Wordslinger
The kid hit Big Town in ‘67
And figured he’d died and gone to heaven
Sans cravat and his duds in disorder
They made him a newspaper reporter.
So for decades he chased after fire trucks
Cajoled cops; sucked up to mucky mucks
Even took a few rides on Air Force One
With good old straight shootin’ Ronald Reagan.
After Forty years wrangling rhetoric
For the spawn of old Colonel McCormick.
He’s just an old cowhand from State and Grand
A goy cowboy he’s making one last stand.
Winking his good eye he bids big town goodbye
And points his truck back home toward the big sky
Cosmology
Dog Earth races bright sun it cannot catch
Nine billion years of endless racing match
For a tiny tad of time we apes rode
Our lives worthless as teats on a toad.
Our living and dying hardly a flash
Less than a footstep in Dog’s endless dash
Art
Crafting by hand has wisdom to impart.
It tells the cosmos I lived, played a part.
That my blip of being defied the dark
That my tiny tick of time left a mark.
Less than a fire fly’s spark against the sun
I moved an atom or two then was done.
Envy
Her beauty, his bounty they’ve got plenty
She shines. He earns. It’s elementary;
Their bliss can’t exist without our envy.
With no dark night we cannot have daylight
Lacking an enemy there is no fight
Without a God Satan could never fall.
And that’s why none of us can have it all
Requiem for Ike
Open the earth at Abeline;
Roll back the crusty sod.
Our last peaceful soldier’s gone
To his generic God.
Chant a dirge for fallen Atlas.
What muse?
ICBM Saturn?
Nike-Zeus?
Brave blue-eyed Ike is dead
Dead as the dismal decades he led.
Why the light?
An old man in a dry month, he lacks rage
Even though his life’s book nears its last page
And his body finds ways these arid days
To fade and fail and otherwise decay.
Hey, old man, why so bland? Isn’t it unfair
That life’s blessings always end in despair?
Why do you sit there like a stalk of wheat
Waiting for the scythe swing of life’s defeat?
Weary of orange sunsets and bluebirds?
Or is it blinding fear too raw for words?
It’s not fair that that your bag of blood and bones
Sags here; swells there; loses its teeth and moans
Over lost loves and lust turned to dust
While free radicals blight it all with rust.
Old man ask at least why we must go bust
Why waste such light when we always combust.
Winter on Paulina Street
An old man’s shovel scrapes sidewalks dusted
Like cakes with powdered sugar spread on top.
Once he was red headed boss of backshop.\
Now he’s fitted with fake hips and busted
But he limps and lugs a mighty shovel.
His wife fears he toils above his level
So she sends their grown up daughter to help.
Old man miffed presses on; first does his walk
Then next walk, my walk and on up the block.
I too am an old man. I give a yelp
Because he stole my snow; he stole my show
I should tell him just damn well where to go.
The poets say good fences make good neighbors.
I say good friends don’t steal their neighbors labors
Summer on Paulina Street
Her feet, despite the heat, beat the sidewalk
As she jogs, all beauty lost in ear buds.
I sit in shade where I bake, sweat and gawk
Scoping her buds and those tight running duds.
I rest and watch my walk and what walks by.
Nannies speaking Polish on cell phones whisk
Strollers past my front porch. Their babies cry.
My weary neighbor yanks her hot kid’s wrist.
Boys with pads on cut knees skate by madly.
Dogs pull walkers. Birds sing their symphony.
A tired day worker’s treated like a thief.
In summer’s swirl of life that’s all too brief.
I squint at my laptop’s faint sun washed screen
And relish life in this day’s splotch of green.
My Home Town
Rawlins, Rawlins, ah Rawlins you’re such an old whore.
Beauty of my youth but now an eyesore
Streets filled with pickups and cheap camper shells
Driven by dense men who work the oil wells
Weekdays followed by weekend wife beating’s
And shots and beer and revival meetin’s.
Winter so cold that eyes tear and tears freeze
Cracked lip hot dust summers, never a breeze.
To ease the bitter pain endured to gain
The American dream. So they disdain
Imaginary welfare queens who screw
Our red meat, anti-red, Red White and Blue
Taxpayers. And don’t get me started on gays,
Black helicopters and The End of Days.
Desert Dust
Palomino framed by rocks red as rust,
Desert Dust stands cocky as stallions must.
His white tail reaches the sage below.
The matching mane now at rest, laying low.
A brief relief from the mares and the snares
Of mustangers in jeeps with ropes and hopes
Of skinning the golden horseflesh he wears.
Black Bart
He’s a vicious steer rustling, horse thief
Among outlaws truly bad ass in chief
His shooting and stealing sets him apart
So be careful when drinking with Black Bart.
What ever else you do don’t turn your back;
That’s when he’s most likely to attack
Just like a rattlesnake he likes to bite
When you can’t see he’s spoiling for a fight.
