If You Want Nice, Read another Poem

I think we should mess with the climate some more,

Pump more fluorocarbons into the atmosphere,

Tear the ozone a new ass hole.

Who needs a protective layer

Insulating us from cosmic rays?

We’re Americans, damn it,

Not some wimpy tree-hugger whining about the environment.

We believe in manifest fucking destiny.

We’ll make our own damn environment.

You don’t like a little sunburn, go north,

But you better hurry.

The ice is clogging up our shipping lanes.

The future is now, baby,

With F-5’s just the beginning.

Wait till we really start

Fracking the shit out of the place.

In Praise of the Unruly Child

I’m encountering some kind of wall

In my quest to write a poem a day,

Some difficulty of the mind and will

Syphoning off the imagination, the words,

The creative juices, or possibly diverting them,

Like some cattle chute,

Delivering them up to some baggage-powered

Spike in the brain.

But the creative imagination of words is tricky,

Draws outside the lines, jumps fences,

Runs with wild abandon,

Finds the hidey-hole of the mischievous child,

Reassures him of the reality of magic,

And coaxes him out to play.

Secrets of Life and Poetry

I’m having trouble coming up with today’s poem,

So I’ve decided to type some words

With the hope, if I string enough of them together.

They will start making sense.

Kind of the way some of us live,

Stringing days into years,

Putting one step in front of the other

So eventually you can look back

And see where you’re going

And how you got there

And tell if maybe you want to change direction.

But, if you keep going,

The worst case might be

You get enough to call it a life,

Or at least a poem.

The Unforeseen Consequences of Poetry

There are some poems,

Like the sleeping dog

You’re supposed to let lie,

I don’t want to write,

Afraid that after I dredge up

The body from the lake

It will be too late to throw it back.

I’ll have to name the killer

Or confess to the crime

And relate the circumstances.

Innocent parties will be harmed.

The guilty, caught unawares,

May resort to desperate measures

Further inflaming the situation

Causing an uncontrollable configuration

And unforeseen damage,

Exposing the dangerous nature of poetry.

Fubar

They are dying.

They are bored to tears.

They are being chewed out by some push-button

Who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

They are hurrying up and waiting.

They are scared shitless.

They are telling no-shitters.

They are laughing at things that would make others puke.

They are drowning their sorrows.

They are beating the shit out of one another.

They are getting their asses handed to them on platters.

They are kicking ass and taking names.

They are homesick.

They are thinking of you

Wondering how the hell they ever got there.

They are losing their cookies.

They are putting on a brave face.

They are picking it up here

And putting it down over there.

They are coming home with scars you cannot see.

They are coming home with things

They do not have words for

With lives they no longer know how to live.

Fade

I would like to have been there.

I would like to have done that.

I suppose there is still time,

Though not as much as I'd like.

Weeding out has begun.

Whether I like it or not,

Things, plans, dreams

Fall away not by volition,

But neglect, by weight,

Fading over time in small increments,

They lose their color,

The passage of the sun washing them out

Until the things I’ve given up on surprise me

Like the bittersweet memory of an old friend

I haven’t thought of for a long time,

Whose name I barely remember.

Blink

I’ve no time

So this will be fast

Like those super speeded up videos

Of sprouts unbending out of the ground,

Or clouds racing across the sky,

Or time, flying by the older I get

So I’m afraid to blink

And miss an epoch

Or the tribulation

Or breakfast

Or the rest of my life,

Or the appointment

I’ve got to run off to.

Holding Things Together With Buttons

In the old days, coal miners

Got buttons down their back,

Scabs where their spine bumps out,

From working in the low tunnels.

A similar feature is found along the crown

Of a carpenters head,

From working in a basement

With a six foot ceiling,

An eight by eight running the lengthen

Down the center for support, 

And various runs of pipe and conduit

Run beneath the floor joist

With little consideration for the carpenters head.

Still, in this present economy,

Work is better than no work,

As I’m sure many will agree,

Despite the opinion of upper echelon bankers.

