Fin

Mako shark,
after dark,
hint of lime,
is sublime.
It’s because
I saw "Jaws"
that I tend
to gloat.
With each bite,
I say, "Right.
Here’s your
bigger boat."

The Drift

The snow is so deep, it’s starting to seep
into daily life’s very marrow.
With rivers of ice and white pyramids
one oft feels like Frosty the Pharaoh.
It seems every day the forecasters say,
Get ready for two feet of powder.
The drifts look like waves upon a strange sea,
an ocean of frozen clam chowder.
If I were a child, I’d be going wild,
no school and unlimited sledding.
But I’m much too old and aching and cold:
Dear God, please annul this white wedding!

Valentine Daze

Love is massacred by candy,
the best ammunition handy.
Pools of chocolate laced with cherry
mark the ides of February.
One day yearly is the ration
cupid doles out for our passion.
Romance draped in jewels and flowers
rules the world for several hours.
Then, like clockwork, slips away,
bloody hallmark holiday.

Crazy in Chinatown

My girl’s in Chinatown.
She’s goin’ crazy.
You see her, turn around.
Her name is Daisy.
She’s got a knife and by now
she just might have a gun.
One minute havin’ fun,
the next, I’m on the run.
She’s down there in the street,
yellin’ my name out loud.
She used to be so sweet.
She used to make me proud.
But now I do believe
that she intends to kill me.
I didn’t want to leave,
but this shit doesn’t thrill me.
She’s never been the same
since she found crack cocaine.
Just know I’m not to blame
for driving her insane.
My girl’s in Chinatown.
And me, I’m headin’ west.
As long as I’m not found,
that would be for the best.

Stone Cold Buddha

My Buddha is suffering in the ice box.
His pain is melting all the popsicles.
Grape/orange mantra calls for cleanup,
And a new religion without sticks.
I pray to his grey magnetic face,
There beneath the tide of pink and blue.
Now the psychedelic fridge front preys
Upon our constant need for colorful sweets.
My Buddha must suffer to disguise his chill.
He melts. He freezes. And he melts again.

Hanging Chad

Chad had a PhD in loafing arts.
Who knew that one could rest
so many parts?
The man would plan his off time
out in charts.
To move him, one would need
the use of carts.
There was no task that he
could not avoid.
Just sitting still was what
he most enjoyed.
Who knows how he will
ever be employed?
One could get much more work
out of a droid.

Dot…Dot…Period

Dot and Dot
had colon trouble,
period.
They would have been comma
if life weren’t such a dash.
"We’re not apostrophe,"
they’d exclamation point.
But the question marked them.
And to quote Mark,
they needed a good slash,
right in the hyphen,
period.

King to Slave

You’re the king of the wide open spaces.
You’re a tie and black shoes with no laces.
You’re an endless dirty fight.
You’re a tail whose dog won’t bite.
You’re on permanently temporary basis.
You’re the king of the wide open spaces.

You’re the duke of imaginary hollow.
Where the senses may senselessly just wallow.
You’re a staple of the range
Where the antelopes are strange.
And the deer is impossible to swallow.
You’re the duke of imaginary hollow.

You’re a slave to the king and duke machine.
And you seem to work so hard it makes you mean.
You’re a quite unpleasant peasant
With an eye trained on the present.
You’re a pauper always dreaming of the queen.
You’re a slave to the king and duke machine.

Beneficial Bruising

Face to face with fate,
I turned, but much too late.
My beneficial bruising
Seemed at the time like losing.
But much good would come of it.
I learned, in fact, to love it.
On everyone life leaves its marks.
Some suffer gnats and others sharks.
And my unique disfiguration
Stemmed from distrust in my nation.
Branded by a fear of power,
I grew weaker by the hour.
Death presented options often.
Ride it out inside a coffin.
Then one day I felt much stronger.
Seemed the scars were there no longer.
Peace was made with all mankind.
Bruising’s healed within the mind.

