Category Archives: One Shot Wednesday

>Dropped(a recycled poem)

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>I stumbled across a dropped call today.
I picked it up and wondered what dangling conversation
hung on its edges.
Upon scanning the area along the side of Almena road
I saw hundreds of fallen voices laying there.
I had stepped all over them like so many worms
On a rain soaked day.
The flattened words lay dead,
some hoping for a resurrection,
and some wishing they had never been said.
Idled words.
Loving words with their passion subtracted.
Crouching down, I started picking them up
like loose change on car mats.
I began to pile them my left palm.
They became a pyramid of nouns,
verbs, and adjectives grouted
together by prepositions.
Oh for a refrigerator to throw
these on so I can order them like a shell game.
Maybe there a chance I can put the sentences back together.
Maybe there’s hope to text the best words
with the purist of intentions to the expecting phones.
Maybe I can stand in the gap where the cell towers
wandered too far away from each other.
I do hate to see words lying beside the road.

Had to go to the matresses today…time has dwindled to write lately.  Peace to all who enter here.

>Give Me A Bite Of That Apple

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>

because I’m definitely outside the garden.
I’m out in the carb jungle and it shows.
Where can I buy fig leaves with spandex?
I know why A and E hid.
I know why I want to hide.
My pants don’t fit right, I mean,
I don’t mean to sag, that’s not how I
usually roll, but now I have a roll and
it sags and my buttocks are packing
their bags and heading northeast.
I used to have a button on my belly and
now there’s just a button hole.
I have to think about how I tie my shoes.
A short chair is best or
I come up with no air in my chest.
Hand me that apple so
I can bite it to the core.
I’ll have it bronzed and stick it
on my dash to remind me
of my core within.
Maybe an apple a day
will make my belly go away.
Maybe.

>Real Time

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>

That afternoon there were moments
Time outs from speaking, breathing
All that surfaced was a ticking
A tocking like a heartbeat
Thump, thump, thump
Like a metronome keeping pace
And we submitted to it
for what else was there
There was no DVD
there was no DVR
There was only us and him
and thoughts and prayers floating
He once again suspended future
and past and invited  present
Oh what a gift it was
like eating breakfast on the beach
after a long arduous night
and light came softly
and spilled on us
through that window of
real time
For Dan Webb in the loss of his son.

>Or WHAT!?

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>

Chop sticks
or
chap stick?
Chap Stick
Both touch the lips.
Tube socks
or
tube steaks?
Both retain water.
Saxophone
or
phone sex?
Both captive…ate.
Bow Flex
or
flexing beau?
Both impress.
Violin
or
Lynn is vile?
Both can squawk.
Superman
or
rubber band?
Both are a stretch.
Gypsy queens
or
Burger kings?
Both are loosely royal.
Curtain call
or
certain fall
Both are taking bows.
Poetic justice
or
just a poet
Both are needful.

>Sitzfleisch

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>

Technically going round and round
and sitting down.
Systematically deconstructing
and squeezing the mystery
out of a gnat.
Oh, it’s all been said before
so they say to say it slant then.
Juggle some solid ideas
and let one fall
now and again.
Maybe it will bounce.
Maybe it will break.
It’s tiring and boring
to keep it all in the air anyway.
De evolution ize.
Re revolution eyes.
See?  That wasn’t so bad.

>You and Me

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>

Over time we have formed a
more perfect union.
Our names at the
bottom of a license
a quarter of years
ago.
Under time I have walked to
gather your shadow,
white as the snow,
the passion trailing, and
grace on grace.
And time after time I saw
us meet again fresh,
honest, standing
bare, with each other.
It’s you and me
babe.

>And Oil Keeps Floating By.

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>

Let the chains lay heavy
on shoulders of bronze
as the oil floats by.
Keep an eye on a key
and it’s hole of freedom light.
See the sphinx winking on
and prowling in the night?
And oil keeps floating by.
A pharaoh is turning in
his tomb trying to get
comfortable again.
And oil keeps floating by.
The streets fill, erupt
like a plague of frogs
while armies break it up.
They jump and croak.
And oil keeps floating by.
Will the pyramids be
overturned and spin
like tops
on the sphinx’s
litter box?
And oil keeps floating by.
Thirty years minus three
thousand.
Thirty years plus three.
A simplified answer.
What is that to thee?
And oil keeps floating by.
A religious antidote
slips like a camel
through a needles eye.
That eye of freedom
a squint with a sty.
And oil keeps floating by.
Not rest for middle earth
that land that has been
shuffled from birth.
Middle East so far from mid west.
And oil keeps floating by.

>Caffeine Nation

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>There is a sound that needs to be identified with a word.

The sound that lifts from
A mug as a wave of
Seattle blend curves and
rides the walls until it
flattens around a rim.
The low tones that ride an
octave like an aria.

It’s a clarion call to

fold back a newspaper.
It’s music that sets up
an anticipation of deep
lyrics of a conversation.
It’s a chorus that arrives with
A smiling waitress singing,
“Here you go…need cream?”
There must be a word,
some sniglet that would
do it justice.
Arise, O caffeine nation,
and put a word to that
wonderful sound that spews
from a cup like waves
above an orchestra pit.


Thanks for stopping by.  Why not grab another cup-a-joe and visit some other poets at One Shot Wednesday….?  

>Had Your Back….For One Shot Wednesday…come on give it a shot.

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>

When I was young I had your back              
by uneven steps on the sidewalk.
I’m sorry I stopped paying attention.
I had destinations.
I almost tripped over your broken back.
Then the dandelions pushed through
to see if I would look down.
I kicked the buds off their bases.
The cement was mine and I
didn’t notice the shin splints.
The wheels turned.
Skateboards and bicycles.
The bumps shot up my spine.
Then I got off the walk by
borrowing your car.
I left you by the side of the road.
I was center lined and selfish.
Things were said, better off dead.
Your broken back.
Your broken heart.
I’ve seen my kids stutter step
down the walk protecting
a spine of a mother kind.
When will they stop looking down?
Their mom wants them to look up…
to watch were they are going.
But I hope they look back
occasionally and see the curved
back they once protected.
For My Mother

>Aurora Borealis

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>

we stood together
almost silently
with mutual awe
for the celestial
apparition
pointing with
guiding words
of wonder as
the glowing curtain
danced and skipped
in the northern sky
like a nervous ghost
its translucent
evening gown
tucked and furled
in the folds of
the wind
we stood together
straining to see
the mystery
of us
for my son Nathan