Cartoon Overload

Sometimes my brain feels like a five pound bag

Filled with ten pounds of shit,

Too much stuff I don’t know what to do with

Building up until I feel the pressure

Ready to blow, like those cartoons,

A head letting loose like a steam whistle.

I remember times in by-gone days

I’ve had to stop and be still.

I couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, barely breathed

Until things calmed down.

After a while

I’d open an eye just a little

To see if it was safe

To start letting things in again.

The Dysfunctional Nature of Opposites

It disturbs me,

The dysfunctional nature of opposites,

Something in sorrow allowing recognition of joy,

Something in love making hate possible.

Is it because the comfort of the womb

Is ended with a blow and tears,

Or because ying and yang are folded together?

Is it because God’s favorite angel

Was thrown down?

Does He need evil to be good?

Without the law,

Is it possible to break it?

Do we really know right from wrong?

Am I just rehashing nature vs. nurture?

How can it be

Beauty, sometimes, is inseparable from horror?

The Personal Nature of Tragedy.

Everyone experiences loss in their own way,

So I won’t pretend to know

What was ripped away by the wind.

I see destruction on the screen.

I see pictures of you walking through it.

I did not see you open your eyes.

I will not see the slow realization

Of the incomprehensible future you face

Of the toll you will add up over time,

Wondering if the count will ever end.

I know only two things.

You have lost

And I can’t possibly understand.

Rumsfeld’s Proposition

Considering infinity

The scale of what I do not know

Boggles my brain,

Not to mention Rumsfeld’s proposition

About the unknown unknowns.

I mean, I’m not even clear

What happens inside my own skin,

Let alone what’s going on in yours.

Do you, like me, make only guesses

Based on what you might remember

About how thing were

When you assumed you were paying attention

And were not distracted

By the atmospheric pressure,

Tectonic plate movements,

Or magma bubbling up to the surface

Of your misunderstood psyche?

It’s like shimmer on the highway.

It seems like that’s what you’re driving at,

But you never get there.

Eventually you stop paying attention

To what’s not there.

Mercy

I can feel it coming,

The point where I notice all my expectations

Have proved false.

It is still a thing most in my head,

The knowing of my finiteness,

That eventually what I know ends in mystery

I am unable to solve.

Maybe it is a simple matter of age and decay,

The psychological buttresses shoring up my surety

Giving way to the gravity of unanswered questions?

I feel the tips of my fingers

Have begun to open.

It begins to drip away

Leaving what’s left

Slipping over me like shadow.

I am in other hands than my own.

I am at the mercy of what I do not know.

In the Shits - Navy Days - part four

In the early seventies

We ran out of the Cape,

To make sure we were ready

In the event WW III was deemed necessary.

A Russian trawler dogged us

To survey the launching a Poseidon Missile

Through the Bermuda Triangle

The mucky-ups were all perturbed

The Russians had the effrontery

In wanting to keep track of our ability

To bomb them back to the Stone Age.

One captain shot flares at them.

When that didn’t keep them 10,000 yards away

He loaded an armed torpedo.

You can sooth yourself with the idea he was bluffing,

Or if you’re of that bent, that he was serious.

Either way,

The trawler wouldn’t know anything about it,

Nor would my Russian counter part

And fellow peon

I was watching through my binoculars

and flashed the peace sign.

He waved back.

Once, all us line-handlers

Stood at attention for a couple of hours in the rain

On the back of the sub

Waiting on the Secretary of the Navy

To come watch us leave.

I gave him the peace sign, too,

For which I also got in the shits.

Capitalism USA

Work dribbles in

Trying to fill the bucket with the hole in it

I am forced to buy

Due to the lack of better options.

All the better options are too high up the ladder

For me to reach.

I am allowed to claw my way up

If I’m not squeamish about blood

And the pile I’d have to crawl over near the bottom.

