What Am I Trying to Say?

Blighted, blunted and bound

by bumbling bones, begging

for brighter, better and best.

Unstirred underlying

overtures of unknown

verses.

Brain,

blood-socked,

bore.

Wanting words with

weight, weaving waywardly

without wrought.  

Bumbling, bumbling, bumbling,

because the better is bound by

baffling blindness.

Unknown,

unsure,

undiscovered.

Bitter and bland,

bandaged by blunder,

bound in befuddlement.

What is it I’m trying

to say?

A Minute to Remember

History is rife with

memorials to men, women

and moments.

Plaques, stone monoliths,

statues, and buildings.

Memorials meant to remind,

honor and to cherish those

that weathered, braved, conquered,

or defied. Memorials to great people,

places and events.

Built for love like the Taj Mahal,

or built for death like the Great

Pyramids, built for honor like

the Vietnam Wall or built for

prestige like the Coliseum of Rome.

There are memorials of the spirit

as well, which are less monumental

in scope but no less worthy of remembrance.

People without monuments, plaques or

statues. People we have loved.

With only a faded or fading memory

of the sound of their laughter, their smile,

the touch of their hand or the love in their

eyes. They have the indomitable monuments

of our memory.

The history of the world may not have

been immensely changed by them, but

they are to be remembered for what they

did, and not how they should or could be

memorialized in stone or steel.

It’s all part of the same human memory,

the collective remembrance of sacrifice,

of hope against all hopes, of waking up one

day and saying, “I’m going to do it,” and

getting it done.

For the sake of family or friends,

just because someone had to do it,

because no one else would, because there’s

dignity and bravery in all our actions when we

choose to do good, to do right.

History may be rife with the towering

memorials to our past, but the true

memorial is us. To go on and pass down

the love, the kindnesses, the passions

of those that went before.

We need to take from those stone memorials

the lessons that were learned and admire

them not because they are architecturally

impressive but because of the accomplishments

they represent.  

A toast to a friend, a teacher, a lover, a mother or father,

with a glass of beer, wine, water or

pop can be just as monumental as the historical

landmarks we see almost daily, dotted along

our landscape.  It’s Memory that is important in Memorial.

I'm Something Alright

I’m 30% farts.

I figured it out.

Last night, as I sat,

on my couch,

farting.

I’m only 70% man,

and of that 70%,

60% is water. My blood

 is 92% water,

My brain and muscles are 75% water.

My bones are about 22% water,

but the rest of me,

is farts.

A regular King Toot.

Gastro Dominus Rex.

The music of my ass,

my stinky children of the night,

howling, roaring, sputtering,

making me laugh in spite of

how gross.

I’m Vladimir Pootin,

of my own private Russia,

in the reluctant bachelor pad,

tree top high over the streets.

Where my flatulence goes unheard.

So I’m mostly farts, and I’m sure

you are too. We’re all little methane

pumps carving out our own little clouds

of poison when no one is looking or

near-by.

Unless you have friends who think it’s

as funny as we do and we become a

veritable horn section of some

symphony played in memory of meals

once eaten.   

We’re all just farts in the breeze,

in a philosophical sense. Some of us are

loud, stinky, sloppy, sweaty, quiet, mousy,

aggressive, hilarious, dangerous, and we never

last longer than the breeze blows.

La Violencia

History is written by

violence. We’re all tattooed

by the violence of our lives,

scarred by the becoming who

we are through violent means.

Growing is an aggressive stretching

of bones through years of adolescent

aches and awkwardness, it’s a ripping

and tearing away of the old and building

anew over youth.

The journey of our bodies, from skinned

knees and elbows, split lips to acne, to

thinning hair, to weight control; all of

it is violent. The magic of life, but

violent nonetheless.

We’re all covered in the marks of

becoming who we are; cuts, bruises,

scrapes, scars, missing teeth, bad eyes,

sore knees, painful backs. A terrorized

victim of violent times and changes.

It’s in our minds, as the pain fueled

lessons of corporal punishments, spankings,

standing in a corner, holding dictionaries in

both outstretched arms for as long as possible

for talking in class instead of learning about Plato.

The experience crafts us into the

embodiment of violence.  We often

say the ends often justify the means, because

the brutal violence of our own becoming was just

normal. It was what was done and to be dealt with.

I think that’s why we can find violence distasteful,

and fear it or demand it’s end, but we tolerate it.

Tolerate it to such a point that it just becomes so

normal. Because we were formed from it in one

way or another. Like aching bones growing.

The universe exploded violently into

existence. The Earth was pummeled by

meteors and volcanic upheaval, evolution

was cruel and a constant struggle to just

survive.

The violence of our history is written

in our blood and bones.  It made us.

It defined us. It elevated the strong, devoured

the weak, culled the herd, and exposed us

to be carved by time.

Maybe we think the violence in the streets,

is just part of the violence of growing up,

maybe the violent murder of others is just

the painful process of maturing as a species;

something to bear as we grow up and are marked.

