Thursday, July 28, 2016

Here's the Theme


Love, sex and politics,
have been the dominating
themes of the last few
weeks.

Love in the form of
the great many number
of weddings going on this
month.  (For which I do not have a date. Again)

Two people that found each
other in this crazy mixed up world
deciding to dedicate themselves to
each other in the bonds of love. So Sweet.

A theme that I’ve been missing in
my life for a long time and every
so often I feel the pangs of loves loss
tug at me like a kid begging mom for candy.

Sex in the form of…
what’s sex? I’m not sure I
remember that particular form
of physical expression.

I’m so disconnected from it,
(See the love theme) that I’m
sure my “passionate lover” card
has expired.

Let me check my wallet…
Yup, it has.
 Sigh.

Politics in the form of hate and/or
peace mongering from the
pedestals of power, poured in the
eager ears of the masses.
  
And all three ideas seem oddly the same
to me. Love, sex, politics, all require some
negotiation, some compromise, some letting
go of preconceived notions.

Yet, the one of the three I’ve had
the most of has been politics.
I can’t get away from it or
enough of it.

Which would be great for sex,
but even better for love.


Thursday, July 21, 2016

The Politics of Summer


For me, the politics of summer
are quite easy.
There’s not much to it.
It’s an electoral collage of one
and I’m the only voter.

I’m voting for the Libation Party,
the one that serves cool summer
cocktails and cold beers.  They get
my vote. I’m also pleased with their
running mate, Air Conditioning.

The swaying summer Hammock Party,
is a close third but I haven’t really seen
a great candidate yet so I’m hedging my
bets. You never know when they’ll
get together with the Libation Party though.

The Shade Tree party is always a
contender, but they can be lacking when
it comes to dealing with the heat.
Sometimes there just isn’t enough Shade
to keep one’s cool.

I like to think that most of the candidates
have my best interests at heart. They all
support fun, laughter, joviality, and rather
skimpy outfits.  So the choices are easy.
All the choices only want the best for me.

So as I enter the polling place, cold beer in hand,
and enter the booth, without spilling a drop,
I’ll wipe my brow and vote without remorse
for the candidate I know will only hurt me a
little bit tomorrow, but love me for the day.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

The Hand-Held Heart


At the end of my sleeve
was a heart, beating and
swollen with enduring
love. So large it was, that
it made my fingers fumble
as they tried to hold on.

The heart at the end of my
sleeve is smaller now,
the passionate blood now
trickling easily through
steady fingers. Slick and cold,
easy to avoid.

The once loud throbbing,
deafening, beating that drowned
out the sounds of the world as I
gazed at her with mysterious wonder
is now sadly silent. The sound of it,
so diminished.

In my summer short sleeves
you might never have known
the size of the heart that once
dominated long sleeved wrists,
you might catch a glance of what
used to be, but it’s unlikely.

When I scratch my arm, and feel the
phantom soft spot where my heart beat so bold,
I feel its loss, and the raised scar where
the skin once burned with loving
passion and that special something only
intimate lovers know.   

A heart on the end of a sleeve,
it’s a poor place for it. Yet I want it
to be as full as it once was, getting in the
way, as I fumble again to impress her heart,
that she wears on her sleeve, fumbling toward
mine.

Monday, July 11, 2016

Almost Made It


                The traffic was a nightmare for Trevor. He’d had the mega burrito for lunch and then downed it with a Mountain Dew. He knew he was a potential powder keg but figured he could make it. Those burritos are just so good. They’re like having a wish come true, and that wish was for more burritos. Trevor could eat one every day until he died and never have any regrets; until today.

                It started simply enough. Meg asked him if he wanted to go to lunch for the first time in weeks. It was special because he thought he had made Meg angry when he made a few jokes about a certain guy she had dated who turned into a total butt munch and she dumped. But Meg was hard to read at times. She could be laughing hysterically one moment and then scowling the next. So he thought he’d finally sewed his doom with her and she’d never speak to him again, at work or otherwise.

                Trevor gripped the steering wheel with his left hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his right. It was crazy how the body could undergo such a treasonous revolution just from the pressure of a bowel incident. He imagined his little body cells, throwing burrito into his colon like patriots throwing tea over the side of a boat at The Boston Tea Party. “No relaxation without…”
His stomach gurgled and he couldn’t think of a witty end to his no taxation without representation burrito related joke.

                Meg hadn’t helped matters too much either. She was her usual aloof self at lunch. She provided non-committal answers  to almost all of Trevor’s questions about how she was, what she was doing, if she was seeing anyone, if she thought that maybe he had a chance with her, one day, maybe. She smiled her beautiful white smile but never really answered the question. She talked mostly about going out to dinner with her parents. She only got personal when she asked Trevor if he thought that much hot salsa was wise on a Monday afternoon. Trevor was trying to impress her of course with his ability to handle the hottest of the hot salsas. Now though, in the car, sweating from the gurgling in his body, he knew she wasn’t impressed.  Plus she’d made his stomach a little upset from her confusing body language. She never said if they could be an item, or “go together” but she kept putting her hand on his forearm as they spoke and smiling at him while looking right into his eyes.

                Traffic was crawling along and Trevor checked the travel times on his phone. 40 minutes to get to his house. He didn’t think he would make it. The intestinal revolutionaries were starting to win the day and Trevor felt a panicked helplessness start to take over. He wondered if Meg would be able to tolerate him in his old age, say after they had been dating or even married for a few years, if she could take his occasional ½ hour bathroom visits or irritated bowels from time to time. Would that be something she could accepts as who he was or would it be something she couldn’t handle?

