WoRdS aRe My DrUg Of ChOiCe

Poem #2-2012 Parts

2012-01-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

In suffering silence

wounded warriors

exist without:

arms

legs

hands

feet

But whither the

less obvious parts?

innocence

compassion

trust

hope

Missing limbs

are still felt

(they say)

But when innocence

and the like are lopped away –

Is there a residue?

Psychic scars must surely

outlive the corporeal

Ask a ghost

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.

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Poem #1-2012 You Are Not Your Body

2012-01-03T11:51:00.001-08:00

Unless you are some

Hollywood aberration

you did not make your nose

you didn’t have anything to do

with your hair’s perfection

the shape of your ass

the size or your tits

(or the size of your cock, for that matter)

and unless you’re some mad scientist,

you didn’t instruct your genes

toward society’s ideal

So why do you feel so

RESPONSIBLE for it all?

As if all of that is you?

I’d rather know if you’d

take in a stray kitten

or tell a cashier they undercharged you

or put a quarter in a stranger’s expired parking meter

or leave a waitperson a big tip “just because”

or cry at sad movies

or remember your first kiss

or if you have a quirky habit only you know about

or got the point of this poem . . .

Yair!

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #16-2011 A Promise Kept

2011-12-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

A Promise Kept
for Cindy but not for Bob

I wrote a poem once. and it was a good poem
as I recall
but I don’t know where it went at all
I mean – not where the paper I wrote it on went
(Hell, I’m sure it went the way of my baseball cards – unmercifully bent)
I mean
where did that passion go?

Is it gone forever?
For. Ever.

One summer
Between schooling
A promise made
A promise kept: a poem each day

Hand-delivered first day back
must have been 90 or so:June-July-August

My pay a thank you
and seeing her walk down the hall holding hands with my mortal enemy
poetless soul-less blond hunk of fiery loin-grinding nemesis

didn’t keep a copy (pre-Xerox)
never saw them again

Her?

Once – lame class reunion
didn’t have the balls to ask

I rather think that good poem was in that batch
and now it’s in her
but tomorrow it will be in me again This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #15-2011 The Artist

2011-12-20T11:33:00.001-08:00

The Artist

Loneliness would be

lonely

here

a vase sits

empty

but for a

dried-up paintbrush

you once used

to create me

from where

I hadn’t been

I miss your hands

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #14-2011 Family Truth

2011-12-13T12:34:00.001-08:00

Family Truth

Some of the time – not nearly enough -
I bite the tongue of nurture.
Instead,

I disavow mother’s acerbic conditioning,
I reframe father’s dour aphorisms about growing old being “bad business,” and
I pretend brother actually saw me.
Instead,

I rely on surrogate family:
Some are flesh-and-blood,
but most are images conjured from eternal words
by inspirational authors dead and alive.

Embracing the latter,
I unleash the tongue of truth.

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #13-2011 Anger

2011-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

Anger

I am an angry, angry man.
But you have no right, she says
(cue Pollyanna list of “blessings”).
What she does not see,
what you do not see,
what I only feel
has no name. It sleeps in
cold gray solemnity
but burns to life with
each bell tolled with
each softness violated with
each mad injustice
reaped in damnable misery for
sake of
the state for
the family for
the business for
the earth

Its perpetuation
is my anger
is my
is . . . .
me.

I am anger.

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #12-2011: The Rudder and the Rock

2011-11-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

The Rudder and the Rock
   for Crystal

       He who will not answer to the rudder
           will answer to the rock.
              -Cornish proverb

I am not completely sure
if you are my rudder
or my rock

Indeed
until I wrote these words
I had not made the connection
between this
        a favorite inscription
        (on the Forum building in Harrisburg)
and your (thankfully)
lasting admiralty over my soul

A sailor might disagree
with my conclusions

But I think you are
sometimes one
sometimes a little of both
               and sometimes neither as fits the weather

I accept your steerage—
what little is possible with a nearly scuppered old craft like me

and I do fear the rock in you
that it might crush me
or keep me lashed tight to pier
        and so be ravaged by some pending gale
or worse:      that I might not keep its steady anchor

Others
have gone on to new commissions
but I’m hoping you’ll
stay on for the whole voyage (even though I am a
     1955 wooden-hulled inboard –
     maintenance required)

