Valerie
Predicts showing Lexus
Submerged at Miami Beach
By afternoon I’ll be like the rain
Scattered about over the Bay
Today’s the day Dr Tom took sail
Today’s the day a light went out
I think I’ll skip my walk to the lake
It’ll feel a hundred and four
High tide nine thirty-four
The irony in the growth of a city,
Is how easily community collapses.
A budding metropolis,
Only in internet ads.
A photoshopped oasis.
The price of admission is a six figure salary,
Otherwise it’s a different city.
“Call now for your privilege blindfold!”
The product of city planning.
Oh, blind budgeteers,
Never mind the areas of town
where nobody would buy a house.
Look at these photoshopped pictures!
But not the ones the police take…
Your new home awaits!
It’s a bedroom in a house owned by “Big House”
rented to four other people with one bathroom.
No parking.
No smoking.
No pets.
No future.
You each pay $600.
Utilities not included.
Your peers will ask if you’re okay living there.
You can’t afford anything else.
Your neighbors have depression,
starving bank accounts,
bed bugs and roaches.
As you all lay at night and dream of a day
Where reality looks different,
You may drift to sleep to the cries of their children,
So bored and suffering they don’t even know it, yet.
The kids wear the same empty faces and jackets,
Walking to their bus stops,
As their parents do
taking out the trash every Tuesday.
An addict asks for a cigarette every time you pass her
On the way to the corner store
to spend money on something you don’t need
just to have something to do;
If life can’t be sweet,
At least there’s Yoo-hoo.
A lady at a bus stop smacks your passenger window.
“HEY! I NEED A RIDE!”
Your veins are strained,
Knowing you need help, too.
You say nothing and go when the light turns green.
The men sleeping on stoops,
Dead, or dreaming?
Their only dreams:
-How to rob you and get away with it.
-How to be avoided to suffer in silence.
-Is there any reprieve?
-How to die in peace…
if one can call it that.
The Governer wears a suit.
Puts his smiling face on everything to show us how great it is here.
Except the bodybags of the overdose and homicide victims.
Except the dilapidated buildings that haven’t been used
Since before I was born thirty two years ago.
Except the potholes that half the price
Of a gallon of gas is supposed to fix.
Make no mistake,
We are only one
In our entrapment.
As you leave the city
heading south toward Cincinnati,
You pass the “Hell Is Real” billboard,
Another scarecrow in the corn.
After thirty years,
I can only say the billboard is facing the wrong way.
Every fall and winter
hundreds of Black Vultures
roost in the woods across the road.
During the day they
go to work, cleaning up road kill
and other carron.
Before sunset, they return, on
high circular flight paths
slowly descending lower and lower
finally, awkwardly landing on
a favored limb,
a dozen or so birds to a tree.
They are quiet,
except for occasional
flapping.
On cold mornings, some spread
their wings, backs to the sun,
showing off impressive wingspans.
They are good neighbors and
every year, I look forward
to their return.
I wonder if sky burials
are legal in Kentucky.
this poem… a
late night
(slow jazz)
montage…moon
gazing at midnight
meandering roses
(alto sax)
boxes filled with
old
notebooks…
(muted trumpet)
scattered over ambiguous
(cello)
bookshelves
screens…. glowing
my spot on the
couch with soft eared comfort
dogs
red
eyes at
4:00 am…
neon mind
dreaming of
words self centered
weary…
(piano)
drifting…
First, it’s okay to be scared.
You can do nothing to stop
your synapses crackling,
the gasped inhalation
from the glint of a blade,
the scream so close
its breath warms your ear,
the ghoul in mud-caked rags—
a mouth of yellow, broken canines—
moaning as it shambles near.
They are part of the show.
They’re what you get
for the price of admission.
So you must learn not to thrash
at them. Not to shriek and flee
blindly toward some other door.
Don’t clutch your heart at one
scare so long you aren’t ready
for the next. And most of all
don’t conjure some horror
beyond your eyes—paralyze
yourself with terrors unseen.
Let the fear wash over you;
it only means you’re human.
Then take the next step.
A break is predicted at sunrise,
two fleeting hours ours
without umbrellas.
The resort is closed in deference
to weather reports, but we grab towels
and book to the public beach. B
attleship clouds patrol overhead,
sinister ministers preaching a second coming
of thunderstorms sent to destroy dappled mercy
but we don’t care – salt’s in the air!
Green waves reach to hug us!
Ocean’s here, and she loves us!
Little heads bob in the water,
buoys with eyes disappear, reappear,
a laughing pod of dolphins.
I walk, one eye on the beach,
pocket a huge piece of sea glass
and a delicate doily of coral.
My other eye’s trained on curtains of rain
rolling in southeast
across the Atlantic.
I reel in remnants of happiness,
hurry, as drops of apocalypse
splash my shoulders.
This is the story I told Lao Tzu
Tiny legs scurry across your hand, eight eyes twinkling. A spider you found, held out with a proud grin. Butterflies are more my jam, but hey, you’re excited!
