Tag Archives for Poem

Sin

Water Well



The day I dug the hole

was laborious and solemn,

unkempt hair wild in the rain

with cakey mud and deep

it went down, down, down

only a pinhole of light at the top

and then I threw in the body

and left.


I came back in four years

gallivantin’ on the baked dust plain

and there were rocks sittin’ in that place

circling up a roped bucket that ran down

to the water that the people all drank

and I wondered about bacteria and death

and e. coli blackness and pissed-off cows

or whatever you call it

and out walked that side of the road dead man

from a whirlwind tepee

still wearing that canvass suit that

married us in madness that muddy night

and pointed at me and yelled to the people

who pinched my arms and drug me to the well

where that stranger I knew so well

watched me enter that pinhole headfirst

to cleanse myself in the muddy wallow of Karma.


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Life is . . .

			


		

		
Maidu_hut_recreation_-_Maidu_Interpretive_Center


 


I am standing naked on a


smooth, round Earth.


There is nothing here but me.


No objects and no people.


I am tired, so I look and see a chair


is behind me.


I sit.


 


I am young and time passes


slowly and there is


nothing to do.


I am bored.


I get old and then


I die.


What was the point of all that?


 


I am young and time passes


slowly and there is


a ball in front of me


RED


against all this whiteness


and I think that’s neat.


I play with the ball and


it bounces and bounces and it is


sometimes hard to catch.


Years pass and


I am bored.


I get old and then


I die.


What was the point of all that?


 


I am young and time passes


slowly and there is


nothing to do.


There is nothing here but me.


No objects and no people.


I am tired, so I look and see a chair


is behind me.


I sit.


There is a noise to my left


and I look to see a PERSON


We are a little nervous,


two people in two chairs and


no other people anywhere and


what in this glassy white world is


there to say?


But we speak


We get to know each other


and have long talks and


smile sometimes and


when we get older we find


a bouncy red ball and


laugh together at the fact that just


bouncing it back and forth to each other is


so much fun.


Years pass and


we get old and then


we die.


A sad ending, but… worth it.


 


I am young and time passes


slowly and there is


nothing to do.


I look down and there is GREEN grass


beneath my toes.


I wiggle my toes and smile and


look behind me and there is a small hut.


Water starts to hit the top of my head and


it is cold so I step into the hut and look back out


and marvel at the water as it


leaks slowly from the grass onto the


Earth’s white surface.


There is a door, a window, and a bed in my hut.


I am happy to lie down and rest in my VERY OWN hut.


Years pass and I walk out of my hut and there is a large


HOUSE sitting just a red ball’s throw away.


It is the size of twenty of my huts.


It has grass also but it looks a little…


greener.


And there is a large, majestic gate


surrounding it and there are tons of RED balls


on the grass.


Some red balls are very LARGE.


I walk over to the gate and press a GOLD BUTTON


and I am excited to hear another person’s voice.


“Yes?”


They are nervous like me but that’s ok.


“Hi, would you like to play ball?”


I am smiling.


“NO,” they say. “I don’t know you. Please go away.”


Now water is falling from my head as I


go back to my LITTLE hut.


I grow old and bored and I can only


look at all the other balls in the green, green yard


with the mean gatekeeper.


I am lonely and angry and mad and so I


throw my red ball at a window in the big house


and it breaks and I am scared but happy as I


run back to my hut.


No one ever comes out.


Years pass and


I am bored.


I get old and then


I die.


What was the point of all that time


I had to spend not getting the things I wanted?


 


I am young and time passes


slowly and there is


nothing to do.


I look down and there is GREEN grass


beneath my toes.


I wiggle my toes and smile and


look behind me and there is a LARGE HOUSE.


I walk across the most wonderfully colored grass


to my VERY OWN house and smile and fall asleep


on the softest bed ever.


When I awake, I look out my window and there is


a small little hut across the way.


I am worried at what kind of creature could


live in a hut that small.


It could come out and take one of my balls from


the grass and so now there is a large gate


wrapping around my house.


And a good thing too because sure enough


someone has come from that small little hut


and is trying to get at my grass and red balls and


maybe they even want to come and take my


house away.


They walk over to MY gate and press MY GOLD BUTTON


and I can hear a crazed excitement in their voice.


“Yes?”


I am nervous because I do not know if they


can get in.


“Hi, would you like to play ball?”


I am frowning


and I knew they wanted to take my red balls


from MY grassy yard.


“NO,” I say. “I don’t know you. Please go away.”


Now I cannot leave my house


or they will come in and take my things


and so I am trapped here forever.


Years pass and


I am bored.


I get old and then


I die.


What was the point of all that time


I had to spend trapped in my house?


 


I am standing naked on a


smooth, round Earth.


There is nothing here but me.


No objects and no people.