Between us we know
both rudder and rock
sufficient to weather
each looming storm
every sun-drenched span

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Poem #11-2011: Were It Today

2011-10-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

Were It Today

I remember your musky sweet smell
and cannot think of any possible
way to make that sound romantic

You colored your hair
very dark against your creamy white skin

Back then, that made you a “slut”
Were it today, no one would notice

My friends did not support my choice in you
Regrettably, I succumbed to their smallness
and not to your sweet passion

I’ve since learned to resist the web of others,
learned to spin my own destiny

Were it today
I might be smelling you on
the pillow beside me
this cold sad morning

Were it today

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
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Jack's Ghost: A Kerouac Poem by Rick Dale

2011-10-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

JACK’S GHOST

I trippled down Adler –
Adler, you know, Kerouac Alley
San Fran, between Vesuvio’s and
City Lights, mecca for a beat –
Anyway I was trippling, man
Trippling
(if that makes any sense
– that’s two p’s by the way)
and it’s the only
word can describe walking
where my heroes walked
and wrote and drank and yelled
and all the rest

Wow! It made me high just being there
And of course I was fantasizing about seeing Jack
hanging around, maybe leaning up against
the brick wall mural outside the bar
sketching in a notepad
like it was 1947
wearing a flannel shirt, work pants, black railroad shoes
Yair! (That’s beat for an emphatic “Yes”)
I.was.ready.for.anything
ANYTHING!

But the alley was empty
except for some tourists taking pictures
of each other and I ended up sitting on the floor
upstairs in City Lights
cross-legged and
reading Mexico City Blues (again)
and just about the 103rd chorus
I heard a sexy gone voice behind me
whisper a breathy "Who’s your favorite?"

Without looking to see my angel in waiting
I wrote "Kerouac" on a blank page
in my little black notebook,
like the kind I imagine Jack used
but it was a Moleskine and he’d never spend
that much on a notebook, you know
but just the same I
stuck my pen in the fold
and passed it behind me without looking
I felt it taken out of my nervous hand

An eternity fell on my shoulders
until a giggle, a sweet silky titter of a laugh
Too afraid, I didn’t look back
Something touched my shoulder
I reached and felt my notebook
The pen was still in it
I looked inside and there
under Jack’s name was written
"I was here"
I turned around to see
my beat angel –
There was no one in sight . . .
Whoever, whatever was one fast
move beyond gone

You can bet I won’t forget
that trip anytime soon
not even in the jangly
railyard earth of Jack’s
darkest road fantasies

This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #13.
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Poem #10-2011 Grace

2011-09-27T05:50:00.001-07:00

Grace

What does it mean to
"grow old gracefully"?
And, do I have to?
Dad sort of did (I think)
But I remember him
advising - repeatedly -
"Don't grow old. It's bad business."

So now with that script
running in my head, I resist
"What is"

Things I can't do any more
(too frustrating to list here)
Things wrong with my body
(too depressing to list here)
Loved ones and friends dead
(too many to list here)

Kerouac said
"That nothin' means nothin' is
the saddest thing I know"

I wrote this poem in hopes
of carthartic release
but now I'm lower than before
and that mystical state of gracefulness
seems further away than ever
seems an impossible task
seems . . . inauthentic

I know what to do:
Tap into my Welch roots and
"rage, rage against
the dying of the light"

Now...what does it mean to "rage"?

This poem written
for and contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #9-2011: Quantum Mechanics

2011-08-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Quantum Mechanics

Soaringly sad
I pop open the nearest book
News of the Universe
Rilke writes of living life
in “growing orbits”
circling for a thousand years
not knowing if he is
falcon, storm, or song

Sadness lifts -
replaced by awareness
and something else . . .

A question?

What is that knowing
that poets know?
And why do I forget
(again and again)
that I am my feelings
and they are not separate
from me?

When I am sadness
and the “I” disappears
then it doesn’t matter
if I am falcon, storm, or song

I am all three, and none of them
at once
I am that quantum particle that
cannot be located
circling forever

and it doesn’t matter

This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #6
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Obscurity

2011-08-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

The formula: write a sentence for obscurity
Yes o.b.s.c.u.r.i.t.y.

