Not Ready for Radio
Outside the outer perimeter lies a land
scorched by spontaneous combustion, split by
a meandering wild river barging trouble.
Passing through another grasshopper town
you are nearing vistas of grapes where you will watch
the crushing and fermenting of all your troubles.
You can’t know the blues before thirty and by fifty
you’ll still act a fool flagging down a train
just as it derails with its cargo of trouble.
For some reason the Mississippi calls me
as surely as Clements called out “twain” and the
slaves called it Old Devil River for all its trouble.
He convinced me ‘not ready for radio’
was a great name for a band with no frontman.
As usual he was bullshitting his way out of trouble.
If I Were 30 Years Younger
If I were thirty years younger I’d be hidden
in the shadows singing outside her window
instead of day dreaming of pirates and treasure.
Eye witnesses agreed that she drove a Chevette
but not the woman I knew, who drove a pickup
for hauling salvage and other yard-sale treasures.
He lay too many nights on the wrong side of the bed
before frequenting the Oasis for happy hour and
its hors d’oeuvres shaped as exotic treasures.
On a double-dog dare he spelunked Frick’s Cave
with its gray bats but swore he’d never go back
no matter how much his share of the treasure.
There’s a body buried somewhere. I should know
I put it there to rot the flesh from the bones.
So be careful where you bury your treasure.
Hungover
Hung over a month of Sundays anchored off Florida
seasick searching for a yappy dog gone missing
feared drown, though not all will mourn its loss.
Like a pencil in the eye, it hurt in more ways
than love’s many splendid means of inflicting
hemorrhaging and invigorating loss.
If I didn’t lose it in the hurricanes
I lost it in the divorces; six of one
half dozen of the other: a loss is a loss is a loss.
Driving drunk ain’t what it used to be, he said stopped
at a green light, deaf to honking horns, forgetting
how he once calculated the costs amidst the loss.
Recruits
The death of God was followed by the death
of poets, historians then graffiti artists replaced by
bloggers debating redemption vs. revolution.
Studies have confirmed what was once taboo,
children of alcoholics with no reference
for normal make easy recruits for the revolution.
The father figure you portrayed provided a
redemptive act that counted for something but
the children still march and shout, “ Viva la Revolucion.”
They said she had a Gethsemane epiphany.
Does that mean she prayed until she bleed or that
she was arrested for dreaming up a revolution?
It could be worse, like a slave changing masters or
when you laughed, she said smirked, as the first draft
lottery made you next in line to join the revolution.
The Aesthetics of Sensing
The blind at birth don’t know what they’re missing
as much as those who have lost their sight and
slowly lose their minds imagining the look of pity.
Holding hands never seemed so profound as the
playground’s first touch, nor frost so cold nor fire
so warm, and yet the static shock of closeness remains.
There in no reason for rhythm or rhyme and
the shouts from angry faces can’t penetrate any more
than the honking horn of the car running a red light.
Bacon sizzzling, peanut-butter cookies baking,
too much cheap perfume and that which rots.
Trust me on this: don’t forget to change your socks.
Our priests are chefs who conjure flavors
to bind our senses of bitter and sweet to the
evolutionary essentials in the history of love.
The Next Time
A month into the lengthening everything
was lighter, more relaxed. The links were running
though slowing and red tides were rising in the east.
It was a time of the Sun when shadows crept
toward noon and the lady in the clouds seemed
to give herself up to the slow-motion sacrifice.
A year from now there will be no anniversaries
no red-letter dates imprinted on desktop calendars,
no national holidays. No birthdays.
Historians will surely note the absence of death
those first years, but the master clockmakers,
like all time-keepers, are prisoners of the infinite.
We circumnavigate the whole, voyage after
voyage, stretching days into weeks, longer still
sailing through sunlit breeze toward moon and stars.
Happy New Year
Another day another dollar another year
and then another and soon the question of
when the next decade begins loses its relevance.
They laid a blanket on the beach and watched
the fireworks explode above them like a circus
in the sky. Their grown children wouldn’t believe it.
I’m getting good at quitting: drinking until it took,
cigarettes after the x-ray, my first wife when I
saw my second wife, and now ice cream.
Easier said than done: Forget the past.
Predict the future. Stay in the present and avoid
resentments, impure thoughts and feeling superior.
Another year and truly another day closer
to whatever comes next. I wonder if I will recognize
my last year when the countdown rings it in new.
Heaven’s Junkyard
When the first satellite fell it seemed heaven’s
junkyard had opened for business but soon the earth
was littered with giant, crushed aluminum cans.
All good things have unintended consequences
is why you ended up in an undesirable neighborhood
lost on your way to grandma’s house.
For those in love, here’s hoping those obsessive
out of body experiences take control long
enough for you to claim temporary insanity.
The sinner isn’t told that forgiveness doesn’t
change the facts. That’s why wisemen say
there is no forgiveness. Women have always known this.
I wish I didn’t need to know the answer. Didn’t
need to always be right and still I pray forgiveness
for being so judgmental of all those idiots.
I need a junkyard angel to guard against my
appetite for shoplifting and impersonation
not to mention my pathological lying.