The Poetry Marathon

My boy is four

He has a five o’clock shadow

at 11 AM

I stand him on the sink

and we shave together

Of course his beard is made of pudding

(yes, like father like son)

so it comes off easily after a decent soak

He likes the shaving cream though

so i give him my butter knife to use

Well, hell, I let him shave me too

gotta earn that four-year-old allowance

somehow

Mower

rattle of ceiling fan on high speed

hammering of stakes metal to metal

squeak of my chair

click of mouse

snap tap of keys

birds in trees

chip chip

craw craw

audience roar of distant waves

there they are the clacking of palm fronds tapping in the breeze

me sucking my teeth

a plane moving past bowling from north to south

a thunk from our wrap-around neighbor’s property

back to dragging a heavy flat with jangling chains

across the bare dirt next-door

grinding of tires on gravel

backhoe deep metal clank

another mower stereo mowers

the sound of gooseneck light shuddering as I jiggle my leg on the floor

does the light make a sound?

the garage downstairs worrying

the sound of me waiting for the mail carrier to pick up

Sally’s birthday card and lower the flag of the mailbox

beating the odds to Georgia by Wednesday

too early they begin this morning

machines pushing dirt back and forth

steel jangling hard next-door

a make-work project

mailbox laden

with dusted

raindrops

now

his uniform was the color of gumboots

as long as gumboots are green

this forest ranger was in a predicament

as the red spread redder and wider across his shirt

and his insides protruded like sourdough

the storefront of his glasses clouded over

he heard the bear scuff across the porch and away

Carl found the cradle of his elbow and rested

and dreamt of leftover rhubarb pie

In a parallel universe somewhere

my doppelganger sits at a laptop

buzzing and clacking away

At least one of us

is producing

more than just sweat

It is what it is

not what we wished it dear Ms.

I say we when I mean me

for I must not assume thee

and me have the same desires

or similar fires

to be stoked

or toked

it is what it is?

non-attachment ’tis

just live in the moment

no wanting to foment

all this in roundabout you see

I simply name it tautology

it was the future today

books were scary

gave too many

too many ideas

so firemen set fires

burned books to protect

those who needed to be protected

and called it all of society

but our modest band of heroes

were not buying that lie

they hid in cold snowy woods

they held in their minds

libraries

they had memorized books in their heads

and spoke the words out loud

to practice remembering

and the dying taught the young

a freezing boy was Great Expectations

and God help us all in the future

if he and Pip should

forget the words

summer of ’85

ocean city t-shirt asked

WHY BE NORMAL?

written upside down

I carried the folding chair under my arm

ambled down to the stop sign

and hung a slow left onto Ukali Street

My waddle paused at the grassy shoulder

to examine the local color

a bookcase offering the odd slipper

Da Slippah Library

for when one side broken

but da other side still good

Nearby where the street emptied

into the Pacific Ocean

I set up my chair facing the trades

the sun to my back

planted my butt

contemplated the sea-flung piles of driftwood

and wondered how much my missing gall bladder had weighed

I spied a perfectly smooth little egg of a stone

aside my foot

hefted the tiny thing

decided that was about right

and slipped it into my shorts to

commemorate the organ

and this modest jaunt

the nurse had recommended

the coffee’s cold

the ice is hot

I wonder where my muse has got