Then: make some reference to an ancient tome
or classic poem
that only the nattering narcissists
recognize

Finish: with a flourish
or a surprise or a twist
but make it something oh so very clever

read the entire mess
aloud to someone with
no objectivity
who would swoon (or feign swooning)
at even a sophomoric rhyme
just to keep you

I spent that night learning not to love you:
your contemptible creamy olive skin
those dreadful morning lake smooth eyes
the vile way your soft lips fit mine

I can’t be kept
Can’t be fooled
My heart knows a bad poem
and it knows a bad love

Even one that flames high
for a time . . .
like ours

So like a bad poem, you are

relegated to
that corner place
where couplets and starlets
dance the night away

In obscurity

This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #5
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Poem #8-2011

2011-08-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

ROCK CLIMBING

The crack
in the looming
mesa
defines me,
reminds me:
Challenge sought freely
always repays,
failure hard-earned
never disappoints

I pull –
hard!
(not straining)
draining muscle,
refilling spirit
Does one
feed the other?

Upward...
I am stone
my focus pure
Only this perfect
fluid moment
No past, no future

Old struggles,
anticipated victories
wait for cold beer
we’ll drink,
telling lies
on the tailgate
of my patient pick-up truck

This poem written
for and contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #7-2011

2011-07-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

Buzz's Horses

Suicide bombers
strew body parts
in every direction

Parents beat a child mercilessly
make her eat dog feces
and lock her in a trunk to suffocate

"Soldiers" rape anything female
regardless of age and then mutilate
their vaginas with bayonets

Thousands of refugees
huddle together in a foreign country
waiting to die of hunger

A man goes on a rampage
killing 76 fellow humans
because he disagrees with their politics

Politicians play chicken with the economy
because of one party’s obsessive
hatred of a non-white President

All this and more
and over in neighbor Buzz’s corral
the horses aren’t bothered at all

Frank Zappa and The Cloud-Guy

2011-07-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Herewith, one of my favorite quotes about religion from one of my favorite nonconformists:

If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.

~Frank Zappa

Poem #6-2011

2011-06-17T06:47:00.001-07:00

Wellsboro

We used to wander the summer streets at night
our parents convinced we were having
a sleepover above Joe's garage
(or in Tommy's backyard)
which indeed is where we slept - eventually

Joe's parents would check on us toward "bedtime"
We would act dutifully sleepy or adolescently annoyed
to get them to leave without suspicion
After waiting the appropriate amount of time
we quietly slithered away down dimlit streets,
dressed in black and stealthily (or so we thought)
keeping to the shadows

In those innocent days, the grocery stores
had their baked goods and fruits
delivered in the middle of the night and left outside
- with no security at all!
We learned the delivery times
and we learned that they packed the sweeter offerings
(like Ring Dings, Yodels, and Twinkies)
under the neatly arranged loaves of bread

Watermelons were always fair game

One night another band of brigands
left a trail of rinds right to our encampment
(we always thought it was on purpose)
When we returned from our own foray
Sergeant Wilcox was waiting for us
Granted, we were guilty, but it was still an injustice
and I never could stand watermelon after that

Once we hatched a scheme to break into the huge empty
haunted mansion on the corner by the town park
But we never followed through on that one
Tommy returned one night
from a solo mission,
huge red stop sign in one hand and crescent wrench in the other
While we were duly impressed with his bravery,
I don't remember what he did with it

Fortunately, somewhere inside our quasi-delinquent brains
lurked enough common sense to distinguish
between youthful tomfoolery and true crime
We never even thought about stealing a car
but in retrospect I'm glad I never read
about Neal Cassady until much later in life

Forty-five years later
I sometimes walk around the house after dark,
pretending I'm someplace I shouldn't be
The memories of comrades-in-arms
executing precision raids
come flooding back and, for a brief moment,
I forget I'm an old man:
I am that fearless young marauder
thumbing his nose at rules,
living dangerously, taking risks
in the seductive midnight hours
when proper folks are asleep in bed

Even the sickly smell of watermelon
is a welcome tribute to a simpler time
when desperate friends rallied around a common cause
for no other reason than the thrill of adventure

What happened to our resolve?

Poem #5-2011

2011-06-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

"Don't use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry."

