When You Miss Them

Rising at eight,

I enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee,

Perused the news, weather, and Facebook.

Email, however, is way backed up,

And I barely looked at it.

There’s this strange phenomena I’m experiencing,

This ability to contemplate,

To not have to,

To let time stretch out

Like a lazy cat

Getting up after a nap in the sun,

Padding off jauntily to its food bowl,

Or to investigate some dust motes,

Sliding in on the sun.

Three days.

An actual three day weekend.

How sublime the little things are

When you miss them.

And then there are the big things you miss,

A wife you’ve barely seen,

And time to write this poem,

Time to find your way to the end-line

When you find out the poem was about saying

Happy anniversary to the love of your life.

Cotton Candy

Can I write a poem about nothing,

Drivel across the screen to no end?

Would that be bad?

Seriously, my head feels filled

With nothing more than the space

Between the fine thin strands

Of a swirl of cotton candy,

Or maybe the space inside a carbonated bubble,

Rising to the surface bursting,

Releasing microscopic particles

Of fragmented thought.

I’m sorry.

It’s all I've got this morning.

Dog Town, USA

Detroit is going to the dogs.

I couldn't resist, since, apparently, it’s true,

Abandon by the thousands,

Mostly pit bull or pit bull mix, they say,

People there who care about dogs, that is.

70,000 abandon structures, along with discarded cars,

Provide shelter for the discarded crime deterrents

In the dystopian present.

Motor city no more,

The factories are up on blocks in the front yard,

Skeletal, chained up guard dogs,

Out of a job

With nothing left to steal.

Kingdom of Death

I don’t want to write about Syria,

About when they said the son was different.

Western educated, they touted,

A reformer, panels of experts said.

I don’t want to think about The Damascus suburb

When the gas filled the air

And whatever shattered dreams they had

Were crushed with the streets around them

And their bodies bloated,

Like Assad’s ego

Presiding over his kingdom of death.

I Never Knew You

The mock shame of Miley Cyrus

Getting headlines over gassing of Syrians,

Points out the real shame

Of the direction journalism has taken.

Could the demise of the newspaper

Be the result pandering to the lowest common denominator?

Of course that is a rhetorical question.

Scandal obscures the news,

Gives the illusion of reporting important facts

While politics and commerce

Scheme behind the curtain.

It is a collusion of press

With the powers that be

To not take their profession so seriously.

They joined the ranks of the talking heads,

The spin doctors.

Edward is turning over in his grave.

“I never knew you,” he would say.

Playing Catch Up

No fun playing catch up,

Good we can do it.

Looking forward to getting

A little ahead of the game,

When the gig is over,

And I can take the time

To write a longer poem.

An Unusual Rest

I prayed for space to breath

And God is giving me rest

From three odd years of running

To catch Peter

So I could pay Paul.

And it’s surly not me

Keeping me going

So on this day of rest

I can go earn space to breathe,

Taking Advantage of answered prayer

And the mysterious, unexplainable rest

That comes with work this Sunday.

Altered Expectations

Poem a Day is pleased to announce,

Like Samuel Clemens,

The expectation of his demise

Was premature.

Unlike mister Clemens

It was not a newspaper,

But Poem a Day’s own summation

Requiring alteration.

I suppose this is a long-winded way

To make an official declaration

His previous unexpected medical difficulties

Are, for all practical purposes,

Behind him.

The issue of not enough hours in the day,

However,

Is still ongoing.

Sinkhole

It seems every other day

Some sinkhole is swallowing something.

It’s worse than you think.

They've gone multidimensional,

Swallowing people’s sense of proportion.

It’s the only thing I can come up with

For the absurdities of gas attacks in Syria,

Or beating someone to death

To see what it’s like,

Lady Gaga’s meat dress,

Or the birther’s.

Maybe they’re really spiritual black holes

Brought on by the idea that everything’s relative

So it doesn’t matter what you swallow?

You never know?

It could explain Fox News?

In Memory of Rose Mary Woods

In 1970 I graduated high school,

With Rose Mary Woods nephew

Before the Rose Mary Stretch

Erased eighteen and a half minutes

Of what doesn't seem a mystery any more.