The say from the top

I’d get an excellent view of all the carnage

And you only hear the screams and crying

When the weather is bad.

And, if you turn the talking heads up,

It easy to drown them out.

When it gets really bad they say

I’ll be able to fly some place really up there

Where I can hire someone

To throw the malcontents off the edge

If they get to close.

When they fall it’s almost like living next to the highway:

You almost never hear it.

Eke

I’m reaching as far as I can,

Arms stretched out of their sockets,

To curl the tips of my fingers around the impossible.

I’m stretching up on my tiptoes with such determination

I fear my feet will disconnect with the ground

In my effort to make ends meet.

I could be ungrounded, disconnected from myself,

Float above it all with little concern for gravity.

I’ll consider dissipation.

I’ll laugh at inappropriate times.

I’ll swim in unusual waters with strange fish.

I’ll talk in a language everybody pretends to understand.

They’ll smile politely and whisper behind my back.

They’ll consult and make arrangements for my disposition.

They’ll tie a rope around my ankle and pull me back to earth

Despite my most strenuous protest.

I’ll remember I stopped carrying a pocket knife long ago

And wistfully regret the missed opportunities of youth.

Not-much-time-to-write-it Poem

Something quick

Needs to be done somewhere.

I aint sayin where,

Maybe here or there

Or everywhere,

In the nick of time.

God, I’m writing rhyme.

Everything is overdue.

It’s a whole slue

Of things not paid,

Consequences need to be weighed

Which Peter to rob

Till I get a decent job.

Loafers ( I propose an experiment. Share this and more friends share it and keep sharing it and see if they get the message?)

Is anybody in Washington working?

I know they are doing a lot of stuff,

But doesn’t work require some form of accomplishment,

Maybe something moved from one place to another?

Whatever the definition,

Stagnation is the opposite of work

And that seems the only thing Washington is good at.

And just to be clear,

The fourth estate is not off the hook.

It seems to me, if you guys would do your jobs,

The rest would have to do theirs.

But all you do is report the tit for tat,

And dat ain’t no reporting at all.

The rest of us?

We're tired,

We're poor,

We're huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

So get to work.

Or did you forget

That’s what we hired you for.

Do your damn job.

Tired of Being Out of Work Poem

 

Lift one foot,

Then the other,

Repeat.

Movement is the key

To keep things from freezing up,

Grinding to a halt.

How many people are ground

Every day?

There doesn’t seem any

More west to go to,

Even if I was young.

It’s all been bought and sold.

Free enterprise only

Works with enough backs

Willing to be its pedestal.

The land of the free,

The home of the brave

Has been optioned,

Parceled up,

Hauled away

To some ostentatious vacation house

In Martha’s Vineyard maybe.

If you sneak up,

Look through the fence

You can see where it sits

Behind the screen.

Go around back.

You might be able

To get some scraps

If you don’t

Get arrested

By all the glitz.

On Sundays

I suppose I should write something uplifting on Sundays,

Not to mention I want to

Remind myself it doesn’t all revolve around me,

The way I feel not being the determining factor.

It is only an illusion I am enclosed within my skin,

And my thoughts are of my own making.

There is no escaping outside forces

Vying for my allegiance.

In the struggle I sometimes forget I am already spoken for,

My inmost name held in hands

That will not let me go,

Will not cease to make me,

Have me ever on the wheel

Spinning off the dross.

It is no wonder I am sometimes dizzy

And unsure of my footing.

On Sundays it is good to remember

I have unfailing help holding me up,

Helping me all the way.

Walking Through Glue

I’ve been banking my belief

In something better is faith,

That there is this other who cares,

Who is a who and not impersonal,

Or a figment, an invention

Out of desperation to explain

What there is no explanation for.

I recognize it is comforting

To believe in a loving God.

It makes the going easier

In the face of what it is to live

The constant disappointment of being alive.

Is it faith telling me this trying

To walk through glue will pass?

If it does pass is what I call faith faith?