So Kerouac said
Once again an explanation
from the past of the future
Which is now
Which is always

Electrical vibrations
evaporate forever
into that place
whence they came

But a poem!
A hand-penned
(or typed on a manual)
poem communicates
fully
intimately

Patiently

Poem #4-2011

2011-04-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

A Poem for “Governor” Paul LePage
by Rick Dale

To our petulant pompously presumptuous postulant potentate
Who perniciously proposes Presidential perdition
Who prevented poetic participation in his political pomp
Whose predecessor now appears profusely polished
Who prattles about his plutocratic pursuits
Who prefers people press lips to his portly posterior
Who pines to poison preschoolers with plastic
Who perpetuates patriarchy
Who pilfers paintings to piss off the populace, then plays in paradise
Who proffers preferential privileges for the presently prosperous

Pardon my peevishness
But I pray and plead:
Promptly part from your political position
Please!

Poem #3-2011

2011-03-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

What to say?
What to do?
How to make sense
of so much
at once?
Heartache swells.
Suffering shall
not subside
without a fight.
Please,
helplessness,
do not paralyze
us with your
icy grip.
The Buddhist monk
says, "Surrender."
I slay him
dead by his first teacher.
Onward.
To Wisconsin, Ohio, Libya,
and too many other places -
some known, many not.
More powerful than an
army's march said Hugo.
I hope that's true.

Poem #2-2011

2011-01-26T06:28:00.001-08:00

In our culture
we hear
"He was thinking with the wrong head"
to explain a misguided dalliance

Men know that is a lie

In the warm shower -
even with the slippery advantage
of lavish suds -
there is no reaction
to the most knowing self-touch
unless the mind engages first

The penis is simply an emissary
awaiting instructions

Like most things
It starts and ends with the mind

Poem #1-2011

2011-01-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

Who is to say?
Placeholder? Maybe.
Or perhaps it's a big
bony fist right up your ass
and you don't even know it

Right reverence
is owed.
Your snarky blathering
reveals all

When someone steps up,
and you do not,
sit back
and
shut the fuck up

There will be a next time

Poem #27-2010

2010-12-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

2010 was.
As 2009, 2008
and so on
Blurry as usual

Some hopes were crushed
aspirations fulfilled
pettinesses punished
kindnesses returned

Love remained a varying constant
Aggravations - self-induced - appeared and
then were forgotten

Someone asked,
"What was your year's most memorable moment?"
Since one does not jump out,
does that mean I didn't have one
or that it was an endless stream of bliss?

I had some pretty damn good orgasms
and that's not insignificant
But, you can't talk about that in polite company
Sorry

Getting tenure was an upside moment
Spending time with my son and meeting his girlfriend
Seeing Crystal's face when I bought her flowers
Playing at a big festival
Reading
Swimming nude on deserted Green Island
The new addition to the house, and the deck
Charlie's book winning first prize
My new banjo arriving
My song catching a record exec's attention
Surgery going well

It's trite but at this point
not seeing myself in the obits
is a pretty memorable
and daily moment

We'll just say it was a good year
Tempered by the knowledge that -
for many -
it was another drawn-out nightmare

Perspective alternatingly
thrills or saddens

A lot of ups
a lot of downs
a lot of "what-have-yous"

Abide

Poem #26-2010

2010-12-09T15:21:00.001-08:00

In private,
as an experiment,
I have called my cat
the foulest of
names.

To my knowledge,
it leaves absolutely
no impression on his brain,
no memories created,
no biases toward me whatsoever.

He does not meet me
conditioned by language,
but rather by how I
treat him.

He does not judge me by
the words I use,
the beliefs I espouse,
but rather by how I
love him.

He has no images of me
to relate to,
but relates to me
anew in each moment:
an enlightenment lesson for humanity.

I don't know about tigers.

