In the Spirit (of Kentucky Photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard)

Back when the world was black and white, 
folks had no use for Halloween.
Any occasion sufficed. 

People of all ages apparently 
went everywhere wearing nightmare masks.

A one-armed man at the end of his long workday
would pose beside a headless mannequin in lingerie.  

To impress friends or on a dare, a child wearing a dress jumped
from a granary or icehouse loft in a blur.

This optician made his unusual name
taking these oddly mystical pictures
mostly to amuse himself. 

Faith is weird that way.

GETTING TO TOMORROW


Grass poking through snow.
Countless chickadees and titmice

at the feeder, shower seeds
on a fat blue jay below. The sun drags

its long fingers along a pine fence.
A sleepy St. Bernard heaves a sigh.

A man with knuckles raw
from beating his steering wheel,

raises bloodshot eyes to a winter
night’s first few pinprick sparks.




WORK EXPERIENCE

 
Snow falls
in street lamp
light
on the windowless,
fire-gutted
mill
where my uncle,
fresh
out of high school,
lost both thumbs
in a metal press—
his first day
on the job.

 

You Appear Tentaculoracular

i see you thru the window of your motions
calm down maya i’m like fuck you
jellyfish juice in my knee stings
and suddenly i’m with you
again for ever and
ever as an ocean
is quiet is quiet
as all the ways
you come to
me only as
i’m fever
wild
passion
i say i am but
you wouldn’t say 
would spontaneously
combusust unless you
appear tentaculoracular
would you piss on my wound
if i ask without remorse to dull
the poison and pain of the stung
pumps into my heart i’ll remember
this the clappers and steel drums one day
i’ll remember you suddenly down broadway
when life’s one long hourglass and lightning splits     

     t h e   m i d d l e
      s i f t i n g   o u t
           m e a s u r  e s
      o f  m y  p a t i e  n ce
     s  p  i  l  l  i  n  g 
o u t  o f  p a t i e n c e

“imagine the magnificence wash invisibly away”

a n c i e n t   r e a l m 
      o f w a v e  r h y m e s 
i n t i m e ’ s n o m ea s u r e

eyes


there’s a dying ember of tomorrow
smoldering in her once brilliant
one electric blue
now red watery despondent eyes

she can almost remember a time
when everything mattered
when all of this was nothing
and everything else
all of the outside of these hours
was much more than simply
something to get through

get through to get where
here
this

this seems less a destination
less a reward
more a prison
constructed by careless frivolity
and inevitable desperation

there’s a nagging silent hope
that sometimes claws at the
back of her brain
but she’s gotten good at
drowning it down

every time she comes in the door
her self hatred grows a little stronger
She doesn’t know she’s thought of this
but she has
and maybe if she’s lucky
someday she’ll realize it

tears threaten to burst
every time she motions
for another
mile marker to familiar blackout

some people are so broken
you never have to share a single word
you can find their whole story
suffocating in their eyes

Different View 

A club member confides:  
"My dear father phoned
with bad news."
He told me,
"Mom's friend upset us. 
We arrived for dinner tonight.
Our hostess opened the door, 
then collapsed in front of us. 
A heart attack."
The club member ends: 
"I think she was inconsiderate."  

It's All Good

It's all good.
Life, enjoy everything.
Nature is wonderful.
Music and art marvelous.
Fine cuisine delicious.
Just being alive is fantastic.
Enjoy every minute of it,
Hang out in bars.
Meet new people,
Make jokes, have a laugh.
Enjoy a damn good beating,
What the hell did I say?
I'm sure my doctor can
Reset these bones.



The Language Thing

See, there's this language thing.
My first time in Europe,
I get this naked woman
Lying across my midsection
Fondling my tool.
She says, "French"?
I say, "American".
Again, she's with this "French"?
I didn't have time to answer
Before she puts this lip lock
On my stiff cock and gives me
A fantastic, world class blow job.
Yeah, the language thing.
I'm well into this "French" now.

This World Is Too Full of Us

 
This world is too full of us
Getting and spending, we lust for power
Little we see in Nature that is beyond us
We have given our hearts away

This world is too full of us
Dreaming and coveting, we are insatiable
There’s nothing we care about but our own interest
We have lost the sense of beauty

This world is too full of us
Fighting and arguing, we stopped looking around
All we see is how well we look
We have no real passion and love

This world is too full of us
Bragging and showing, we are blind to knowing
Most of time we care about winning
We destroy the world where we are living

A Late Afternoon, Almost Kiss, 2015

 
Dappled sunlight dimmed to death
in anticipation:

Their lips the breadth of a teardrop apart
when they paused.

Chastity? Or Christianity?

They still grapple for an answer,
though each made a home with another.

The brown patch of earth where they stood
remains flushed, shivering.




Twinkle, Twinkle, Little No More


When little children huddle before heading home,
do they talk about dying any moment
and wish for any nursery rhyme
to play as a funeral song?

Denying Credit

He shoves this piece
of blue plastic
in my face and starts
ordering absurd drinks
as if everything he
would say was supposed
to make sense.
"That guy looks awfully
pissed." The bar back says.
"It's one of the few
pleasures bartenders get;
denying assholes credit.
Why do you think
I still work here?
Where he comes from
McDonald's takes plastic".

February

2025’s second month
is deficient, lacking, less than
helpful, failing to
provide warmth to millions
shivering from northern Canada
to the Texas shoreline. 
It is minus fourteen in Nebraska,
colder further north, predicted
to have a high below zero
about three this afternoon.
Not much snow in January,
it comes daily now
adding to everyone’s wariness.
Livestock must live out there,
people must travel
yet roads are terrible.
State trooper responding
to an accident
was killed by a snowplow.
Heavy rain and floods
in California and Kentucky
death toll rising,
leave people homeless,
businesses swamped.
What have we done to you
Mother Nature,
for you to turn on us,
what have we done?