I am tired, so I look and see a chair


is behind me.


I sit.


Anything can happen now


I guess.


 


 


Check out my project on Kickstarter.


Sorry, Charlie on Kickstarter


 


 


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
The Perfect Couple

			


		

		
perfect couple


 


Me and my wife have seen


the perfect couple.


 


We’ve seen them dating with their


hands in each other’s back pockets


and smiled when they’ve shown us


their expensive chains and lockets.


 


We’ve seen them in the gym


forty minutes on the treadmill


keeping in shape and staying trim


each with quite the zeal.


 


We’ve seen them at their weddings


singing songs of love and crying


as they recite their vows with joy


and sanctify the knot they’re tying.


 


We’ve seen their network of friends


spanning far and wide


and a new car every year


’cause their friends enjoy the ride.


 


We’ve seen them at the restaurant


never arguing, that’s true


and attending all events


and laughing right on cue.


 


Me and my wife have seen


the perfect couple.


 


We saw one just last week


they weren’t together anymore


“- separately quietly,” she said


but they were still tied up in court.


 


It seems that after all


they both still had their flaws


but they looked so good together


through all the hems and haws.


 


An hour ago we fought,


something mundane and silly


and making up was quick


just a simple kiss really.


 


We haven’t been the perfect couple


for over twenty years


and toiled a little here and there


with blood and sweat and tears.


 


And here we are still


with all love has to broker


and happy as a lark


to be a couple mediocre.


 


Don’t forget to check out my project on


Sorry, Charlie on Kickstarter

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Ego

			


		

		
Frowny-man1


 


I am a raging poet,


my inked hatchet


flesh wedging a spray of bloody


word foam onto the triage


of paper,


bending


folding


spindling


mutilating


a torrent of liquid emotion,


wrenched thought spasms


corrugated prisms of mind swell,


and when I have wrought and reaped,


stretched my filigree soul over


a brittle weave of yellowed paper,


soaked the pages with philosophical blood,


crimson views of humanity, caramelizing


the sticky pages together,


a pungent weld of glory and desperation,


my wife looks it over and says,


“Yeah, cool.”


 


Don’t forget to check out my project on


Sorry, Charlie on Kickstarter


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Inspiration

			


		

		
Iceland_Dettifoss_1972


 


Iceland


 


There are words out there


waiting to be thought


in a perfect sequence,


rushing forward like a train


from a spit of inspiration


slamming to a halt,


crashing headfirst into a


terrible stab of punctuation  .


It slices apart the thoughts


the inspirations


the waterfall of letters


tumbling down


to the stagnant paper and


flowing across the page


haphazardly, like the first draft of


Creation itself.


 


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
The Salty Pale

			


		

		
Demon_hand_from_Tales_of_the_Enchanted_Islands_of_the_Atlantic_1899


 


Demon Hand


 


His cracked skin glows orange,


a pulsing ember,


eyes white and sunken in the black corner.


 


toenails that shard Indian Yellow


bone, brittle chitin exposed on toasted concrete,


bitter hair, wet from the dew and mud and clover


and wounds,


open and glistening and freshly pouting their


concerns via glossy, crimson madness.


 


The sulphurous ascent


rubs the scratchy bricks as the cottage exhales


to the clear night a


spoiled sooty breath of exhumed earth


and ghastly flesh.


 


The figure hunches,


blind in one swollen eye


and wets the floor with amnesiac piss and chatters


incoherently to a room full of people


who are not there.


 


He imagines choking whispers


and glitter in the lung.


 


He invents a tale


where a madman was drown by a village


and withered to a stick


and gutted sick


burned


disemboweled


chucked over the Starboard


and forgotten in the salty night.


 


A tale where a siren sings his gullet shut


and a mermaid smooths his skin


and a witch tallies her threads


and a swell of froth and jetsam,


malevolent and cursed


washes away all humanity


save a mythical yarn.


 


And his cracked skin grows pale,


a dying whale,


eyes white and sunken in the black corner.


 


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
What is mine

			


		

		
She glides toward


and my ego


sloughs,


a dripping slug down my thigh


and pools,


amoebic at my feet


 


She glides by


salty heels piercing


breaking the surface


sloshing through my puddled soul


and almost slips like Freud


from my pedestal


 


She sways through


hypnotizing


like watching the ocean


a metronome of silken hair


with my ego trailing awkwardly


from her heels


 


She speaks


the crowds sways


spellbound


voice like honey


reverberating every cell separately


in perfect harmony


in perfect rhythm


 


She is done


it is done


people mingling and


I turn


and she is there


in front of me


my mouth opens and is silent


 


She smiles and turns away


I panic and –


‘Excuse me, could I have my ego back?”


 


Her perfect smile interrupted


by my insecurity


and after a four hundred year second


her smile returns


and she restores             what was mine          what was me.