It’s convenient having to wait to see

If I wake up after I die

To get an answer.

Is that why it’s called faith?

Is it desperation making me cling so?

If it is desperation,

Is that good or bad?

Rust

All the mistakes I’ve made

Infect me like oxidation

Breaking down my resolution.

My convictions become brittle reminders

Of what I once took in stride.

Rust works

On flesh and bone,

On synapsis,

On standing up and sitting down,

Its little granules grinding away,

Especially at the old welds,

At the old confidence and strength.

Memory and thought and things I knew

Begin to leak and flake.

My ability to name things

Loses its resiliency.

The internal structure has begun to weaken,

Will eventually lead to collapse.

Not For The Squeamish

I hate going down to the wire,

The photo finish on faith

Bringing up all my shit.

If it is the gift of faith,

It’s a bitch.

The process of building it

Scares the crap out of me,

Pushes me ever closer to

Some hellacious edge

I suspect

He’s going to push me over.

Equal Consideration

All I want is a pause before you speak,

Some form of recognition I am a person

Worthy of consideration and empathy,

And not someone to be corrected, managed,

Or taught how to live in a manner you deem proper.

I want acknowledgement I have been alive

For a long time now

And my convictions acquired over the years

Are worthy of thoughtful response,

And that my fashion sense, admittedly odd,

Is mine to choose.

I would like equal consideration given

To my neuroses as you give to yours.

I would like equal time on the car radio.

I would like not to have to resort to poetry

To get something said.

Actual Russians

Everyone knows, if you write

Or even read,

You have to read the Russians,

Though I have to admit

I haven’t read much Pushkin,

Which is probably a form of literary blasphemy

Over there.

I have read Gogol

And the other obvious ones,

And a few not so obvious,

Though I suppose, as an American,

It is presumptuous to state

What, for a Russian, is obvious.

So I would appreciate any insight

Or just comments

Any actual Russians might have.

And just to be sure there are no

Cross-cultural misunderstandings,

And because it’s been bothering me too,

Where it says “No Comments” in red letters

Underneath the poem,

It only means there are none.

It doesn’t mean you can’t make any.

Dust to Dust

I am at a loss,

Stuck in time

Like some bug in amber,

Though I will not be preserved.

I will fall

Like the angels banished from heaven,

Into destruction.

I will not be raised up,

But turn to dust

Blown apart by the wind,

And, with a little luck,

With the help of the jet stream

Or serendipity

Or some other mechanism,

A little piece of me

Will be blown east a thousand miles

Dip down and become lodged

In some Wall Street bankers eye.

Sunday Thanks

I’m sorry I’m not very good right now,

A poor example of faith

Like that guy that needed help with his belief.

But that makes me think, who doesn’t

Need help, even to breathe,

Let alone do anything good.

And isn’t it the point

None of us are any good

On our own,

On our own cracked vessels

Leaking our mess all over the place.

So thanks for cleaning up after us

And repairing the broken parts,

For us so fragile

And easy to break.

And thanks for being persistent,

Constantly putting us back together

No matter how many times

We trip over our own feet.

Duck and Cover

Ever since the flood

I suspect my emotions

Have been hijacked by the sun,

Or possibly suffered grievous wounds

In a drive-by involving the worth of my house.

An ambulance was on the way

But congress sequestered its tires.

I can hear it howling ineffectually

Stuck in gridlock.

Maybe somebody from the N.R.A.

Will shoot it with too many bullets

And put it out of its misery.

The siren will wind down

Like those ten-thirty air raid sirens used to do

During the duck-and-cover days.

I miss the commies as the designated bad guys.

North Korea is too much of a basket case

To live up to the title,

And it makes the warmongers look pathetic

Trying to whip it into shape.

What happened to all the bleeding hearts

Crying about the tired, poor, and down trodden?

I can barely hear them anymore.  

Maybe we’ve got enough now

And, like Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Present

And the feeble urchins,

We don’t like to acknowledge them.