one more

one more

---

I sure ain’t
No eagle,
But maybe I

Be a wren what
Lost her way
From flyin’ right.

---

I think

In my mind
Of a elevator:

I’m in a elevator,
A expressed one

What’s rushin’ down
An’ down an’ down,

I think.

An’ jus’ a few more
Floors waitin’ to pass …,

I think.

---

It be a fact
A thing go down.
Or it don’t.
Or maybe jus’
Look like it do
Or it don’t.

---

I apologize
Myself
What follow
Here: I tell
A triflin’ tale
What can’t be
Rightly telled.

                      ---barbsdad
---

the wind come
hard, big mouth
grabbin’ whatever,
dry-gum it up good,
on account it
w’out havin’ no
natural teeth
for t’chew
how it could might
otherwise ought’a.

then after all
what gummin’, spit it
out anywheres
an ever’wheres.

in one
dad-gum
all-fire
amp-on-
steroids
hurry.

an’ for
no reason
decent.

none.

that I
could see
for to get
the drift of
anyhows.

that damn craze
wind’d
rearranged street
dirts
an’ dusts,
an’ disgustin’
clutters
leaved by pinhead
litbugs
what pass for
reg’lar
ever’day humans
what might elseways
give a good damn.

(I apologize
myself for spoutin’
off this here
pen’a mine so blunt
as to spell down damn—

d-a-m-n—

so there’pon stressin’
nervous ears’n
sens’tive hearts’v
such as them
unrepen’ant
fraid’a-their-god
hard-core
Christian folkses.)

as if it’d—

meanin’
the damn wind with bad
attitude what
tooken
a’vantage’a me
all vu’nerable—

came all done with its
vacuumin’
when the collectin’
bag be all full past
thinkable
for suckin’ up more
for to tie up
an’ set down
for nex’ week’s
Waste Man’s
haulin’ truck
to trash
at city’s smell-
somethin’-too-
awful-for-words
dump.

that thug’v
a devil psycho
wind
w’out no conscience
to bother hisself
with,
the one had
my name on it
what’d give me
the tough-bully
abusin’
once-over
an’ make me more
considerate
discombobbly
withered
an’ haggard’n
per usual,
that ugly
wind what’d sweeped
in like a vig’rous
toilet-bowl flush
tryin’ to gulp-crump
me up
an’ clog its
sizable drain,
done die down.

(an’ it die w’out
no will leaved over
for probationary
courts to screw
round with.)

or jus’ leaved
at last a’ready,
leaved me sittin’
myself plumb chilled
right on that no-’count
no-name concrete
curb
with my left’n right
eye-coverin’
lids drawed down like
made-to-order
sandpaper shades
ablinkerin’
tight as glued
over fronts’a
them tormented
eyeballs
for to cause dried-up
squints
forcin’ skinny slits
tween uppers’n lowers—

what make me
kind’a hard’a
seein’,
if truth might could
honest be telled—

against the likely
the gnawin’ wind’d
tops-turv itself
right on back
after not bein’
done tired with me
even when it
by all decent
considerate
of rights should’a.

wasn’t gonna
hammer me no more,
I s’pect,
like a roarin’
drunk’n
disorientated
first’a-spring
woodpecker peckin’
on Mr. Cottonwood,
that wind.

what I could see
anyhows out from
under’n over
the back sides’a
them thirsty
lids plastered
hard onto
these stang-to-hell
redded-up eyes
like grit-lined plastic
stockin’ caps,
or skin-thin talc’d-up
gloves
meant required for
cuttin’-docs’
operatin’ use.

that meanin’ful wind
what’d barged up
all the sudden
at the start
an’ catched me
unawares
an’ oomph the lungs’a
my chest
out’a whole air
till they might
could breathe again,
it could might be
back least once
once more again.

but
only
if
reg’lar
bum-
tommyrot
luck hold
itself
stiff’n
steady
like it
do per
usual,
that is.

on a other hand,
maybe
my dratty thoughts,
them ones what
don’t never seem
to quit harassin’
my otherwise,
might do me
s’much favor’s
to go
as the flarin’
wrong wind what’d came
tearin’ through
so quick’n sharp
bonkers
and’d went gone
a’ready.

and
w’out so much
as a neighborly
drive bye-bye
first to announce
it agoin’
direct about
now.

meanin’
then.

then I
wouldn’t hafta
jot them peevin’
thoughts down
what haunt the head’s
attic story
no fu’thermore

(the same head
what’s like a surrey
w’out but a friggin’
fringe’a hairs thin,
like spider’s web’s
strings’a spider silk,
clingin’ delicate
most’a the way round
that shiner’s shabby-
flashin’ domey top
what bulges up all
vu’nerable
to when it pour rain
an’ blizz snow,
an’ fever sun
when it don’t—
b’lieve you me,
there be prices
to pay
for bein’ bean-bald
somethin’ fierce
as me);

they’d be gone,
them thoughts,
most to my
good riddance.

---

I
true
fancied
I’d
write
me
up
a
line
for
this
here

neopoet

(or maybe two—
or three? or more?
or more’n more,
even?)

of such righteous
words
of better’n triflin’
gimcracklike
poetical verse.

least once
one time
this wastin’ lifetime
what last too
long a’ready
for my everlastin’
long-sufferin’
earthy
critter comforts.

an’ w’out no
paintin’a-
my-lily-type
mollycuddlin’
be tolerated,
should whole’v
a truth
on a tiltin’
dangersome
tower’a Bibles
be willin’ telled.

---

didn’t come
out right.

a’course
it didn’t.
did not!

not not!

naturally
a’course.

nor like as won’t
from this now on,
if you’d might jus’
pardon
my look
of a pessimist
at such as them
there chicken
bones with crisped-up
turnips cuddlin’ up
intimate
tight nex’ to’m
w’out no
excuse for the snug.

at all.

