“Middle Aged Me”

My fingernails were clean enough
to read Milton in university
as I stayed away from the campus bar,
believing in textbook knowledge
being my saviour, but middle aged me
has dirt writing poems under my nails
and palms with lines like hand drawn routes
on a map with the sort of certainty
guaranteeing I’ve gotten lost so many times
that I know exactly where I am now.

what it fears


darkness

it is when all the
evil souls do their
best work

when the imagination
gets to visit what it
fears

dance with a raven-haired
devil and lose yourself in
the silence

each moment in this
fleeting desire savor,
let it kill you

we are nothing but wasted
time

all that which holds us back

eventually, either death
wins or you stir a little shit
up before the knock at the
door comes for us all

embrace that pain that
never ends

as with anything, it is
only looking for love

a warm body to shelter
it from the cold
------------------------------------------------------------
sweating bullets

 
scribbling poems
in the afternoon

sweating bullets
in the cheap air
conditioning

a sweltering
lament hangs
in the air like
a sudden doom

everyone can
feel it coming

the inevitable
nature of this
life

more downs
than the ups
could ever
eclipse

you can't help
but ponder a gun
in your hand or
learning to knot
a sturdy noose

the hollow eyes
of the woman
you love

she stopped being
here years ago

saw one too
many sunrises
to be happy
ever again
-------------------------------------------

Talk to Stone


Humans may not know
How to talk to one another

Poor souls
Gape soundlessly

Conversations with a stone
Yield better outcomes

There’s always detail   
Unyielding 

Complicity Theory
Sociopaths and criminals in power. Frauds in the pulpit. Cities in ruins. Children in overcrowded refugee camps or underequipped hospitals or graves. I was once a news junkie. So much darkness on display and so many still on their knees at the peephole of misery. If there’s a God, He must be a real shit, the parking lot of the condo complex where I live filling up at dusk with BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches, and massive American-made SUVs, the last also the car of choice of death squads all over the world. 

The Funeral
 
At the gym, he waved me over, and when I replied
“No, I’m not going” he cocked his liver-spotted head
to the left, mouth, now opening and closing
like a fish wanting back in the pond—as if my
declaration forced him to unstitch the previous
eleven seconds, his pupils dilating, unfocused,
but now fixing on some obligation lurking ten
feet behind my head.

I’m done with funerals.

What duty do I have to someone on the job
for twenty-five years, who wrote only blank pages
of conversation? Colleague? Co-worker? Associate?
Someone who rebuffed all intimacy, as if
children, spouses and beer didn’t exist.

Glancing at a now vacant weight-bench, I tried to reel
him back in—“We weren’t any kind of friends you know,
just two people who worked on the same floor for years.”

 
Will You Buy My Book?

Welcome to the reading tonight by John Buck,
who needs no introduction. John will you say
a few words to start us off?

“I write mostly in blank verse, trying to
capture the luxury found in everyday
actions and experiences.

will you buy my book,

my writing is metered but not formal,
no sonnets, cinquains or villanelles.

will you buy my book,

favorite subjects are birds, flowers, kids,
relationships, and running, sometimes
I combine all four,

will you buy my book,

And I’d like to end my introduction by
thanking my host, Jane Smith, for this
invitation, and all of you for attending,

will you buy my book,
will you.
Will you please?”

Proudly Facing the Rivers and Lakes 


Close the door on the right
And open the door on the left

I give the rivers and lakes 
To you 
And the land and kingdom
To him

I
Sit on a cloud
Proudly facing the rivers and lakes
And overlooking the land and kingdom

I 
Stand on the summit
Leisurely listening to the ebb and flow of the tides
And watching the rise and fall of the sun

Under my feet 
99 floors down the pagoda 
Is where the cooking smoke flows

Behind my body
99 lotus flowers away 
Is where other beings reside

Ode to the Smiths

I love the smell of cut grass in the morning   She says with a sardonic grin

I can't focus

Because I am in love with her breasts

But when you rise to piss you see the Wham vinyl

And you are saddened 

Because you can't focus

And you are in love with her breasts 

And you know that it's over before it really began because you are a bourbon and Smith's kind of guy

And you can feel the soil falling over your head

Because you are in love with her breasts.

Dolls

A wrinkled woman, hunched shoulders,
gathers her flesh and bunches her shade 
near the neat and kempt grave.
She changes the toy left on 
the planting plain. This gloaming 
it is a long eared bunny.

peace treaty

this lady

i’d never

seen before

was walking

her dog.

it took

a dump

on my lawn.

she didn’t

have a bag

so she used

a twig

and a leaf

and tossed it

into one of

my cans.

i ran out

raring

for war.

the dog

happily buried

its nose

in my nuts

and sniffed

around.

he does that,

laughed

the lady.

it was an old

golden retriever

with a beautiful

fur coat.

my heart turned

to mush.

i forgave them

instantly

and declared

a peace treaty.

your dog

can bury

its nose

in my nuts

any time

i told her.

she agreed

to

the terms. 

 “A Cousin to Hell”

My tastebuds probably have liver spots now,
letting the chocolates melt in boxes
and soda go flat in the fridge,
while the whisky smiles
like a cartoon sun we know isn’t real,
but still draw in make believe skies
because a ball of fire is too much
of a cousin to hell
for us just to sip lemonade.