I’ve started adding my poems to the site. A few at a time. Please come back from time to time and see what has been added.
It’ll Tear Noise A-Loose
Hunting alligators on Cape Canaveral
down by the Banana River Baptist Church.
Sometimes they come up on a putt putt golf course
or a trailer park.
Momma said make you believe in God.
Daddy said make you believe in the second amendment.
He’d been drinking which is why they go alligator hunting
so they can drink.
Somebody said alligators ain’t afraid of nothing to which somebody said then how come they run away when I fire my shotgun at em?
Somebody else said you are a liar. Unless you kilt it
ain’t no alligator gonna run from just noise.
“It’ll tear noise a loose. “
I never had so much fun
I never had so much fun
not since I first jumped
on a trampoline.
He was dancing
with his high school sweetheart
at their 50th high school reunion
these recent additions to the fabric
of our lives that warp time
by allowing the mind
for a brief moment
to roam freely
in the realm of what-if.
It’s as giddying
as defying gravity.
Like She’s Something
I never heard of Conley
she hadn’t either
until she got there
and then she’s telling everybody
she’s in Conley
like it’s something.
Three Things She Hated
The word “cunt”
or an unrhymed poem.
A philanderer.
And what she loved was:
A Harvey Wallbanger.
“Gone with the Wind.”
And the man down the street.
Notebooks
I have always loved notebooks
and pens.
Sometimes I have loved pens more.
I am not sure
you can be a poet
without a love
of pencil and paper,
a novelist perhaps
but no poet.
Cutters
We were in group,
sitting in a circle
telling our lives
making ourselves cry.
We were in group.
Most of us drunks
one shooter
and a fried brain
from the first crack attack
a few anorexics and
then there were the two cutters.
Young, skinny girls,
barely women.
Both wore shirts with sleeves
longer than their arms and
long pants and socks.
I had never heard of a cutter.
It was only after the session
when I asked Brother Lester
a pothead shot paralyzed
by ATL cops
who then took to heroin
after the city paid him off
and then, as he says, heroin took him.
He said they cut themselves.
I said, what? The fuck?
They cut themselves.
How can you be addicted to that shit?
Earthlings say the same thing
about heroin or even beer.
How can one be addicted to beer?
Just stop for God’s sake.
What I don’t get is those fat asses
who can’t stop eating ice cream.
Oh, I get that.
Not a gallon a night, you don’t.
What flavor?
Good grief.
But the cutters.
There was some serious shit there.
There’s a joke in there somewhere
Doc? My tooth is killing me.
Can you do anything to make this pain go away?
Doc stomps down on the instep
of the patient, who cries out in pain.
How’s that tooth feeling now?
That’s how she explained it
in group. A sharp (no pun intended)
physical pain makes you forget
about the heavy metal
fist-pumping in your gut.
It helps you forget but just for a while
and then all you have is the blood.
But it really has to hurt.
It does.
Scars
The nurse who likes
to look at scars
held his hand
as they rolled him
into surgery.
When he came to
her fingers were
tracing the patch
where they’d burned off
the name of his wife
tattooed on his arm.
She reminds everyone
getting that tattoo
taken off was his idea
because she is not
the jealous kind,
just someone who prefers
scars to tattoos.
Dialing for Time
Long before computers spoke
to just anybody,
the Time Lady spoke
whenever I wanted.
She was the first girl I called.
And I called her a lot
just before I called
the first honest to goodness girl.
She would tell me
the difference between
the past and the future
(go ahead, say it)
because she was always present,
just as she was always there when I dialed,
often just to hear her.
Like when the wind blew
the trees just enough
to throw bigger, scarier
shadows on my window,
she was a comfort,
and never scolded
no matter how many times
I called in a sporting frenzy
before the minute changed,
or how late.
Poet’s Life Threatened
The man
with a crossword
puzzle of women’s names
tattooed on his chest
and Xs and Os on his penis
has threatened to kill me
for penning a poem about it.
“It” being mainly
the Xs and Os,
though my lawyer
thinks his big worry
are the women
even though I changed
their names.
Little Black Sambo and Robert E. Lee
“They don’t read ‘Little Black Sambo’ anymore”
— a scattershot between static
on an old Dodge truck AM radio
near Decatur
A caller
(sounded black
if you can still say that)
from Buford says
they’ll do what they want anyway
but erasing history
is not as easy
as removing a statue
of Robert E. Lee,
My Thoughts Turn toward Dying
It makes sense
but I am surprised
— and not in a good way —
that at this age
I would become obsessed
with death.
I am too young to die
sayeth almost everyone
once they encounter
their ending.
And while I have no
reason to think
I’m heading
to the other side
any time soon
My fantasy is
that I’m ready
for whatever
whenever.
Though I never really knew
whether Frank had wished
himself dead weeks
ahead of time
or if he was begging
to live
even if he couldn’t breathe.
Exit 26
She lived off Exit 26
down from the Whataburger
off a one-way dirt road.
No one ever arrived
accidentally or left
without regretting it.
She had the same effect
on everyone
— old, young, pious
or otherwise.
She couldn’t tell you
how many men
she’d been with
or if she’d loved any.
But you were zealous any way
which makes as much sense
as anything.
High Tide and Wisteria
It wouldn’t have been near as bad
or bad at all
if it hadn’t been high tide.
And if George had just cut
that clump of wisteria vines
twisted into sinewy trunks
the live oak would most likely have
withstood the winds.
As it was, all manner of hell
was let loose by that damn storm.
Evidence
There appears to some
to be a man in the moon
though I have never seen him.
I am happy enough
to see the moon.
To some they see ghosts
or accept the flimsy evidence
of spirits moving amongst us.
I am content with the breeze.
I have however seen
the red-tail hawk
perched in our live oak
And though I have never
seen him swoop
or dive
Neither have I seen
our marsh rabbits
this year.
The Wrong Side of the Bridge
you wake up first
as the sun slips out
of the waves
with a definition
of burnt orange.
You go to bed late
because there are chores
associated with being
a whipping boy
who would prefer
being a prince.
But you notice
the difference mainly
when the sirens sound:
they always start
on the other side
and grow louder
and louder
as they cross the bridge.
Before Bees
Before there were bees
There were magnolias
That scent
Before there were noses.
There was a blossom
Before there were eyes
And a stem before
There were feet
To stand on.
Before there were bees
Snails pollinated the flowers
That sprang
from wind-carved crevices
that howled
Of a chemistry
To rival Mozart.
Grief
Once it comes for some
it never ends.
It’s an old sweater
wrapped more than worn
seasonal only if you venture
out on warm days.
It is the unmade bed
because that’s the way he liked it
ready for morning naps
or afternoon siestas
a Spanish tradition
he adopted along with the mistresses.
You wonder if they grieve.
If you visited the park
would you recognize
the cardigan
you gave him for Christmas
And later he swore
it must have gotten up
and walked away.