Would you cross Dragon river
For an ancient vision?
A world so wild
It seems chaos,
Nothing we can comprehend.
But over there
The drink is good
So freely handed out,
And Horses sit
At card tables
Betting all or nothing again.
The Trees are big
– So gorgeously big –
They take up most the sky,
Very top of horizon!
Monkeys swing from branch to branch
Dropping sweet surprises
Onto hats passing Frolickers
In bed with Froliquettes.
Would you cross that Dragon river
To step upon the other side?
Or would you tighten up your belt
And square down your hat?
Tag: table
Racket In My Brain (day 3081)
There’s a racket in my brain
That’s been gone for so long
That makes all the mess:
Chicklets on the table,
And memories of messages
Written in block
On beige walls of the cold school
Eluding so many.
This, as so,
Has taken up my mind
And left me unguarded
To the whims of the Mafia
We call World Order.
So where can I go?
Who can I look to?
For the racket in my brain
Seems to like all the rain.
Two (day 3033)
My memory woke me up;
Two dollars and loose strings
Attached to each of my morals
Dangling cheaply
To the tune of a Tom Waits album
On repeat.
I’ve gone over the top again,
My finger jammed
Into some random container
Taking up space
On my single seated table.
Two young girls
Giggled in the corner
But quickly remembered where they were,
Checked their long blonde hair
And checked their phones
Together.
Tomorrow I’ll be here again,
I’ll wear my eagle belt buckle
That reminds me
I’m more than two dollars
On the good days,
And ask the waitress
With the good smile
To kindly take this container away
For it’s killin’ my mood, man.
Dark You Dark (day 2751)
I wrote a poem for you
That felt like a lifetime
It wove its way through dark corners
Of suspicious bars
That looked sideways
And smelt like
The sticky lacquer
Melting off the wooden bar table.
It isn’t enough that you’re here
Vibrating like a toy sized dog
Stuck on repeat
In a cassette tape deck
That likes to eat tapes,
I want more
I want the underside of the table
That’s a garbage can
You don’t look into,
I want the sole
Of a soleless shoe,
I want the rattle in my pocket
From change at our corner store
For your mind is the darkness
I’ll stand in the dark for.
Dinner Table, Hungry Plates (day 2489)
It has snowed and I am cold
Darkness sets the evening mood
But cheer and family have come around
Gathering at the house
To celebrate each other in cheer
And feast upon our fill
That rests idle at the dinner table
Waiting for our hungry plates
To spill and splash and mix and match
Each of us, indeed, happy as can be.
Life of a Leaf (day 2408)
I’ve grown accustomed to leaves turning my memories from fresh to curled, a well understood paradox that changes the tide so romantically it hurts like the small spots beside the bulging veins growing inside.
My smile has grown lines, my heart has extended its beats, my hearing has begun to dance with angels upon the dead leaves blowing along the roughly trampled ground – are these our memories we have yet to experience, or have they been forgotten and left to dissolve into earth?
So I crouch down low and embrace the softly blowing wind that helps me to see my passing time I used to think I loved, I used to want to love, so here I’m hurting from spatial infrequencies that cup my involuntary spasms from underneath the table and remind me to forget to itch the pain.
Does this leaf know it crumbles within my palm so slowly softly? Did it reach for me in a pure moment of thought, expecting my return upon amber wings of a sun soaked day like an emotional Prometheus on a personal mission.
Then, like the ashes of memories crumbling in scaled hands of our Phoenix, so too shall sun rise again over the horizon of a small family farm to bring with it a wet spring full of insight and gratitude that runs the width and depth of a heart shaped leaf settling softly upon a well worn path of insight.
Social Water Stains (day 2373)
I’m a lonely kind of poet
And that’s good by me
Singer and songwriting
Leaves me with a fright
Some kind atmosphere
Tenderness blithe
That’s social tonight.
I hope that you leave me again,
Leave me here to fall into me:
Mine then left on an empty table
Water stains here my heart.
Overturned (day 2157)
Holding on to a memory
Like a rainy afternoon
Through a window.
An oblique vase casts
Two shadows upon its inanimate post:
One small shadow from the heavily diffused daylight,
The other, much larger
From the pulsating heart
Laid bare upon the table.
Heavy splatters pointing fingers
In every direction
And a wooden chair sits overturned,
Too cold to stoke the fire.
Moon at Midnight – Part VIII (day 1982)
(part VII)
I helped Amy and Frank chop wood for five days
In exchange for…
Well, I guess it would be food and board
But I was mostly staying for the company
As they were both such enjoyable humans to be around
And their two lazy dogs, Rudd and Jip,
That I still don’t understand why
They weren’t the first to greet me
And Claire, who I nicknamed Clarinet
On account of my sweet mother’s favorite instrument
Who was the child I had heard Amy speaking to
Upon my arrival.
They came from the South
Frank’s old man was a cattle baron down there
Whose ruthless ways, along with his two brothers
Had driven his kind heart out of there
Before he found himself crazy
Kind enough to send him off with
His share of the ranch, though
Amy was his sweetheart
And probably had a lot to do with his tenderness
Having been in love since they were thirteen
Holding hands in the pews at the Sunday sermons.
Amy was the only daughter of the towns only Doctor
She was tall and kind
And treated everything she came in contact with
As if it were the most precious thing around
Yet balanced it with just the right amount of sternness
That kept any good family working smoothly
Her parents missed her dearly
And came to visit once a year after the thaw
To check on the health of the family.
Had I set my heart out to build a more perfect house
I don’t think I’d have been able to
The patio afforded a view
Stretching out in front of the house
Down the meadow to the small stream
At the far end
The exterior had board and batten
Of pine that Frank had meticulously fired
Into a most beautiful looking color
Inside, Amy’s oven was perfectly stoked
To afford just enough heat to boil a pot of tea
But not enough to break a sweat
Which sat on the kitchen side of the middle of the main room
And on the far side were two rooms
One for Amy & Frank
And the other for their planned family
That currently was filled with household items
Amy needed close at hand
A sturdy table Frank had built
One met on the right just as they entered the house
And to the left upon the wall
Was where shoes were left and coats hung
And following along was storage
And more chairs to see to it
That no guest was left standing at the door.
Sheets and Tables (day 1938)
So then it opened
And all blasphemies
And horrors
Were spilled out
Upon sheets and tables
That forevermore
Reeked of lost innocence
Crunched by time’s cloth