Poem #25-2010

2010-12-01T14:10:00.001-08:00

When all hope is gone
conflict ends
and joy can enter

Poem #24-2010

2010-11-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

Random
randy
Tongue-tied in a hair forest
jacked off
pulled out
put away

Trespassing with permission

No man's land
a forbidden spot
pleading for abandon

There is no saving yourself
nor vindication beyond
damp pleasure

Poem #23-2010

2010-10-31T07:55:00.001-07:00

Chickadee,
despite your omnipresent ubiquitousness
(redundancy for the redundant)
I marvel:
at your heartiness in Maine winter
at your persistent gatherings
at your fierce social order
at your voracious appetite
(for insects, but most of us don't know that)

For most watchers
thrills are reserved for the uncommon -
cardinal, grosbeak, pileated woodpecker

But I thrill to see you
I thrill to see life lived
and need no comparisons

Such only make me a warmonger

Life Lines wins Writer's Digest Award!

2010-10-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Charlie's book, Life Lines, has won the poetry category in the 18th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards. That is big news! I hope you'll be persuaded to pick up a copy or two from Amazon.

Poem #22-2010

2010-10-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Been away awhile
Been grooving on skillet time
wavy gravy dishes
What's left
in the cupboard?
Always sumpin
even canned punkin
beats a fine-spirited emptiness
So light a candle
and dig in
Dig dig dig
There has to be one more
bite, else
fade to black

Poem #21-2010

2010-06-17T07:03:00.001-07:00

Heat

I am warm
here, in this place
Outside, rain falls relentlessly
yet I am warm
From where comes this warmth?
My coffee?
The surfing young man seated nearby?
The fleeting thought of her vagina?
Or is it much more real than that
(and therefore much more powerful)?

Keith calls
vans without windows
“child molester vans”
Thoughts are the same:
Dangerous to self and others
when kept on a leash with
nowhere to go but in

Poem #20-2010

2010-06-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

White Isn't Always Good

Dark soldier
suffering silently
who knows no promise
I would hear your oath,
hold it safe until your
return

It’s all nonsense
The seabreeze channel
is locked and blocked
There’s a bomb in the
flower girl’s bouquet
and in the House
we speak of peace

This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #9
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #19-2010

2010-06-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

Fragments

Born in the disinfectant sunlight
fog-turning apple by-ways
– a wordslinger
Tombstone words?
Green Maine rain
Sunny Slingerland – Sonia
(college roommate fragments)
One hundred K
exactly on the nose
“Moose . . . Indian”
Thoreau said
on his deathbed
And it’s all a happy strangeness
Leftover soup
and warm whiskey to forget

It is a sin to collect so much
and hide it from others
Turn on the spigot
Let flow the teeming water

Do not fear –
it’s just a poem

Poem #18-2010

2010-06-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

Age

That old man
sporting a flop-tilted cowboy hat,
trenchcoat belt hanging,
leaning on his ancient cane-yielding wife
with one gnarly hand
and his own wood-worn cane in the other,
making his wobbly way across
the wet Gardiner bricks

Why, is he that same
little boy who ran and ran from
school’s out to suppertime, with
no thoughts of feeble dependence
on others, on the contraptions of age?

I wonder:
Does he run in his fitful dreams?

Poem #17-2010

2010-04-21T16:21:00.001-07:00

I know who I used to be
I know I'm not that
and I'm happy about it
I also know who I want to be
I know I'm not that either
and I'm not happy about it
What I do know is not as important
as what I want to know
and what I want to know
is how to be who I want to be
without forgetting who I am
in the process

But this is all "why" stuff
and not "what" stuff
Analysis and questioning
not living the answers

Poem #16-2010

2010-04-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

I vary
from dream vapors
to crystal revelations
from warm glasses of lousy beer
to expensive Irish whiskey on the rocks
from reading Hemingway
to Sunday morning cartoons
from liberal leanings
to conservative crassness
from intellectual inquiry
to barroom bawdiness
from narcissism
to unworthy depression
from ecological sensitivity
to wanton wastefulness
from youthful vigor
to tired senility
from jacket and tie
to jeans and T-shirt

I can do all of this
in the space of a day
and sometimes even an hour
or a minute

No police come to my door
no notice appears in the newspaper
chiding me for my inconsistencies

At best a lover, friend, or worse
will point it out
giving me pause to see if I can
remember the person I was
when I opined oppositely

Most of the time, I figure
it won't matter a hundred years from now
and so I turn to more pressing matters
like whether to write a poem
or commit suicide

Poem #15-2010

2010-03-19T07:26:00.001-07:00

I ain't got a poem in me today
but I got a hard fire burning
and a cold shoulder to lean into it