I would love to say I was

A starry-eyed believer back then,

But Vietnam had already started

What my stint in the military drove home,

That the Land of the free

And the home of the brave

Was an early version of spin

Covering a multitude of sins

By people mostly like me,

In over their heads,

Dealing with complex situations

With no easy answers and enormous consequences.

Morning Trepidation

I hold my head up not proudly

But exerting effort,

Feeling the straining neck muscles,

The gooey eyes,

The set jaw,

Keeping my mouth from going slack,

In fear I’ll be found sitting here,

Drooling into the keyboard,

Late for work.

What You Have To Do

“You do what you have to do,”

Is what my ma used to say,

I suppose to justify

Or explain to her self

The life she led,

In the thirties
Scrounging for chunk of coal

As a little girl,

Working shoplifting scams,

Trying to fill the economic gap

Her skid-row-bum dad failed to provide,

Or as a cover for the stories I don’t know,

Other than knowing they were about hard times.

So, If doing what you have to do

Means long hours,

It’s doesn't seem all that big of a deal. 

Poetry Slam

Poem a day has less time than ever

To write his poems

If he is going to intake fuel

Before he goes out to work.

He is feeling very slammed for time

And would like to bitch about it,

But he’s just tickled pink

With the new job he’s been doing,

Even with all the hours

Dictating his declining recent poetry invites,

Which now is explained.

What is not explained is the schizophrenic tone,

This referring to himself as an actual persona,

Possibly mechanical,

Poem a Day has begun to exhibit,

So let’s just call it poetic license,

Shall we?

A Cautionary Tale

Poem a Day is sorry he is dragged out.

It’s been a long week

An he is not as young

As he once was,

With seeming boundless energy.

Yes. In the olden days

Poem a Day worked long hours,

Partied long onto the night,

Went to work early the next morning.

Those days, not sadly, are gone.

Poem a Day was young and stupid then

Squandering more than the time

He did not know he could never get back.

He has no choice now.

Tired or not, aged or not,

Beat up over those many years or not,

With protesting muscle and bone,

He must push himself through,

And when the week is done,

If he is tired,

If he has trouble forming complete sentences,

Or moving from point a to point b,

It is not a reflection on you,

But the results of a misspent youth

Carried much too far into adulthood,

And the breakdown of a machine

Required to function

Past its prime functional viability

Resulting in failures meaning only

It is getting old.

Day Six

Day six.

Attention. Attention.

Time to function.

The subject seems confused.

Yes. He seems unaware he is no longer asleep.

Hey. Wake up.

No. Don’t do that.

Don’t close your eyes.

There. That’s better.

The coffee has kicked in.

We believe he is thinking of Cheerios.

Ouch. That seemed to hurt.

A bit stooped over there.

Give him time.

Eventually he walks erect.

Crunch

Poem a Day is seriously crunched for time,

What with making a living and all.

Yes, I could sacrifice more for my art,

But sleep deprivation and power tools

Could lead to catastrophic results,

Poem a day wise,

As fingers, it seem to me,

Are essential for typing,

Unless I learn to use my toes,

A major learning curve

To say the least.

I suppose I could use my nose?

5aqh do9e3w.

That doesn't work.

Besides. With my nose,

It would get messy

And gum up the key board.

The Coming of the Day of Rest

Sleep enough?

Well? No. Not exactly,

But I am up,

And there is that Sunday thing;

The day of rest.

It isn’t often you get practical knowledge,

The inside scoop, so to speak,

On the inner workings

Of the mind and wisdom of God,

But this one is a gimmmi.

Come Sunday,

I’ll just fall down

And sleep will just come naturally.

In The Still Night Air

Day three,

Sleep portion not optimal,

Eyes saucer like.

Must write poem

Before sustenance intake,

Possibly liquefied.

Anticipate stimulation engaging

Open air traveling machine

In the still night air.

Report to be forthcoming.

Getting Ready to Breathe

I’m getting ready to breathe again,

Three year odd after my brain fart

Threw me into limbo.

