4:30 AM isn’t too late to stay up cooking up something.
Looking at a blank screen that is begging for some input.
Frustration mixed with the expectation
that maybe something will materialize.
The fridge calls,
the wind howls,
and the cell beeps its updates.
But where is the actual blank screen?
It isn’t really the glaring blue screen the burning bleary eyes stare at.
Instead,
everything the chattering mind registers as uninteresting and unworthy of poetry.
Poetry.
What is it anyway?
You know it when you hear and see it,
yet a poem cannot be defined or adequately explained.
And poetry doesn’t feel like it’s contrived.
Yet,
how many have sat behind keyboards or blank papers or parchments
with quill in hand, waiting …
Hours fly by.
Whiskers get heavier.
The pot becomes rounder
and softer.
Coffee doesn’t help.
Maybe a sedative?
Impatience settles in like ticks on a mangy dog.
The feeling that there just isn’t enough time nags you like a dripping faucet.
But like old faithful,
the pressure builds
until the feverish tapping of keys.
Monthly Archives: December 2021
Untitled
Blood Orange
from the stocking to the counter, the razor-sharp knife slices the head and tail off watch it bleed, mouth waters The Christmas house, rooms scented orange peel and date-pit chickory sip by the golden regal tree, starburst section squirts blood-red red from orange, green, and gold Big Ben chimes the end, but it lingers more than the eyes or senses combined the child shall lead on to the next whose blood atoned
Reading Between the Lines at a Christmas Dinner
edgy like a raging wedgie got my shorts in a wad, ride over you roughshod i can be a clod a bull in a china shop give you a karate chop - chop-chop, so you better stop it - it's time to drop it ...understand? before i get outa hand and i blow a gasket putting you in a casket a-tisket a-tasket go to hell in a hand basket best not risk it don't be a sh*t biscuit when my temper goes south i use my potty-mouth (*cuz i'm low on wit but i'll never admit it) opening a can-o-whoop-ass yours will be grass you better not trespass on me, who you can't figure i got a hair-trigger thinking my boys are bigger no tact or diplomacy cuz i'm crapulent, u see? gives me flatulency a leaky one i'm no fun tear you a new one so yuz better run
To Catch a Monkey
A farmer’s market and gift shop
shelved with overpriced bric-a-brac
a diversion for a winter afternoon
for two out of tune lovers, present
to their dissonance.
a handmade Amish sock monkey
by its jocular expression
provided an explanation
for the mismatch, for you see
the silly monkey jumps from tree to tree
never content where it is. Maybe
(it reasons) the palm before
has sweeter fruit – but then
sees the one ahead.
To catch the squirrelly thing,
put a sweet in a hollow coconut shell
with a hole just large enough for its hand
to enter. When it grabs the candy, it makes
a fist wider than the hole
used to enter the nut
the greedy thing won’t let go
tethering it to the coconut
chained to the ground.
We bought two sock monkeys.
Boned
the person declared
I’m never coming back, no,
not on the third try or the fourth…
bridges fractured…
what can be addressed
to bones?
someone said,
they saw him huddled, pinched,
and drawn — ghost-like
Grim hunted like
a vulture for the hyena’s leftovers
an unhallowed barking laughter
any chance
you knew the prey?
Add
A guy named Burke said
all communication is drama,
the essence of which is conflict,
most communication is an attempt
to atone for guilt
or to prove rightness.
Drama adds flavor; just ask big media
who follow the showbiz strategy
that if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t read.
There’s got to be a scandalous leak or a trial.
Yes, viruses work, too, as long as
there is a collision of opinion
on addressing them.
Political philosophies
create ideologies and worldviews that
fuel the drama into a panicked frenzy.
Add the guilt created by virtue-signaling,
purposefully produced moral outrage.
After all, according to some empty talking heads,
shouldn’t we all be the same, think
the same, look the same, hate the same, eat
the same, drive the same, vote the same,
and spout the same globalist nonsense?
Penetrate the bs with mindfulness,
the drama, the artificial flavor, the woven
the spun
*yawn –they’re crying wolf again…
omg. chicken’s got the sky falling again…
& watch the evening news flop.
ad infinitum ad nauseam