It’s All Good

It isn’t so bad

Really

It’s just one of those things

One of those moments in life

One of those steps you take

One of those mountains you fall off of

You know where you hit rocks with your head

You break a leg or two

Blood streaming down your face

One of those things

Like when you go for a swim

And the tide carries you out

And you end up in the middle of the ocean

Far away from everything

Treading water to save your life

Waves holding you in place

One of those things

Those places

Nothing much

Really it’s all good

Completely

It happens,

It’s one of those steps you take

It’s just one of those things

Seriously

It’s all flipping flocking fine

Nothing to worry about here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autobiography of a Face

Her lines had become creases now,

Deep caverns of deeply rooted emotion

Scarring what had once been pristine skin

Each line was a memory,

the painful emotional divorce,

the lost child taken without a chance to fight,

the loss of parents and grandparents that made her

feel like an orphan even in old age

Loneliness across her jowl

Years of unquestioned worry on her brow

The gray hair that fell in deep snowy mountains

when she cut her hair

It was all there

Lost lovers torment

The suicide that never went away

The victimizing and the victim

The deep love, the unrequited crushes

Harsh words that cut her skin

Black memories that became craters

Her eyes sunk low from years of tears

Her smile cultivated but hardly real

Each day longer than the one before

Taking the blood and sweat and turning them

Into pale lips and ghostly skin

She wore it all

Proudly

Without makeup

Her wrinkles were her own

No one could take them

No one could iron them

No one could rearrange them

They told her life’s story

 

 

You Expect Me to What?

Fuck, are you serious?

You expect me to set a timer?

I don’t have one

Well actually I do,

On my phone but I hate doing that.

How about I just write for like five minutes,

Screw the editing,

Straight from the brain

Buku crazy stuff that makes no sense.

That is how I write most of my poetry after all.

I know, I gotta be more open minded

I guess five minutes out of my life isn’t so bad,

God knows I am giving you

Twenty four hours of my life

The least I could do is give you five minutes.

But the fifteen for editing?

That’s pretty extreme.

Oh wait, I forgot to set the timer.

Is it five minutes yet?

I have no idea, no concept of time

Ah hell, failed already.

Next prompt please?

We Need

We need a Spanish conquistador

No reason

I just like saying it

Like guacamole or serendipity

 

We need a pagan ritual

I’m not pagan

But dancing in the nude

via a full moon

could be interesting

 

We need a time-stopping machine

Not to stop time

Just to make savory moments last longer

Like good ice cream or passionate kisses

 

We need world peace

the permanent kind

Everyone, everyday

from here through eternity

 

I’ll give up the rest if we can have that.

If not, well I’ll be in the moonlight

savoring my ice cream

Looking for my conquistidor

 

 

The Sun

archway

It’s a great picture

It really is

Tall gray-stoned wall

Reaching around a sweet meadow scene

A happy tree waving at you

But the picture is over exposed

Really, the sun did not cooperate

It just shows up there

Ruining the whole scene

 

The sun is like that

You go to a beach

Lying in the soft sand

playing peek-a-boo with a sand crab

Who watches you warily shifting

side to side to side

When bam the the sun shows up

peeking out from behind a soft cloud

All narcissistic and hot

The sweat rolls into your eyes

The crab is disappointed because you stop playing

Suddenly you have to get wet or go home

Melting isn’t your thing

But you were having fun, the crab was having fun.

WTF?

 

Or maybe you’re out driving

swirling around the mountain

Trying to keep your lane and enjoy the scenery

When the sun decides to come down

right into your line of vision

and the visor and your special tinted glasses,

even your trusty ever present

hand shield just aren’t enough

You should pull over or risk killing someone

But you drive anyway, squinting until you resemble

a big gerbil with wrinkles

You try your wipers, you adjust that visor

You look for an out and as soon as you get one

There it is again.

The sun just laughs and shines away

It likes you to cower under its power.

 

Oh sure it gives way to the moon,

the darkness takes over

The sun runs off to bother other people,

Other sandcrabs and other witless drivers

But it’s memory stays with you so much so

That you almost look forward to dawn

But that damned sun decides it owns everything

Just like that overbearing lover

you wish had just stayed away

It pushes itself back everyday like well,

that overbearing lover you wish had stayed away

 

We do have air conditioning and

our nicely built structures built around that coolness

But the sun just sits and waits. Always waiting

It knows you have to come out sometime

And when you do, well you know the rest.

 

Say you really need it though,

Dead of winter where it has been

cloaked by deep gray clouds for weeks

It just stays out of reach

Won’t even peek at you

It won’t warm you

it won’t come out to ease your frostbite

or to help you scrape that windshield.

No the sun is a bastard like that. It’s manipulative.

 

I know the sun is necessary, like taxes or death or jobs

I do wish had back all those nice over-exposed pictures its ruined,

If I could get back those nice cool beach days

Maybe sit and bask in a rain-shower just a few minutes longer

I wouldn’t mind so much

You know if it would just cooperate

Work with us

Nope, the sun isn’t like that

It just sits there shining and expects you to revolve around it.

 

 

Poem 6

Poem six. Already out of ideas

What should I write about?

 

They are planning a human head transplant

So who exactly does the thinking

The old person or the new head?