I’m not sure I remember how

So I’m inching up slow on it

Through the days of the week.

I can feel it building,

Getting ready to exhale,

To let the unknowing stream out of me

Like one of those balloons you let go of

And it flies with wild abandon,

Giving apprehension the raspberries,

Though I don’t plan on deflating.

This new way of being

Will involve inhaling, after all. 

Gig

I’m off to see the wizard

At ungodly early hours.

I don’t know what he looks like,

But he works on for some film studio

On the south side,

And may be willing to trade carpentry

For a ticket to Oz.

I’m hoping the foreman isn’t the wicked witch

Or I don’t have to work with any

Of those flying monkey’s,

And if the security guards are singing

That oreo song twelve hours a day

It will drive me nuts.

It’s supposed to go three weeks or so

But they let me loose on Sundays.

I feel a little old for these kind of adventures

So, prayers and good thoughts

Will be appreciated.

If I survive, celebrations will definitely be in order,

Though rest assured,

I promise not to float away on any balloons.

Building Faith

The gift of faith is not for the squeamish

Or the faint of heart.

The building of faith

With regular trips to the edge,

Like an old time cliffhanger serial,

Rescued in the nick of time,

Can get on one's nerves.

Unlike cliffhangers,

When you’re tied to the tracks

And the locomotive is barring down,

Screaming is usually inappropriate.

A Poem a day rerelease of Permanent Damage

I almost killed my sister when,

To see what would happen,

I was dropping bricks to the sidewalk with Frankie

Off his dingy second story white frame porch

Next to Pumpilio’s cinder covered truck lot

Where flattened cats swarmed with maggots

And bums slept in trailers parked up against the Soo Line

At the back of the lot.

A brick hurtled toward my sister’s long black braids

Like a meteorite from second story space

Before she paid some department store girl in Goldblatt’s

To cut all her hair off.

My mother maybe cried for days

After she marched my sister back to the store

Where I’m sure a lengthy discussion with grown up words ensued.

With split second timing

Saving me from a lifetime of remorse and explaining

One of my girl cousins or somebody

Pushed or pulled and the brick hit the sidewalk

With unspectacular result.

The incident opened my mouth to a perfect O

Until a nun at Saint John’s

Latched onto my ear

And marched me out to the hall sink

Where she attempted to wash away my sins

And seal my mouth with many applications of flax soap

Doing the opening and closing mechanism permanent damage.

Leap

Hope crops up.

Breath seems possible,

Faith going in is a must.

Not what I used to be twenty years ago,

Even ten.

Still, I will board the train,

See how far the ride goes,

Chug along,

The eventual promise of space

Urging me on.

Wageslave

It’s the old days again.

Work is where you find it.

Pay is what they give you.

Trashing the economy lowers the wage scale,

Increases the wageslave surplus.

Put your backs into it, boys and girls,

Plenty more where you came from.

Lower your eyes when royalty passes.

Don’t complain too much.

You want to eat, don’t cha? 

Merry-go-round

Poem a Day doesn't always want to write a poem.

He feels forced to write something dishonest,

Like a white lie

Or not mentioning what’s really there.

It’s a lie of omission,

Skirting the issue by talking cryptically,

But letting those in the know,

Know it’s the same old thing

That I have no answers for,

That keeps coming round,

Like a whirlpool sucking me in.

And you can be cryptic to.

You can “like” the post

Which doesn’t really mean you like it,

But that you get it, at least a little,

And I can sigh and you can sigh with me,

And then we can move into the new day.

The Ability to Fall Down

Our bloody knees attest,

Despite our apparent mobility,

We’ve never learned to walk

Without falling down.

We stumble forward over the earth

Dragging our wreckage behind us.

Adding insult to injury

Seems to be our most cherished pastime

As we crash through to the future.

This ability to fall down

Is, perhaps, our saving grace?

If we pay attention

It keeps the playing field level,

Gives us the opportunity to offer a hand,

To accept one on our way back to our feet.

It gives us the vantage point

To notice the mess we’ve made.