I got too many lures
dangling off my pole
and a wide open lake calling for justice

I got inside information
no one wants
and a bony wreath made out of newspapers

I got high end merchandise
to sell the natives
and two fingers crossed behind my back

I got interminable busies
floating on borrowed time
and a broken watch to prove it

I got harsh words a plenty
for them that hurt little children
and a big knife to show 'em I mean it

I got a whopper of a story to tell
woven out of mustard seeds
and stuck between two false teeth

No, I ain't got a poem in me today
but tomorrow may be worse:
I may have to birth one

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #14-2010

2010-03-16T06:52:00.001-07:00

Listen to the voices, child
inside your muppet head
they're telling you to
try and try and try
until you're cold and dead

Listen to the colors, child
that swirl inside your mind
they're telling you to
paint and paint and paint
until you're old and blind

Listen to the whirling, child
that buzzes 'round your face
it's telling you to
sing and sing and sing
before you lose your way

Don't listen to the noises, child
that walk about your bed
they're telling you to
pray and pray and pray
until Amen is said

Don't listen to the adults, child
who strut and throw their chests
they're telling you to
hide and hide and hide
what is your very best

Don't listen to the poem, child
that tries to set your steps
it's telling you to
lie and lie and lie
'bout you that's coming next

Poem #13-2010

2010-03-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

Water is patient
drip drip drip
I am not
desire desire desire

Be water, my friend
said Bruce Lee
But he never mentioned patience--
only
formlessness
shapelessness
becoming
flowing
and crashing

My small point is made
within the point
Water has no need
for any of these states
If none ever manifest
a drop will stay frozen
until the end of time
and never desire differently

Poem #12-2010

2010-03-01T08:17:00.001-08:00

I opened the door
and a day poem greeted me
Singing a familiar song
and lifting my spirit
in a swirl of anticipation
Easy, easy - it is all too much!
Pockets of lazy grass tease me
tempted to wake up
but I know it's still early

There's a certain spring smell:
Wetness. Life. Promise.

May my soul remember its own
transformative power
amidst this mad awakening

May it grow like grass
and give soft landing for
what is to come

Poem #11-2010

2010-02-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

It's not
where you live
that matters

It's how
you live
the where

Poem #10-2010

2010-02-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

I think if I hear one more cutesy,
make-me-want-to-puke aphorism
about life and how to live it
I shall drop a roll of quarters
into the toe of a white sweat sock,
grasp the other end,
swing it violently,
and strike the speaker
repeatedly about the head and shoulders

I’m pretty sure it would be the best
ten dollars I ever spent

Poem #9-2010

2010-01-31T19:43:00.000-08:00

for J.D. Salinger

Salinger dead
Don’t ever tell anybody anything.
That next-to-last-line in Catcher
a mission statement for his life
of respected reclusiveness

Author fame – a funny, fleeting thing
Deserved or not, it lands
like an encyclopedia on
your shoulders
Never as wonderful as you hope
or as dreadful as you fear
(although it has certainly driven more than
one writer crazy with unrealistic
expectations: The only ones for me are the mad ones . . .)

But few things can claim universality
and fame is no different
Maybe it isn’t anything at all
Maybe it’s everything
Or maybe it’s just the same
recognition we all crave –
run amok for a time

For every author you think famous
there is someone blissfully
unaware of their existence

The wind blows through the rye
and leaves no trace at all
Yet words blow through my mind
and leave a permanent scar

Still, long-hidden behind page and pen,
J.D. himself could walk into my local pub
tomorrow and escape all notice
except perhaps a passing comment
about the decrepit old man drinking alone in the corner

Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do,
you start missing everybody.