 

The cops busted kids with a koolaid stand

Guess the real criminals weren’t available

Kids are so out of control these days

 

Someone figured out how to fry coke.. coca cola

Not the other stuff, I am sure someone has fried the other stuff

They have definitely been fried by it

Frying coca cola sounds kind of sticky

 

If we have to fry things how about fried coffee?

Seems more to my liking

Wait I think I saw a recipe for fried Starbucks

Or baked Starbucks or

A rolled Starbucks fried pastry

How soon can I get it at an actual Starbucks?

I don’t cook.

 

Rue McClanahan’s death went viral

Five years after she died

That Rue has staying power

Wonder what her next sitcom will be?

 

Caitlyn Jenner wore hot thigh high boots

Not extremely interesting

But I had to look

I wasn’t impressed

Thigh highs are completely impractical in Hawaii

Unless you’re fishing.

I don’t think Caitlyn plans

To use them that way

If she does it will make the news

 

Apparently some celebrity is with their old girlfriend

Another is pregnant

Another may be getting a divorce.

Another is on his deathbed

You know, the usual gossip. Insert names

 

Only poem 6 huh….we have how many more to go?

 

 

Writer’s Getaway

I am making a lovely writer’s getaway

On the back lanai

There are palm trees and green grass

And our broken Christmas Amaryllis

Lost to the wind

I pull out the big brown vinyl chairs

Using a towel to clean them

The towel turns dirt red

It’s been awhile

The bougainvillea greet me

They dance in deep purple and

cheery red, and dainty orange

I clean off a spot for a computer and notebook

I smell the fresh morning air

Just a hint of ocean, flora

Plumeria and papaya

This will be amazing.

 

I finish my task

Excited

I recheck everything,

repositioning chairs

wiping a missed spot

the true beauty around me takes my breath away

I cannot understand why I

stay inside

 

A large carpenter bee appears

Dive bombs at me

I duck and weave

He buzzes my ear

Hissing a warning

Reminds he has friends

Lots of them

 

I slither inside

 

Writer’s getaway abandoned

I hope the bee enjoys his retreat.

 

Morning

The birds sing their morning crescendo

Telling each other

Their lofty plans for the day

Smoofy comes in from catting around

He settles into his tower for sleep

I make a second cup of coffee

The sky takes on a soft pink

The day begins softly

The garbage truck rolls

Picking up the load from yesterday

I stretch my tired and worn body

Remembering my youth

Remembering how the days ahead

Are less than the days behind

The lights go off

The sun and the birds sing the morning together

Smoofy is oblivious

I wonder how many mornings

I will have ahead

Will I use them well

Or am I a bird chirping lofty ideals

In the early morning light?

Am I a day late garbage truck?

Am I the pink morning lost

When the afternoon sun swelters?

Am I the second cup of coffee

Looking for that charge?

Maybe I am all of it

An early morning

In the late summer of my life

Searching for lofty ideals

 

Dreaming

Instead of sleeping

 

Boxes

(inspired by David L. Wilson’s poem)

Boxes

I have known several

My Dad was the first

All neatly encased when I got there

The work already done

I lifted him up

We all did

He was light

Hard to imagine

A whole life in one small box

Carefully sealed

 

Later he would sit next to an American flag

Encased with his medals

A veteran with honors

But not heroism

Just a lifetime of being a hero

 

Next would be Mom

I drove her home myself

Feeling like I should drive slowly

No speeding

No radio

I had to be respectful

Worried that she might fall on the floor

Even in death I worried about her

It was hard to stop

 

She would sit next to my Dad

High on a bookshelf

Where the cats wouldn’t knock them

And the kids wouldn’t pull them down

The boxes were covered

With Grandma’s embroidery

I would ceremoniously wash

Every few weeks

Dusting the shelf and thinking of them

Wondering how they were

 

Stacie was like an anomaly

Passed around as we discussed death

Her death sudden and unsettling

She was heavy

much heavier

Her bones still strong and full

When she passed.

She too found a shelf

And a place.

I would visit sometimes

And wish I could change things

 

Perhaps scattering would come

One day for all of them

The boxes, small complex

The remnants of a whole life

Unceremoniously transformed to ash

And memories

 

Memories I would write about

Memories collected

That would one day be a box

Someone will toss in the trash

After I am placed on a shelf

Away from cats and kids

Collecting dust.

 

Poems

Good morning

To be honest

My head is underwater

It always is when I write

Like I am swimming

Drowning in thoughts

Using the breast stroke

To maneuver through

Massive amounts of momentum

Not my treasure island

More like soft moonlight

After hours

A night of drinking

Hung over with ideas

Blurbs in my brain matter

The inevitable crash or vomiting

At party’s end

Sometimes I would love

To see a word

Make it my friend

Let it go

But instead it envelopes me

A sea drowning me

Water encasing me

Filling my lungs

Like a disgruntled lover

Taking over my soul

To be honest

Cheerful mornings

Not my thing

Night is more me

Hell not even soft moonlight

I am like a cloud filled night sky

Exploding in stars

Just out of reach

Foggy and barely visible.

I hold my head, my eyes water

Still drunk

But not remembering how to be sober

Knowing these words

Are just a one night stand

Tricking me into believing

They really mean something