It slows us down, giving time

To consider where we want to go from here,

How, maybe, we might want to do things different?

We Want

We want what we want,

Embedded deep,

Stitched into our psyches over years,

Generations of lack,

Wandering for epochs over the earth

Ever since we’ve had thumbs

To grasp and hold

To pick up the jaw bone of an ass,

Since we’ve had eyes

To see what looks good in our own eyes,

Since we’ve had mouths to consume,

Since we’ve had hearts to long,

To break in our little fragile chests,

To clothe in armor,

To hold our fear,

Since we’ve had toes

To feel the grass.

So many things we want.

So complicated to even get up

And open our eyes

And start it all up again.

Morning

I get up early for the silence outside

To hear the murmurs inside my head,

The strange quiet language just after sleep

That speaks of shadow things,

The wisp and gossamer trailing of thought

Fragile as mist.

They exist only in the early quiet

Floating through for an instant,

Skittish as tiny fish.

The slightest sound frightens them.

They wink out like soap bubbles

Leaving behind only enough

To let you know you missed some bright nymph,

Or the answer to something

You’ve been wondering about.

They are a ghost lover’s gentle caress

Leaving you wondering if it was just the wind?

Sunday Prayer

I am waiting to discover the way

To move from the spot I’m in,

Something besides moving my feet,

As that amounts to little progress.

I've been soliciting God for quite some time,

But all I hear are cryptic answers

Filtered through intermediaries

I don’t quite understand.

I know God is with me,

But I’m looking for something more tangible.

I want a hedge against the people pulling the strings,

Wreaking the economy, slashing the worth of my house,

And the options of my later years.

I’d like a little more space,

Room to breathe,

A place where moving my feet makes a difference,

Takes me out of my circles,

Takes me uphill to a place in the sun.

Political Gesture

Found guilty of tax fraud by Italy’s high court,

“What’s’a matter, you?” Silvio Berlusconi said.

“I no gotta follow your rules.”

The former prime minister and media mogul

Bit his hand

And pulled it from his mouth contemptuously.

Taking a break from his rigorous schedule

In his fundraising efforts for disadvantaged

Young women from around the world,

“Il Cavaliere” chided the Italian courts.

“This is the way you treat’a me

After all I’m’a done for you?”

He flipped his chin

With the back of his fingers at them.

“I spit on you,” he said.

“I’m in senate. You cant’a touch me,”

The Seventy-seven year old said.

“I die before I go to your filthy prison.”

Mister Berlusconi then made

An obscure Italian gesture

And stumbled from the podium.

Poem a Day Suspended for Outrage

The unprecedented speculation

That America would stoop so low

To use its Embassies as cover

To run clandestine operations out of

Comes as a shock and an outrage

To anybody who hasn't seen

A Hollywood spy movie in recent times.

Surely diplomatic immunity used for nefarious ends

Could only be countenanced by the Communist

Or evil Muslim countries

And not the nice ones like Kuwait,

Let alone freedom loving, God fearing America

And her allies, and subsidiaries.

It is unfortunate Poem a Day had to suffer

Due to these very serious speculations.

Poem a Day will endeavor to pull itself together,

To remain steadfast in its quest,

And not become jaded by such spurious allegations.

Evil Bankers Will Fall

I’m thinking of moving again

Despite the Wall Street cons best effort

To sabotage anybody that ain’t them,

Or their lackeys with the open pockets

In Washington and the smaller pockets elsewhere.

Despite corporate malfeasance screwing up the environment

I’m still hoping to find someplace to hike

Where it isn’t bad to get any of it on me.

Despite currant lending policy

To lend only to those who don’t need the money

I’m still hoping to get a decent price for my house

So I can buy something decent I can afford.

Despite the powers that think they be

I’m still betting their power is illusion

And there is something greater in charge

That knows who I am

And has my best interest at heart

So all the greedy bastards of the world

Best keep their eyes open

Because payback’s coming

And when you guys fall

I’ll probably have to hear about it later

After I come down off some mountain

In Tennessee or Georgia.