Poem #8-2010

2010-01-29T05:40:00.001-08:00

Blowing white spindrift
Fire-white skyclouds glowering
Somewhere – it’s sunny

Poem #7-2010

2010-01-25T18:57:00.000-08:00

Alone but not lonely
Sad but not despairing
Still but not paralyzed
Unfeeling but not indifferent

Something in the wind
passes slim notice
to an unrehearsed limitation
giving life to the long-dead
emotions sputtering
inside my level-headed distress

A small slick-haired fox
creeps through the endless rain
toward the solitary ghost of a tree
standing vigil in the five-acre field
behind our crooked barn

Watching him
everything makes sense for a second
Eat. Sleep. Move. Repeat.
So simple

I wish for a fox-like philosophy
to invade my core
and burn steady there

But I am not destroyed enough
to deserve such a gift

Somewhere between triumph
and annihilation
I linger, more afraid
of either than the soft middle path
I continue apace

Poem #6-2010

2010-01-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

During that in-between time
of sleep and wakefulness
when the window blinds
are just visible with early light
and all of my senses
seem to be – at the same time –
set at low volume yet high resolution
The birds right outside my window
sing piercingly soft songs

During that in-between time,
thoughts arise, scatter, and
recombine as if searching
for the answer to some unknown question.
I can almost see them –
a swirling vortex of energy,
careening molecules carrying
microscopic messengers
in a stew of chemical communication

This very morning
arose a sentence
Time marches on inexorably
And for the first time
in many months if not years
I knew the lie in that sentence
I saw the lie we’ve been taught
laid bare to a truth beyond symbols
A truth that sadly dissipates with age:

Time is something we’ve created
to hide ourselves from eternity

I returned to the birds

Poem #5-2010

2010-01-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

His sequin-starved
synthetic wife
fell sound asleep with a lit cigarette
in her mouth
while sitting in their
gentle-as-robin’s-egg-blue
overstuffed chair bought
on credit from some flim-flam
discount palace

All the firefighters found was
a pile of ashes,
chair springs,
and her left foot

It cut down on cremation costs

Poem #4-2010

2010-01-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

Her neck veins bulge
as she belts out the old rock number
For some reason I focus on them
and not her other bountiful parts

On a junkie’s withered arm
On a dying loved one’s forehead
On a diabetic’s swollen leg
protruding veins evoke
desperation, loss, and pain

But tonight they symbolize
energy, passion, and desire

There can be no guilt
over nature’s meanderings
and no meaning
short of context

Poem #3-2010*

2010-01-04T19:43:00.001-08:00

Not half – all
so romantic
value knows no time
ode to the premium

Rapid response
a thousand years
magic was lost

Life or death
available now

*This is a "found" poem. Every word came from a series of sequential TV commercials in the order seen.

Poem #2-2010

2010-01-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

Let’s go because we can
Up and out and across this wild-eyed

country – no one else
has done it like we! No one

else can see first its sunrise
through our blurry eyes or
taste its fleshy freshness on

a dewy morning stirring
beside a sleepy New England

mill town. Or smell the pungent steel hearths
of industry. Or feel the warm

ghost sea air. Or hear the sugar sand settling
under the door on bebop winds
of change, change,

change the clock, the sheets, the tires,
the weather – bursting our

chests open from love of this and this and this
This small café. This gravelly food. These
world-worn compatriots. This familiar

strangeness. Let’s go because we can
Let’s take it all in, all of it –
the whole throbbing sweaty length of it and
come back for more, begging

please! – for more and more and more
until we lay exhausted, caressed in the sweet
traveler’s afterglow: sullied and spent, sorrowed and satisfied . . .

. . . loved

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #1-2010

2010-01-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

Somehow –
perhaps from lacking hallucinations
or suicidal ideations –
I have skillfully avoided
commitment in either
the Augusta or Harrisburg
state hospitals

Not that I aspire to it
(most of the time)
but occasionally they
seem like the only places left
where people can say
exactly what they’re thinking
and it makes no difference to anyone,
not to the psychiatrists or nurses or attendants
and not to loved ones who have come to expect
disconnected fragments or ravings,
unmanned communications spewing forth
with not even the speaker sure
of their origin or intent

Dark dark unspeakable thoughts
lurk inside everyone I fear

Or else I really do belong whereof I speak

Appreciation

2009-12-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Of all things
he drank Pabst Blue Ribbon—

       from a can!

but it looked like he was drinking champagne

       the deliberate hoist
       the slight pause – a toast of thanks?
       the slow, methodical sip
       the part-smile