At six feet 10 Bart’s dangerous and trim
A squaw’s tiny scalp pinned on his hat’s brim
He loves to brag of deeds must cruelly done
Rustling, raping and killing just for fun.
That dark night we knew there’d be more killing
When into the bar burst Tom Skilling.
Not a one of us wanted to get near
He slammed open the saloon’s double door
And strode toward Bart across the filthy floor
His eyes flashed with the glare of righteous ire
“Are you the bastard set my house afire?”
Bart glared right back and gave a nod
“That’s right, I torched it, torched it good by God.”
“Are you the one that shot my little pup?”
Gunslinger Bart’s reply was a terse “Yup.”
“Was it you that drove off my old grey mare?”
Bart grinned wide. “Well sodbuster, I was there.”
“Were you the one that ravished my new bride?”
“Yeah, that part was a great ride,” Bart replied.
Said Tom, “Here’s what I wanted to ask about
“Hey Bart, “Do you want to cut that crap out?”
Make a Living
They tell us, “You’ve got to make a living;
It’s your duty, a debt beyond forgiving.
So time passes by swiftly, way too fast.
The joys of our lives fade into the past.
Our time sweeps past us; it’s gone in a flash.
Each hour is a 60 minute dash
We must run if we’re to make a living
We learn to give and to keep on giving
And to give we’ve got to make a living
The future and the finish rush at us.
And only cowards would dare make a fuss.
Then one day we shudder; the end draws near
The nagging stops; there’s nothing more to fear
Now it’s you’ve who’ve got to make a living.
Willa
Were Willa not a long dead lesbian
I would woo Ms Cather or stalk her.
Just as Lawrence loved things Arabian
In Willa’s writing I find clean rapture
That others’ wordy works rarely capture.
Beyond her deft plots I am besott
By the smells, sighs and sights she brings to life.
Reading her prose, poetry and what not
Conjures my old passions ’til my brain’s rife
With rapure for fine fiction’s grand midwife,
Rules
I don’t feel the zeal
doing blank verse
or worse
I don’t even feel
real
while ducking and diving for
show & tell as though layout could
shout out art
better than rhyme ‘n meter
as though
mere
typography
could
buy you
more empathy
Than can finding and rhyming the right words
And timing them to the beat of meter
That will greet the reader and meet her
Or him with discipline and the rewards
That hewing to a set of rules affords
Butterfly Time
Butterfly wings kissed by black bands of lace
Shade fiery milkweed for a breeding place.
Hola, Monarch of the blooms and bowers,
Eight weeks to live and then no more flowers;
We humans get years not months ’til our doom–
Three score and ten ’til God lowers the boom.
2 outta 3
A scared bride phoned home on her wedding night
“Love papa? What is love,” she asked in fright
It’s passion, admiration and respect
Just two of them is enough I suspect
All three? In life’s crap game that’s a seven
You don’t have to die to go to heaven
Cartesian conundrum
Cogito ergo sum but what am I?
Vessel of truth or mere dying small fry?
A mote in Gods’ eye or just rotting meat
Doomed to see truth then lie down in defeat
A waif starving in heaven’s candy store
Given a tiny taste but nothing more,
I wail and cavil why I clearly see
What I cannot reach in this foul body.
Obama
Some day they say will come the one true way
Meanwhile without guile we fumble the play;
We lose the ball to those who prey and kill
And think that greed is good. They always will.
So now comes the drama of Obama,
Who whipped the bonus boys and brought trauma
To trust fund babies with their fat wallets.
Still, it’s not the losers that appall us
We fret instead that hopes he gave his flocks
Will be dashed when the sea change hits the rocks
Of reality. “Build Rome in a day
They say. “You must do it to earn your pay.”
Do it; do it; do it dammit Barack
Do it now or you too can take a walk.
Grey Thoughts
No black; no white. For me just grey exists.
As sullen rain clouds and mean morning mists
Mar the beauty of lakes, rivers and seas
My truths fade and blur. They twist, taunt and tease
My poor brain. This is true but so is that.
To some she’s slim; but to others she’s fat.
Six of these; or half a dozen of those
La plus ça change, la plus c’est la même chose
The more things change the more things are the same.
Poets
The poet’s duty’s to create beauty
But dammit making beauty can be hard,
Hard as bacon before boiled into lard,
Hard as a meter lady’s heart, mutely
Mouthing curses as angry passers by
Stare and glare hoping to catch her sly eye.
Both poet and reader have their duty;
They put pen to paper resolutely
They must do what they do despite the shame
But there they part each facing their own blame.
For meter readers the load is lighter.
They leave a ticket under the wiper
And move on down the street not even seen
By the parker. But when poets vent spleen
They dig deep into their souls and bowels
Finding words that bring forth howls and scowls
On their rare good days poets look outwards
Instead of inwards and nature rewards
Their bids for beauty with just the right words
Then pen to paper, keyboard to cursor
The poet at last slings words that nurture