---

tried to go

from
here
to
there

on some plain-
as-Jones,
nearabout-white
sheet’a paper
exact
where I’m pointin’
with my come-by-
natural-
trustwo’thy
pointin’
finger—

or was it

from
there
to
downright
right
over
to
here
on
the
first
page’v
a pad
not
a bit
used,
least
not
yet?—

but,
you know,
you know
somehow,

I
wound up
lost
some where
somewhere
someplace
else.

or maybe,
by the mind
of my closed-
up eye,
even elses.

---

can’t give none
the address
of the where.

even
the name
of potholey street
lyin’ flat-tire flat
aside
this cold-as-hell
grimed-up
deserty
curb
with cranny niches
by side
what all silted
up like
a mudded-up
river’s nastified
bottom.

or
even
at a place
in particular
on the lifeless
godfo’saken
up-at-top
page
intent for me
to be writin’
on,
the page what
ain’t been writ on
ever since
it be part’v
a alder tree’s trunk
aside
some crap-full-up
crick’n a wasted
woods.

or this
very
curbside
road’s
handy
crisscrosser
for to fix
the block
right
proper
on
a decent
enough
drag map
what it
could might
be
finded,
so to
put’r speak.

---

it’d
not rhyme
anyways
anyhows
any way

(even
like might
stupid bug
go with
ugly ugh—
or maybe
messed-up rug
or dumb Doug),

in no way
special
or proper
what I could
look out for.

neither
the where
of the where
now I need
to coze-warm
an’ plent’ful rest
my chillin’
bod.

nor
the where
of the where
on the new
blanky-blank
paper sheet
atop the notepad
what looks
so froze achy
an’ bent
all crook
like it wantin’
some markin’
or marrin’

with some
thing,
with
somethin’
or other,
a splotch
maybe.

or maybe
p’raps even
a trace
of a thing

less
than
whole
empty.

a smell
p’raps
maybe.

or
a taste
of it.

or least
a notion
of a sound.

or notion
of a notion
of a sound.

or feel.

or slim-
pinched
tang
of its
most
faintest
insides
sense.

a hint,
or hint of
a hint,
the barest;

an inklin’.

a plain
bald one.

or.

if you
could only
know
what I
mean
by what
I think
I might
be
sayin’
here.

---

who know
really?

who really
know?
really,
really know?

or dig
out
the what
of it?

or least
the point
of why.

or.

I know
I don’t.

when all’s be
done said’n done,
too much be
scar-writ on
my drug-out
life for
to set on
some ol’ sissy
page anyhows.

---

think
I’ll break
myself
for now,

put away
my sorrified
poop-out
Bic stick
of a pen,

sit on this
wind-blowed
all
dust-up
roadside
curb
cold-cramped

a
drawed-
out
lone
spell,

catch my breath,
calm my heart,
comfort my
stunged-up skin,

and
blow
that
last
dawdlin’
no-‘count
baloney
whangdoodle
of a useless
thought,

that
oh-so-
total
worthless
thought,

right out’v
what pass for
the ol’ brain
midst the numskull
tween the ears.

expire it,
perish it.

give it
the heave-ho
with
a gizzard’s
bustin’
send-off
by
trompin’
clompy-boot
stomp
or  two

what by its head’a
steam leaves the word to
ever’one what might
be watchin’
it do mean its
business.

yeah.

you know,
as a fittin’
stomp off’a somethin’
like those scruffy
ankle-guardin’
Timberjacks—

what see’d more’n
a smatch’a miles
hikin’ an’ such
a’ready a’course—

bought fresh
sour-smellin’ off
a fusty
Salvation Army
peakin’ shelf
in the nooked-up
corner
mark for shoes
price to ready-sell
at twenty-five
percent
seniors’ discount
last We’nsday
mo’nin’ too much
bright’n early
for younger folkses
to be at
more reg’lar
sensible shoppin’.

then maybe—

and only
jus’ maybe,
I s’pect—

by the use’v
a different-
colored,
different-smellin’,
different-shape’a
pen
what’s not chewed on,

least not yet,

one nipped
disgustin’ cheap
fresh off a frazzed-
clerk’s countertop—

right nex’
to’s  ding-dong clanker
of a ol’ cashin’
register
what b’long throwed
in a ditch,
to be frankfurt
true-tellin’,
by a country road
somewhere’r t’other—

with its
hoped-to-be
runnin’
supply of
bodacious
bitchin’-dark
ink

what, a’ready
been started,
oughta gush
itself proper
no matter how slight
the press-down
pains

when poke along
by
its swole-up store
of
pretendin’
goodwill …

enough’a the ink,
natch,
with more’n
my reg’lar share’a
favorin’ luck
to last the whole
of the drug-
out left-over
length what’s left
of the day
still standin’
all stooped over
till the bedtime
comin’ hereabouts
an’ meet the sleepy—

but
only
when
spread
out
in
too
thin
scratch
lines

on too
willin’-
to-waste-
itself
blanked-up
no-line
paper …

well,
might as
well
allow
as how
I’ll try
again,

I tell myself
all hurtin’
soberlike
w’out
no
obnoxious
hog-tie
smile
to over-
wide
my face
for to
horn in
and
argufy
the matter
and
hatch up some
cranky
uncalled-for
doubt.

I’ll try
again
again.

again
from
a other
where.

from
a other
hard
at
chillin’
no-name
curb,

from
some
fresh
thought
come
out’a
some
some
where

some-
where
where
else
ever
that
I
ain’t.

---

yet,
that is.

least
not
yet.

not yet.

least
not.