Oh, and the return

like a mother returning newborn to crib

Come-A-Long, Dear

2009-12-22T17:44:00.000-08:00

I found a come-a-long
dusty, rusty in a basement corner

the previous owner’s

With some WD40
and coaxing
a useful, powerful tool again

It made me think
how nice it would be
if there were come-a-longs

for people

Jack's Ghost

2009-12-16T16:03:00.000-08:00

I trippled down Adler
hoping to meet Jack’s ghost
but ended up sitting on the floor
upstairs in City Lights
reading the blues
when a sexy gone voice behind me
said who’s your favorite?
and without looking to see
my angel in waiting
I wrote “Kerouac” on a blank page
in my little black notebook
stuck my pen in the fold
and passed it behind me
without looking
I felt it taken out of my nervous hand
an eternity fell on my shoulders
before a giggle
a sweet silky titter of a laugh
too afraid I still didn’t look
Something touched my shoulder
I reached up, felt my notebook
under Jack’s name was written
“I was here”
I turned around
she was gone

Joseph Parks

2009-12-14T15:11:00.000-08:00

Joseph Parks was born in Hell
a small-town hole with small-town smell
one rich man
many poor men
an old movie house
curfew at ten

Joseph tried to fit in
first here, then there
always unsettled, always aware
of some siren song calling
calling his name
a siren song calling him
again and again

Years of stagnation
then one day he left
only to return in a few years hence
with a wife and a child and a long swig of debt
He built a small house with a white picket fence

and with siren songs fading
once clear as a bell
he deepened the hole
and increased the smell

Joseph Parks was back in Hell

Balance

2009-12-13T17:31:00.000-08:00

Her first reaction
was to say No, because

after all, this wasn't her
first time around

the block. But something
in the way he cocked
his head reminded her

of Sam Elliott, and
her mask fell off long
enough to let a small

ray of hope in. One
dinner, two movies, and three
orgasms (his) later she chose

home cooking, Netflix, and
a dependable vibrator over

the struggle to balance
becoming two
with staying one. In the end,

she decided balance
was over-rated.

47

2009-12-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

He kissed her
through the steel steel bars
He said I love you
She answered Whatever

Outside 47 men
walked down the street sideways
in a fake parade

Inside 47 inmates
read letters from 47 luckless people
With not a real thing said

in the bunch. Upside 47 politicians
passed 47 bills
to protect their whimpering
constituents from

dangerous criminals. And Downside 47
hits of acid
made their way
toward terrifying the aftertaste left

in his mouth when she said Whatever

Top Words of 2009

2009-12-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

According to the Global Language Monitor, these are the top words of 2009:

1. Twitter
2. Obama
3. H1N1
4. Stimulus
5. Vampire
6. 2.0
7. Deficit
8. Hadron
9. Healthcare
10. Transparency
11. Outrage
12. Bonus
13. Unemployed
14. Foreclosure
15. Cartel

Now, as long as you are at my blog, why not read some of my poetry and then visit my more developed blog, The Daily Beat.

Thanks.

Once in a Blue While Moon

2009-12-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

Once in a blue while moon
an uphill climb becomes a downhill swingsong
(The sage says: “Surrender”)

Once every few so often days
a remembrance of thankfulness intrudes
(The falling leaves whisper: “Peace”)

Once is a never upon enough time
some late ember caresses the air
(The fire-starved ground sings: “Freedom”)

Once it’s twice over or removed
sad longings twist into pasta shells
(The watery grave gurgles: “Enough”)

Once I before do you die
to just simply get the words right
(The old refrigerator hums: “Patience”)

Blue Jays

2009-12-09T09:10:00.000-08:00

Seeing a blue jay
I called home from work
“Do you see a blue jay at the feeder right now?”
Tentative response: “…Yes”
“I see one right now, too, so
it can’t be the same one, right?”
Click.

At least now I know.

I Want To Know

2009-12-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterdays too easily
stop tomorrows
        and too often
I’ve run out of peace signs
but the world keeps on

Blood drips out of the morning newspaper
into my coffee
until I stir away
the swirling depravities
I’ve grown accustomed to reading about

        Father locks toddlers in trunk while shopping
        Woman’s body washes up near Seawall
        Four family members bludgeoned to death near Ozarkville
        Thirteen soldiers killed by roadside bomb attack

And no one cares enough to protest
        or at least rail against the misery

Because what really has the American public’s attention
Is Kim Kardashian's fat ass

And I want to know:
How long does our species have left?

This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night Week #12
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.