And don’t we all already know the axiom,

“Violence begets Violence”, but continue with it

anyway. Even our entertainment is based on

the human history of violence. Overcoming

violent adversity towards catharsis. 

It has made us.

We keep letting it.

Blood in the streets

until the lesson is learned.

Storyline

A cliché walks into a

cliché and says, “Did you

hear the one about that

old cliché?”

The cliché then laughs

like a cliché villain in a

cliché movie, in a cliché town.

The Premise stood up

and then fell apart as

the premise was very weak

after all the talking about

himself.  The premise was

all over the place.  And no one

could follow it.

The cliché said something about

blah, blah, blah, and so on and so

forth until the premise got back on

his own two clichés and stood cliché to cliché,

as the cliché set in the West and cliché’s

tumbled in the clichéd street and clichés

cawed on the wire.

The Premise felt a little stronger, but

felt a cliché nagging at his memory, it was

the cliché that had clichéd his cliché. Whom

the premise loved so clichéd. This cliché was

the cliché that caused all the other clichés.

The premise was sure it was just what he needed.

The cliché to end all clichés.

Needless to say the premise was far

stronger now that he had the cliché right

where he wanted him to cliché.

The premise could now take his cliché out on

this cliché and everything would be wrapped

up on a nice cliché and the clichés could

go on having learned a valuable cliché.

The End

Imagine it on the Side of an Old Van

                “I don’t want to help you,” said the Old Wizard, “Your cause is lost. You are not from around here. I don’t like your shoes and you have a funny odor that I can’t place but it’s something like mildew and ass mixed in a barrel of shut up.”

                Humberto stood silently at the doorway of the Wizard’s simple Earthenware house. He leaned against the jamb and just stared in at the grizzled old Wizard.

                “I’ll turn you into an actual douche you know,” said the Wizard, “I can totally do it. I have the spell like, right here. I’ll do it. I’ll make you a douche with a terrible clichéd tattoo.”

                Humberto rolled his eyes, “Are you going to be a pain in the ass all day or are you going to help me rescue the princess or what?”

                “You’re the pain the ass. I was doing totally fine with all my stuff until you showed up on your ugly horse in my yard. Yeah, that’s right, I said you have an ugly horse,” said the Wizard.

                “Now, now, now, good Wizard, I know you don’t mean that. He’s a regular horse,” said Humberto.

                The Wizard stood from behind his wooden dining table and ran his fingers through his long bushy hair. His robes were dusty and threadbare in all the wrong places. He cracked his back. He cracked his knuckles.

                “Is a Wizard gonna have to hurt a bitch,” he said.

                “Hold it. You know I’m the good guy in this story. You’re not going to hurt me. You’re going to reluctantly join me in the quest to save the princess but along the long way through our perilous journey you’ll become like a father figure to me and I’ll become the son you never had. You know that’s how this is going to go. So get your walking staff, your magic runes and your sack and lets go,” said Humberto.

                “No. No. No. That’s a different story. This one is where the Wizard is actually completely bat-shit crazy and will straight up turn you into a used douche and then toss you in the woods where you won’t biodegrade for like, a thousand years and you’ll be so bad for the environment that others will take up the cause of totally hating you for being a dick to the environment that they’ll forever refer to anyone who’s an overconfident ass master as a douche,” said the Wizard.

                Humberto pulled at the collar of his tunic and adjusted his silvery armor, “Are you The Wizard of Red Cloth Prairie?”

                “Me? No. I’m the Wizard of Kick Your Ass Mountain,” said the Wizard.

                Humberto stepped back from the doorway and looked for the old wolf marker the gypsy in town told him to look for above the doorway.

                “But you have the wolf’s symbol over the door,” said Humberto.

                “That? That’s been there forever. It was there when I bought the place from an estate sale,” said the Wizard.

                “Oh, wow. Then I’m so totally sorry. I guess I got some bad information. Sorry to have troubled you,” said Humberto.

                “You sure as hell did. Now beat it before I go all douche crazy on you,” said the Wizard.

               

                Humberto turned back toward his horse. That damn gypsy took his money and gave him bad information. He’d have to have a word with her when he got back to town. 

Randomnessitude

Death is random,

or so I’m told, by

those in the know.

It happens when we

least expect it and to

those that expect it

the least.

Life is also random,

or so I’ve been told

by numerous scientific

journals, TV science shows,

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and

experience. It can also

be unexpected.

Life and Death, just,

happen. For and to all

of us, mere chance.

The linchpin of the

lottery that is existence

and oblivion. Just chance.

Opportunistic circumstance.

My mother referred to it as,

“Kind of a Descartes thing.

We just are and then we are not.”

(You can see where I get this poetry

thing from, clearly).  And she’s right,

It’s luck and chance we exist at all,

and luck and chance that we’ll cease.

It hammers home the true inexplicable

wonder of actually being alive in a time

and place that exists only in that time and

place. It’s amazing to have a voice, to have

movement, to think, create, laugh, cry,

hug, to feel the buzz of a lover’s kiss.