Tense Sense

When outrageous gets contagious,
things get topsy-turvy.
Square goes round and air turns ground
while straight becomes all curvy.
Glitter’s thrown in with the litter.
Crones become vivacious.
Monks who’ve taken silence vows
now laugh and get loquacious.
Spinsters take their cars for spins,
looking for hitchhikers.
Lifelong priests embrace their sins,
hanging out with bikers.
But nothing lasts, this crazy blast
will run its course in time.
You meek and staid, don’t be afraid,
this life turns on a dime.

Felonious Monkey

Who robbed the teddy of its sleep
by whispering of lions?
Who killed the poor electric charge
by stealing all its ions?
Who built a bridge across the fridge
and covered it with cream?
Who copped a night time attitude
they passed off as a dream?
Who named his cur Poor Goodnight Sir
and numbered all the lambies?
Why it’s the lad who’s only bad
when dressed in stolen jammies.

Canine Pound Hammer

No pet’s smarter than a dog.
I heard someone say it.
You could buy a dog a drum,
teach him how to play it.
Not the kind that uses sticks;
that would be all wrongo:
one where he could use his paws,
tom-tom like, or bongo.
You could make a ton of change
down the supermarket.
Even teach him how to sing,
though he’d have to bark it.
People exiting the store
would just be struck dumb,
when they heard that damn dog howl
"We Shall Overcome."

Meditation Blackout

The nest is chocked with sentimental thieves.
Washed-out cries ferment the hose factory.
Criminal justice is replaced with hysterical laughter.
All for the better: the stocks are going rotten,
not a plague in sight, and the bars full of beaters,
painful music producing prodigious polyphony.
Clocks, dropped like breadcrumbs, bewitch.
Compulsive compassion is the last dying thread.
A large blanket of forgiveness has been draped
over the various prisons, and onto the horizon.

Polished Speaker

Everywhere I travel,
I always bring some gravel.
It adds a bit of timbre to my voice.
If I don’t sound majestic,
one merely need suggest it.
I swallow some rocks, orate and rejoice.

Sammy

I am just a rookie who dropped a pass.
I hit a sixty-two but wound up last.
I’m poetry after the chiefs are gassed.
I’m impossible drift; I’m the trailer.
I kicked a whopper into t.v. land.
I clipped the goal post and the salsa band.
The rule: down over and a grain of sand.
Above it all, I stay, the sailor.

Mixed Double-cross

Manchild at the net
can’t explain
his double fault.
His lob to the baseline
was a bomb.
His sudden
smashing serve
served no one well.
In the end
he left the court
with his balls
in his pocket,
without love,
without advantage,
all ties broken.

Punch and Judas

I can’t ignore the puppet strings,
the wire that connects the wood to blood.
I can’t forget the man who sings
such lonely ballads, boots all caked in mud.
I cannot feel the empathy
with hordes who trundle daily through the street.
I cannot muster sympathy
for those who battle for the better seat.
The puppet show goes on all day.
The plot is never-ending.
The heartsung tunes just waft away,
into the blue skies wending.
The milling crowds in business shrouds
may dwindle down by night.
But, come the dark, like stormy clouds,
they’re primed for fight or flight.

Party Down

Where to are you bound
if not in the ground?
The sky is the limit, they say.
You fly to a peak
and stay for a week,
then rise into heaven one day.
The dirt in the hole
will replace the soul,
the quiet still sticky with prayer.
The insects and snakes
will hold their own wakes.
You’ll rest in eternal nightmare.
Soon flowers will grow
in row upon row.
Your stone will host lichen and mold.
It’s no party town
when you’re six feet down.
There is no cure for growing old.

Angry Vulture

There is no place left
for an angry vulture.
They’re just not wanted
in our current culture.
No one appreciates
their whole routine of
flying in to pick a body clean.
They and their buzzard pals
must eat at night
and bitch about how
things now just aren’t right.
Unmeating dead men’s bones
is not so scary.
It makes them
that much easier to bury.