Ideas

Trickling in slower than sap dripping down the side of a heavily barked tree
My ideas come to me
They always ask the same question
Am I important enough to be transferred to paper
I say that it depends on the type of paper
The puzzled look on the faces of my ideas makes me smile
I tell them that some are fit for the finest rag vellum money can buy
The ideas shift and talk amongst themselves excitedly
I continue that others would be relegated to adorn my bathroom tissue
That remark garners only thick and desperate silence
I love it when my ideas get worried

It's Like Strawberry Jam.....

     "Ok, so you have been fucking it away, what does that have to do with your dinner?"

     "Every single second, I have been fucking it away, does that mean anything to you?"

     "You're a decent man, you have decent kids, you have lead a decent life."

     "That star is dead, long time dead, I'll never see its death, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

     "Your gravy is getting cold."

     "I have missed so much, I have paid attention to so little. Theres no sorting out what is important and what's not."

     "Can you see?"

     "No."

     "No, I mean, can you physically still see?"

     "Yes."

     "It's all important."

     "Is that your strawberry jam?"

     "Yes."

     "Perfect."

     "I love you."

Sea Salt

I didn't know it

But my sanity had been trimmed with my last haircut

"What the fuck is your problem," she asked

I told her I was just keeping it in the basket

And kept dancing

I knew that the brine that had once coated the relationship

Had solidified, you could use it to salt the sidewalk now

She slipped anyway, testing, tasting

I hope she comes back around and not for the sex

No, she was the seasoning, a pinch of this, a shake of that

A shaft of unbearable light, the world never stood a chance

Feeding the World

Biting the worm in half leaves residue for the future
My mother told me to feed my soul but not to forget our universe
You are god when they have lost their faith, feed them the other half
So that you may be whole again and lock hands
Analyzing the ashes created by life's fire prove we are all so much kindling

2015 BD

I give a shit!
You're drowning in blankets of maybe, sorry
Let me peel back the layers and expose your new skin
A perfect photograph of kindness upon your brow
Worry thrown like a frisbee to the pups nipping at your heels

I give two shits!
You should have held tight, white knuckled
Thrown to the curb because I feel the universe expanding
My breath encompassing NOW, emotionally relevant
Keep climbing dear, when you reach that spire I will have gone

Giving a shit is love without the curse word
Giving a shit is the soft warm bosom of the world
Giving a shit builds mountains that shelter, grows crops that nourish
Giving a shit is the foundation for life's minstrel show, snake oil and all
Giving a shit is what I do

It Takes Two

It takes two…coffins to bury last night’s casualties

My dignity and my unflappable charm did not go down without a fight
Put your left foot in, put your left foot out
Shamelessly flailing like a land locked trout

It takes two…men with shovels to dig out the grave

The place where my Sunday will be buried, a day dying on the couch
Put your right foot in, put your right foot out
I’m too old for this shit, there is no doubt

It takes two…former friends to tell me to sit down the following week

When the dance floor flirts, massaging my need for attention with lovers fingers
Put your head in, put your head out
Who am I kidding, Captain Morgan has the clout

Don't Care a Thing About Them Blues

A cup full of misery Janice
A cup full of time
A cup full of mama's ass
A place to plant a rhyme
A cup full of sorrow Prudence
A cup that spilled the love
A cup full of daddy's nickels 
A push comes to a shove
Now that it is full dear Marva
Now that you are gone
I'll sit and shine this here guitar
Don't give a shit about that sun

Vacation with Mother O.

You came of your own free will, the cattle call
A place to soothe phantom depressions
Gathering shells to fend off every day, imagining this is perfect reality
She understands more than you will ever know
About desperation and desire
Lulling the pigs to sleep with deft fingers 
Then pulling them into deaths cradle
The emotion is there, don't doubt that
Pushing and pulling, lunar commands not barked but whispered
And when the thin blue veil washes over her prey, her lovers
Her belly still aches with a vastness that can never be filled
Scream if you can, spurn her advances
One thing is for certain
It's time to feed the crabs

Smoked to the Frame

“Inhale motherfucker.”

“Inhale motherfucker!”

 

     His voice was low and wicked in the boy’s ears. His large, hot hand fumbled with his crotch. He grabbed his balls and squeezed, the blinding pain causing the young man to inhale sharply the acrid, sweet smoke, ending in a coughing fit.  Then it was over

     “See ya tomorrow shithead,” the man said, “and bring money, the lady ain’t free.”

     The rush should have been all consuming, but it was secondary in his case, background.  The sound of his own blood pulsing in his ears and the vision of his mother telling him he would be something, something…something. Flying to the moon and back was something, right?

     Everything was on his right, even that girl who lived on Folsom, she was reaching for his hand but he couldn’t move.  He could see himself smiling, but lifting his arm was out of the question, it was toooo... damnnn... heavy.

    “In a minute honey-pie,” drifting, “jus’ one more minute.”

 

 

Magical but not that Magical

Are you there?
The face of a child is the face of the universe
In that child's face lies everything and nothing
And in his pocket a quarter to make a call
Assuming God doesn't take collect calls
The child will have four minutes
To say everything and nothing
That happened since last Easter
Then comes the small talk
Which is bigger when God is on the other end
When the call is over she will sigh
And say out loud
"No matter how many times he asks,
I will not call him "It", that just seems disrespectful

Addict

You can have it if you are high on anything
The softest voice attached to the softest fingers
Supplicant, you might ask for more
But its not your decision babe

When you are high on the wind
There is a piece of you that does fly
Not your soul, its tethered to infinity
And you cannot fathom the calculation

When you are high on drink
Those breasts will eat a man's lunch
Then his mind for desert, coffee after
The headache, a token, affection for the search

When you are high on love
It is better to love the earth or ocean, not the man
Grounded in natural beauty, you will choke first, tears
But the heights, oh the heights, you may reach 
Kissing the sky means just that

Seven

She broke the silence with seven words from Cannery Row
The opening paragraphs, the paragraph about Monterey being a quality of light
They looked at her seven ways from Sunday and fidgeted
And she was the weird one, the forced puzzle piece
And she was the girl that hung out on the fringe
She knew those words and she knew that quality of light
She was seven days from becoming full and gorgeous
They didn't know, she didn't know
The universe hangs it's hat on the beauty that is an open mind