Crapshoot

 
One way or the other,
Your luck runs dry—
Intended or not.
And the deed’s done,
Before you have the chance
To relinquish the game.
You can measure the odds,
But be prepared for trouble,
Right out of the box.
Sure, you may hit a jackpot,
Turn table after table,
Up and down the street.
I guess it could happen.
That’s why it’s worth a throw;
Wager high, wager low.
What have you got to lose?
Yes, when in doubt, roll the dice—
Until the moment you crap out.



Game

 
They say you got it,
Or you ain’t:
The walk, the flash,
The talk, the cash.
I see it on the street.
Watch the game played
By guys half my size,
Who duck and weave,
Shuck and jive.
Believe they know
The ebb and flow.
Climb walls of rhythm,
Rhyme by rhyme.
Sing perfect words
And capture time.

Driving 154 m.p.h.

on the Northway
drugged up and drunk
snapchatting behind
the wheel, not some
wild country western
song, not a music video
and U tube sensation
but the newspaper headline,
the lead in a vehicular
homicide trial all local
TV stations covered.
What happens when
you total two cars, kill
young woman on the way
home from night classes
taken to try and get ahead.
She left behind two small
children. Even without
shackles and leg chains,
he walks with a limp now.
Something to remember her
by every day of his life.

one bullet


there is death

in the kitchen
and
there is sorrow
in my belly
for the mother
next door
who lives a life
like
dripping faucets
running toilets
monotonous
mad
she confesses
with the fury
of ants
cold beetle stories
of youth
run from her tongue
into my ear
she shakes and cries
for lunch line ladies
missed sunday sermons
and the man
who stopped
one afternoon while
the children were
at a school
as my arm finds hers
i commit with knowing tone
another friendly fatality
"it'll be alright"
the stains are brighter than blood

Depression Settling In

I thought that
Maybe a funny film
Would brighten
My outlook on life.
Yeah, Woody Allen
Made some movies
With mega laughs.
Only one I could find
At the movie rental
Was Manhattan,
Woody’s so called
Art film. Hadn’t seen it.
An hour and a half
Not even a chuckle.
Now my depression
Is a permanent state.
Hannah and her sisters
Should kick his ass.

Winter.

The changing weather of
Winter is masked.
Sometimes a little grey all along
That bruised my palm
All alone as if hanging
The dewdrops in a muddy bowl
The flowers are sordid
A little pansy, shiver stricken
I took my notepads out in the
Blueish grey
The parchment of winter hang around
Drinking, seemed a little noble
As it stitched my past
Into grey sweaters
The touch and go all ripened
And new at the same time
The falcon flew over all along
Waiting for the winter
A little long with grey walls
Of fortresses.



Choir.

Sunday, an epiphany found
Breeze toiling outside the church
A Shepherdess in warm moonshine
A prosaic piece of some bliss
Writing with changing weather
An ever brimming motion
With each cessation a new sun rises
And Swirls in outside venture
The autumn aurora came
A little too late
Bringing forth history
Nation's bringing clamor
Epiphanies shoven into
My cosmic zeal of a suspense high
Then I found bright torpor of choir
Singing an ever brimming motion
Writing delivering with churches
The sun shone a flagship high
For autumn that came a little too late.

GRIND

 
Rows of mute zombies face opposing laptop
backs towards each other, run their fingers
down sleek display designs, and caress
their smartphones. Why work seven days a week
just to toil at the coffeehouse at night?
Remember playing chess and boardgames
at the café? Reading dogeared paperbacks
from the ‘take a book, leave a book’ library?
Listening to an acoustic guitar get drowned
out by a coffee grinder during an open mic?
Before the Internet went public and killed
the community. Before everyone retreated
into their own sphere, earbuds in, tuning
one another out, attention spans annihilated.
Before cellphone addicts texted fellow addicts
sitting right next to them. Pick up a book!
Or start a conversation without using
your phone. Wave your hands excitedly
when you talk. Don’t let your laptop leech
too much of your life energy. Tip your barista,
and remember to buy more than one coffee
every four hours. Capisce?  

it took me 12 years

to figure out
that the prescriptions
my doctor was giving me
were poisoning me.

I stopped taking them
without telling her.

I guess 12 years is nothing
in a universe almost
30 billion years old.

nevertheless,
it’s yet another crow
on the horizon

another little thing
pushing me ever closer
to the edge

LIGHTS

i am god
i mean i’m not
gonna go and start
a cult or nothing but
i am god and so are you
we’re all fucking miracles
we’re all made of stars
we are the universe
we are aglow
born from
infinite
light

now

time

to start acting like it.
_____

THE WHYS & HOWS OF IT

Why sunscreen smells like summer vacation.

How a smile can change a life.

Why your children are the most important people in the world.

How I spend half my day petting my dog telling her how pretty she is and consider it time well spent.

Why when hungover french fries taste like heaven.

How when you hear a favorite song time travel is possible and instantaneous.

Why endings are intimidating.

How many ways to live a life.

Now is how and you are why

Misery

How pathetic am I?
I'll tell you.
I'd get so lonely,
so depressed reading
all those deadly lady poets,
you know the ones:
Sylvia, Sexton, that crew.
I'd be sitting on the couch
with one of Anne's books,
more than likely the fairy
tale one, or the awful rowing
thing, whatever, and I'd get
so blocked I couldn't even
write my own suicide note.
I'd decided to end it all
the way Anne did: in the garage,
with the car on and a shaker full
of bone-dry martinis; my own
little Doesn't Have a Clue game.
So don't I try it, and doesn't
the car run out of gas.
I pass out all right but don't I
wake up with a killer hangover,
one so bad that if I could have
dragged my sorry ass back inside
the house, I would have fallen on
a carving knife just to put myself
out of that misery.
No such luck.
What I get instead is this bunch of
misguided Angels of Mercy,
holding my hand and directing me toward
a righteous path to recovery.
Let me tell you, that scene is
a hell of a lot worse than dying
thoroughly liquored in the garage.

Grovetide


Little did I know how it could go
Although I should have known
How it would grow when planted.
I planted a weed, tree weed, that would
Wash up everywhere. There appears
No way to shore up the onslaught.
At root, the problem is roots.
The trees will send out runners
Sprouting from the earth to attack
Me like alien clones invading my space.
Suckers to the assault! Offspring of
Aspen incest run and shoot
Metastasizing, the lawn long-gone.
Mowing incites, it seems, a reflex
To procreate, spurring roots, shoots,
And leaves until the only thing left
To do is apply herbicide, chemotherapy—
Kill the root, kill the earth. Or perhaps
I might burn them three ways to
Wednesday. It has been said that
The largest living organism is an aspen
Grove somewhere in the Rockies. A single
Tree that has propagated to a hundred
Something acres. So now I know what I did
Not know those years ago. From a tree
A forest will grow. Yes, in the fall I am
Rich when the aspen turn to gold,
Until winter wind blows hard and cold
Sharing my wealth with neighbors
Then I am again poor me left with roots
Dormant, waiting to spring to run
And shoot at the sucker who planted them.
When the world ends, I expect that then
An aspen will shade the last cockroach.