Poetry | Short Fiction | Creative Nonfiction
thank you for the telling
all these things I didn’t know
how like the wind it ever is
to blow and blow and blow
the mind, so like a cup, is filled
with things to know and do
the brim of it is never reached
the murky depths, so too
so on we go, we never quite
see how this knowing queue
takes up the flow of intellect
exchanging old for new
that knowledge is impermanent
is one more thing to know
it really is no problem, friend
—relax and let it go
I plow through this life
and I brag like a boss
just add some water
I make my own sauce
I push and I shove
to be first, this is true
when it comes time to die
I’ll say please, after you
a poem should be written
on a whim, in the dark
its meaning a puzzle
its purpose a lark
assertions, like tires
should be poked with an awl
erudition abandoned
it’s not needed at all
extruded ideas
so much pasta, all carbs
an early-bird special
no spices, no barbs
rote and pedantic
sanitized and deburred
screw that, draw your daggers
have quarrels with words
make inanities dance
to a literal din
as many as will fit
on the head of a pin
when done it should lunge
at your throat off the page
in a cheeky, precipitous
perpendicular rage
or at least make us laugh
at ideas we hold dear
or confront the hobgoblins
of truth that we fear
if not, set some meta
to meter and rhyme, like
a bore, argue theories
per dozen, a dime
Dizzy on the roundabout
We busy bodies raise a cheer
Tomorrow always comes, but never
Comes precisely in the way
We thought it would, now let us pray
When the next thing beckons
Say you wait a tick, hold on
The thing that came before has yet
Been done, or even well begun
So up again and at it, son
This time it won’t be at all
Like all the other times
You’ll see, the glory’s mine
Before I die I’ll make my mark
Get on it soon, the falling dark
Too much on your hands this
Stuff, this passing thing
This time, this beating wing
Not enough at hand, but wait
More coming, knocking at the gate
Footfall one upon the other
Look about, what do you see
No minister of fate, a
Damn smart hamster on a wheel
Keep it spinning, that’s the deal
—
Damn Smart Hamster first appeared in this blog on September 4th, 2016.
My mood to you may seem quite vile
But listen to me, stay a while
I’m nothing like that crocodile
A villain, though he wears a smile
(A pair of alligators at Anahuac National Wildlife Reserve, March 2018.)
a scattered bit of happiness
little folded-paper boats
origami motes in aimless breezes
on ocean rooftops, float
the water surface tension, holds
above the deep, a membrane coat
supports in careless-seeming splendor
little folded-paper boats
if the Lord had given me
forever and a day
I’d squander the infinity
and then sweat it for a day
but if the Lord had given me
enough of time to do
what needs be done in this short life
I’d screw that all up too
and if the Lord gave me a tick
to simply sit and be
I’d wonder what to be like
while I rubbed my rheumy knee
the truth is we can’t count the days
that haven’t yet arrived
and lay to waste the ones that have
in strategies contrived
from this day on I do commit
to live life off the clock
for time is an illusion
boss, we need to have a talk
This bit is in response to my favorite rhyme & meter guy, Frank Solanki. His poem Sunday Comes Too Early is my kind of stuff.
You seem to have it in for me
and by my life, from you I flee.
Now I know I give you fits
because I chew your books to bits.
And eat them do I ever, man
the cloth and paper, leather tan.
It’s food to me, these tomes you love
that in my hungry mouth I shove.
How is it you can sit and look
for hours at a tasty book?
It’s three A.M. and still you read
please hurry, I’ve got kids to feed.
A year is when
we say “again”
Drink champagne
to old refrain
And then pretend
a vice to mend
(best heard in the voice of Tom Waits)
The mother of all hopes, say why
It is the hope that you won’t die
All your other little hopes
And fears of fortune on the ropes
Are you and mama’s little babies
Raised on could be, might be, maybes
Small, defenseless, toddler hope
Together you, in patches, cope
Do not these puny hopes obscure
The big one? Never speak it, sir
