one day to tallahassee
two to yosemite
one to portland
day n a half to denver
border to border
coast to coast
big thumb

eight fucking days
contemplation
along I-35
70 out o kans's city
that reeks o carcass
rot n dog food
okie even worse
       seein images
       masks n
       license plates

On southern wind this early morn
comes a chill late autumn rain
tapping castanets upon my hat
in monotonous refrain.

Each time a drop hits colored leaf
it knocks it loose from summer home
sending it to join its kin
among the dampened duff and loam.

The ground beneath each different tree
is covered in its own bright hue
and flattened further by the rain.
A quilted multi-colored view

Life finally tuned..

There’s a space in my mouth where
a tooth used to be I can feel it with
the tip of my tongue.
There are sounds on my mind
where no sounds used to be
especially when I was young.

There’s a giant belly down there where
no belly ever was I can barely see
the end of my toes. There are things I do
now that I never did before like squirting
medicine up inside of my nose

it was my haunted eyes
and pale skin
"Little white bastard"
I had no name for the three
months my mother cared for
me
the near fatal crash in the
station wagon at the crossing
the broken lamp in the operating
room

they gave me babies to hold
and objects of the dead when
I returned and I listened patient
feeling the touch of that shadow
across my soul

A sparkle from an eye,
As the other winks approval.
He sees you and is happy,
With all the work you do.

The festive spirit,
Lives inside of you.
Giving from your heart,
Is what it means to you.

Happy you are,
For family and friends.
Even of those,
From way back when.

The merry man's wink,
Is all you need.
Happy holidays to you,
Your whole life through!

They refuse to change their stance
Many more Shakespeare’s are needed,
If poets need to flourish

Remove the don’t do this,
Don’t do that tags,
No blog poems,
No comments to be converted into poetry
Are all indicators of idiosyncratic?
Cradled and saddled
As well as saddened minds
Albeit
I am sorry to say so…

A poet in order to survive
Should be like a vast desert,
A vast ocean,
Spread across eternity,
If you want poetry to survive
In today’s limited environment

Statistics.

Statistics don't lie
though the truth is relatively
forgotten in revisionist history.

There were no weapons of mass destruction
no one cut the puppet strings
until someone pulled the lever and he
dangled in the air, breathless and motionless.

Casualties.

Cold the steps of coin..

They sit on cold steps of coin,
undemanding types demanding
an unequal gap in our lives be
closed, we from the comfort of
suburbia sleepwalk to a certain
death not physical, but a stifling
end of thought and dream
un apposed

Killed off by rhetoric from a square
shape in the corner, never hearing
live the speech makers or standing
shoulder to shoulder with a
questioner’s mike.

How I wish I could benefit too,
Just by reading you,
Why have you taken?
A long spell to return

"Where [is] all the midnight oil
[That] you [burned]?"

In alleys and valleys,
Entwined, intermixed with joys and sorrows,
But whatever may have been your plight
Morrow after morrow,
It must have added to your strength
From which I dare to borrow
And your footsteps follow

It was captain Macfarty the head of the party
Commander of ship and of crew
Who ordered “set sail” in pursuit of the whale
That was known as Kahuna Kalloo
It was huge it was quick and its scent made you sick
For it smelled just like octopus poo
It was big it was large ’bout the size of a barge
Though, some people would swear it was two