Hour 10
In the hush of the canteen
surrounded by rarely seen fir trees
along the concrete path to the university
with hot coffee in my cold hands
I make my way towards the fog
and early morning classes.
My Song
out of the fog’s hush, a moonbeam
I filled a canteen with coffee
went out to the concrete dock
under the fir
shelf fungi like ladder rungs
climbed up its trunk
damn! was all I could think
silently gloating in my solitude
After breakfast
The coffee at the canteen’s no damn good, you know
I think the supplier slipped the kitchen super
a bag of cement mixed with topsoil—
you’d think they’d have figured it out
when the shelf collapsed under the weight of the sack
But no, they kept it hush-hush
so Lieutenant Moonbeam won’t end up
scraping barnacles from a ship in drydock
They must figure the guys on guard duty
won’t care what they’re drinking
when it gets so cold the fog turns to ice
I hear Corporal Feynman used that slop
to cement a fir stump to the Lieutenant’s Lexus the other day…
(22 June 2019, Hour Ten)
Fog and Fears
I stand in the light of moonbeam
I slowly survey the dock
My gaze it turns into the fog
It sees the shadow of a concrete rock.
I take a sip of my coffee
From my battered, metal canteen
I stealthily move beneath a fir tree
To better hear what I think I’ve seen.
Hush! I tell the night sounds
So they don’t hide the noise
Of something crashing through the fir trees
Is it animal or is it boys?
I place my coffee on a shelf
Softly laughing at my fears
Because damn if that noise isn’t what I thought
But just a couple of deers.
Hour 10: Words–and Brew–of Choice
Even fog
knows to hush and still
until coffee.
It waits yet,
‘til I’ve had my full
canteen fix.
Moonbeams stretch
to touch my cup-fall,
caffeine flood.
Fir above
moon-glow, dockside lake,
bean-brew love
10 – Toad, Poet, Prince, a Story Poem
Lyrical Toad wrote like a blues man, like the blues man he was… meter, rhyme, meter, rhyme… If you can’t dance the slow boogie woogie to the blues, it aint the blues. Years and years of his life… meter, rhyme, meter, rhyme. Caught in the spokes of conformity.
Then Toad, from his horsehair lily pad thought, what if I stopped writing for the dancers in my head, and wrote foe the music in my soul instead? What if I stopped obeying all those rules, and just let words fall out of me, any words, all of the words? And, Toad closed his eyes and let himself go, no rules, no rhyme…
and for the first time in his life, he wrote about the night sky without using the words moon or stars, he wrote about joy without using the word happy, he wrote about Sarah without using the word beautiful, because he didn’t have to. The words told his every feeling, his every unchained emotion. No line lengths, no counting, just paragraphs of truthful, free poetry…
and Kerouac smiled over his coffee cup from wherever he was in the Universe at that moment, looked over, and saw that Ginsburg was smiling, too.
Your Own Gods
I have been ruminating
On the idea of personal pantheons
The people that we relied on
Who helped us
When we didn’t have anything
Who advised us
When we entirely fucked up
Who loved us
When we were at our worst
My first was an amputee with a huge laugh
Second, another amputee with a sharp tongue
From there, it was opinionated women
And men who loved the theater
Followed by motorcycle riders
Bartenders
Drunks
Thieves
And liars
They were not gods
They were far from perfect
They were not loved by everyone
And they were not always my favorites either
But they remain where I placed them
In my personal pantheon
I remember the lessons they taught me
The wisdom they shared
The love they gave me
And that I gave them
They remain the ones I whisper to
In the darkest hours of the night
The fog
Well, damn,
didn’t the fog descend so quickly
that morning?
It draped the little house
and the fir trees in its mist
and I felt such a peace in that hush,
alone, drinking my coffee
at that tiny kitchen table,
blissfully and tragically
unaware of your suffering.
Push Through
Why did I do I do this?
Was it because I thought I could deliver some creative justice
To a world that is hurting, its black and blue bruises starting to show through?
What made me think my voice could change anything?
What words could I string together- that would unite us in love?
I am tired.
I don’t want to go on.
This banner no longer something I want to carry.
I’m fairly certain this gibberish makes no sense.
I’ve got a show to do, so I’m off to get ready.
Folks, these hours are about to get heavy.
But I am a Johnson
And quitters we were not raised to be.
I do not give myself license to give up.
There is no permission granted to walk away.
On this course, I must stay.
Oh, but I’m tired and I long for the day
When I can put this marathon behind me
And just be
Me on my marry way.