                Trevor started to wonder if that was what love really was. Love was accepting the fact that your partner, your mate, the person you value over all others, actually poops. Love isn’t cuddling on a beach in Mexico or dancing a samba or helping her move from that crappy studio apartment to a one bedroom. It was accepting the fact that she is a human being and has to make waste and loving her in spite of the pure concentrated evil coming out of her.  That’s love. As disgusting it may seem, it’s the ultimate act of devotion and love.  Trevor wondered if Meg would ever feel that way about him. He wondered if she could; if she had it in her to accept him.

                Traffic was snarled in gridlock. Trevor pounded on the steering wheel and started to worry if he would make it home. The pressure inside was madness. Trevor grit his teeth and tried to focus his attention of something else, anything else. He tried not to think about Meg either. He somehow felt guilty thinking about her while he was clenching his butt cheeks so hard together. It seemed somehow disrespectful to her.

                Trevor groaned and started looking for any familiar places he knew where the bathrooms were not covered in the feces of every single other person that had been in there since 1978. He was in the rough part of town where men apparently crap lead ingots and flames shoot from their asses, destroying any actual public usage of a bathroom.  He was stopped at another green light. The cross traffic in front of him was blocking the intersection. Trevor could hear an ambulance siren wailing in the distance. He checked his travel time again. It had shot up to 58 minutes.

                Sweat dripped down Trevor’s face and he felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He’d never make it home. Never, never, never, never.  He scanned the long line of parked cars on both sides of the street. There was no place to park, plus no places to duck into except a store that alleged it was selling hardware but all he could see in the window was an old yellow pinball machine. Trevor closed his eyes tight and tried to force his body to cooperate. He was trying to rally his body to stop the interior insurgency of burrito terrorism. His stomach only gurgled in response.  

                The traffic broke in front of him and Trevor sped forward. He knew there was a restaurant up a few blocks that was pretty new and had a bathroom that didn’t resemble something out of a Wes Craven film. He weaved through some traffic and saw the parking lot on the right. He checked his mirrors like he was a race car driver, bobbing and braking and speeding. He flipped on the turn signal and drove up to the restaurant, “The Bistro on the Mall” and screeched to a halt in the nearest parking space. He threw the car in park, hurled open the car door, grabbed his car keys from the ignition and stood. He body hated that and began the full on assault toward his south. A “Scorched Trevor” battle plan toward the sea.

                He started to run to the doors of the restaurant. A small sense of relief started to release endorphin's from his brain. He might make it after all.

                “Trevor,” asked a sweet voice.

                He didn’t want to turn around, but he did. It was Meg, in the waiting area of the restaurant with her parents. This is where they were having dinner, like she mentioned. Trevor tried to smile, but he just waved and clenched his ass and turned. He shuffled toward the men’s room and threw open the door. He kicked open a stall and dropped his pants to the floor and sat. He burst like something from a teenage sex-romp comedy, thick and noisy.

                The relief was extraordinary. It was heaven on Earth. Trevor exhaled in a long slow happy breath.

                “Oh God. Thank you Jesus,” he said.

                He heard the clink of glasses and plates being tossed into a bin and realized when he threw the door to the bathroom open. It had stayed open. Trevor looked up at the stall door. He’d barely had a chance to close it.  The bathroom door was open toward the waiting area. He could hear the faint laughter of some of the patrons. He put his head in his hands as his body loudly evacuated the rest of the traitors.  He rubbed his face, wiping the last of the sweat from his brow.  It was an unrecoverable embarrassment. He could never face Meg again. He’d have to stay in there until the restaurant closed, forever.

               Trevor sighed again. “I wonder what Sally in accounting is up to this weekend,” he thought.


Friday, July 8, 2016

We're All Just Bones Anyway


I’m trying to remember the
last time the U.S.A. had a good
day.

It seems like a while ago,
really far away.

A single good day, no murders,
no shootings, no abductions, no rapes,
no theft, no shouting ignorance from
soapbox pedestals of supposed power.

I don’t remember when that was
when kids played outside all day,
when they rode their bikes to the
park unsupervised.  

Every day, tragedy escalates,
every day, we see the world in flames,
the rift between human beings gaping wide
like an abyss devouring everything
that was once good.

I can’t remember the last time I
didn’t see a terrible headline,
a venomous litany of hate,
outrage over the minutia while
nothing is done about the grand.

It’s foolish to think nostalgia is
reality. The sepia colored memories
of the past  are moldy photos in an
album in the attic. The now is what
matters in all its vibrant color.

Good days come when people
want to change. So we have to change
to make the new days into good days.
Stop being afraid. Stop using fear.
Stop keeping us from a good day. 

Thursday, July 7, 2016

What Can Poetry Do?


What can poetry do?
What can these words
possibly do?
What can a rhyme, a phrase,
an alliterative association accomplish?

What can poetry do?
Nothing.
It can’t do anything on it’s
own.
It’s just words,
just words.

Maybe the lovely thing about
words is they can inspire action,
inspire the soul to move,
engage the mind to think
differently, to see the world
with new eyes.

The right string of words can
enlighten, they can remind
people to be empathetic, to
try out someone else’s shoes
as they walk a different path.

The right words remind us of
the gray between black and white,
the spectrum of light between right
and wrong, and the courage to
accept the differences.

There’s no limit to our understanding.
There’s no boundary on imagination.
There's no limit on love.
There’s no reason to fear.
There’s no time like now.

What can poetry do?
What can’t it do.