without words
we hide
behind the green door 
wondering…
who… we…are

Before dawn their trucks
roll up like thieves in the night,
take away our sins. 

My heart is so soft

Soft enough to crumble in your hand

To squish

To break

Made soft by you

After being bruised so regularly

Beaten so violently

Broken so frequently

It tends to bend to you

Even my will is not strong enough

A fleeting moment of tenacity

It’s never enough

My DNA betrays me

Half him, half you

It’s so pathetic

To watch myself from above

Fall to my knees again

It’s so horrible

To see your hate for me

And take it with a smile

It’s so awful

To be yours

When you don’t love me

Like I’m your fucking child

was shipped from Cincinnati’s Crate and Barrel,
assembled by some easy hammering.

a fine full bed, with a plywood board
we carried from the nearby lumberyard

to support the mattress. At some point, the joints
began to loosen and we knocked it back together

with a sock-wrapped hammer.
The frame still pulls apart now and again

and sometimes we wake to slats falling to the floor.
The bed goes one way and so we join forces

to bang the wood back the other way. Wary,
we wait for the night we crash.

Consciousness let out on bail.
Jonah’s back in the belly of a whale.
Jack and Jill have a hole in their pail.
I am the hammer, also the nail.  

The heavens opened again
Rain washed over a monotone sky

spilled over roofs, rattled downspouts –
 a death knell chattered in another room

Heaven’s doors opened, and you can hear
a tone deaf angel playing an electric guitar 

She was small but fierce
    and feared by all in her path
        and one must walk softly
            in fear of igniting her wrath.

A rainbow she is not
    painted in black and white stripes
        traveling in the morning and evening
            but is the fiercest at night.

She can clear your yard
    with the sight of her stripes
        and if you have an encounter
            YIKES!

This aberration of Mother Nature
    will never be the belle of the ball
        for you see, the lonely skunk
            gets shunned by one and all.

Note: There is apparently a glitch in the system this morning because I tried “multiple times” to use the same font and every time I submitted the poem, the result was two different fonts.
        

At the concert, I wince
as the grandmother pierces 
the dim light with her flash. 

As the overeager 
couple post on Facebook
sharing this moment with

all their friends who are in
bed already. I am 
with my daughter

who is eighteen years old.
She bought me these tickets
for Christmas not knowing

the band, beyond the fact
the singer was the son of 
a great bard and poet.

Even more delightful 
than the music is
to sit next to her again. 

I try not to judge the 
glare of the phone in front
of me…can’t she dim, dammit?

“The audience theme tonight
is not knowing how to
use their phones, am I right?”
 
I say to my daughter. 
She gently nods and then
minutes later even

more gently presses the 
record button that I
neglected to press

having spent at least a
minute quite busily
trying to catch the moment.

The other day I saw a video 

I woke up this morning,

Not feeling my best,

I ran to the doctor,

And said run some tests.

He said,”We can’t account for,

The way that you feel,

But let me write you a prescription,

And send you a bill.”

The best I can figure,

And my thoughts here fall flat,

It could be this,

But it could also be that.

Here, drink this,

And take these small pills,

And we’ll check again later,

If you’re living still.

It boggles my mind,

And it drives me to tears,

To think that our species,

Has survived all these years.

And we still have no clue,

What’s good for our kind,

Or how to treat maladies,

Of body and mind.

Oh sure, some advancements,

In prevention we’ve made,

They’ve helped us live longer,

So our bills can be paid.

But it strikes me as odd,

That no one can say,

What should I eat,

And how often each day.

They’ll opine and they’ll argue,

And openly fuss,

They’ll tell you they know,

Then they’ll change that on us.

How in the hell,

Did we reach this impasse,

After all of our time, here on this earth,

All we can say is, Oh well, alas.

My cows they have instincts,

My horses do too,

Every animal I know,

Knows better than I or you.

What happened to us?

Is it a capitalist scheme?

That we all should be ignorant,

Of what we each need.

I don’t know the answer,

I sure which that I did,

So I return to the bottle,

With the tamper proof lid.