It’s special, it’s lucky, and it’s short.

That’s what makes this lucky chance, this space

between birth and death, so amazing,

so steadfastly delicate, so intricately

terrifying, so hilariously morose, so

unambiguously vague. It’s confusingly

simple and hugely small.

It’s all random, everything.

What we call purpose is merely

the luck of two individuals, lucky enough

to exist at all due the unlikelihood of the right

sperm getting the right egg, meeting and

being lucky enough to enjoy each other for

a lucky few moments in the lucky corner of

our lucky solar system.

We all are.

One day we will be a, “was”.

And we’ll be remembered for

how lucky we had been and how

lucky others were to have been a

part of our lucky story, in that

space between life and death.

Sam the Moon Faced Boy

Sam the Moon Faced boy,

looked up to the night sky.

He stared at the Moon

and saw his own reflection,

he wondered who would

tease the Moon.

Sam the Moon Faced Boy,

walked home from school

every day along a very busy

street, where drivers and

passers-by would point and

stare as Sam walked by.

“Look at the size of that kid’s head,”

they’d shout and glare.

“I can see Neil Armstrong’s footprint,”

one or two would say.

“I didn’t know about the eclipse today,”

some old wise ass would snicker.

Sam the Moon Faced boy,

never let it get to him,

he never let the enormity of his

head, his extremely white skin,

the little tuft of hair on his north pole,

be a source of shame.

Sam the Moon Faced boy,

knew he was better, no matter how

their words would sting and stab.

He knew his eyes were the most

beautiful blue. His mother called

them her sea of tranquility.

Sam the Moon Faced boy

looked up at the night sky

and at his own reflection in

the window glass, superimposed

over the true Moon.

Only one had tears in their eyes.

“Can’t lie to the Moon,” said Sam

the Moon Faced boy as he wiped

his cheek with his sleeve.

“Can’t lie to the Moon,” he repeated

as the stars and the clouds moved

across the heavens.

Didja Get the Number on that Truck?

I asked the guy what it all meant,

what was the deal with all the murder,

hate, killings, beatings, rapes, random

attacks, religious zealotry, blood-thirsty

ideologies and such, what was it all about?

He just shrugged at me, smiled and kept

sweeping the same spot of sidewalk with

his worn out old broom.  I shoved my hands

in my pockets and kept walking until I got

to a flower shop.

I went inside and I asked the clerk the same,

what was the deal with the beheadings, the

lynchings, the fires, the traumas, the abandoned

children, the bombs, the sadists? She said they

were out of roses but to come back Tuesday.

The rain started, I pulled my hood up against

the pelting winds, my socks got soaked in puddle

after puddle. I looked up and the sun was still

shining,  there wasn’t a cloud to be seen.

Yet I was drenched, in the rain of our human misery.

A tanker truck rolled past me on the street,

the large tanker had the words “ Grade-A Fear Juice”

painted on the side and it was headed to the near-by

public school cafeteria.  The tanker had a sign on

its back advertising for a cable news station.

I shook the dampness from my head and followed

the truck as it made its rounds, from schools to offices,

to government buildings to the mansions of the wealthy,

to the huddled masses of the poor, to crack houses to

sixty-thousand dollar a night re-hab centers.

The tanker truck driver was formless and shapeless,

in shadow and secrecy he went about his work.

Amping up our inner and often irrational fears of

boogeymen and bumps in the night into terrorists

and dirty bombs; minor concerns into terrifying nightmares.

I thought it was just us

creating these things through jealousy,

misunderstanding, poor education, selective

listening, bigotry, and run of the mill untamed

imagination.

But no, there’s a tanker truck driving around,

creating all this fear of each other, of our

neighbors, we’re not to blame at all for all

the terrors we’ve permitted. It’s that tanker guy,

doing it all. And none of it means anything at all.

The Son of Daedalus

Feathers floated to

the dusty ground.

Stirred by the dry wind

into dizzying tornadoes

of failure.

An ever growing shadow

was cast on the ground,

expanding with each passing

second as the people took

notice of the deteriorating wings.

The people pointed and gasped

up at the sky as Icarus

tumbled and spun

toward his doom due to

his over-ambition.

Icarus flapped and fumbled,

trying to steady himself against

the buffeting winds of his fall,

scattering feathers through the

air.

The crowd stood in a horrified

stupor, watching the poor son

of Daedalus plummet helpless

to the spinning Earth and the

angry sea.

The giddy ambition of Icarus,

despite his father’s warnings,

to fly level and straight were ignored,

and Icarus tumbled from the

sky after soaring toward the sun.

Blind ambition, to do a thing

just because one can, isn’t often

reason enough to do it.

The sun can melt your wings

and you can fall to your death in the sea.  

I think that’s the lesson I learned

from the tale of Icarus as a child.

It’s tempered my ambition

and perhaps made me afraid of flying too

close to the sun.

By Jacob Peter Gowy - http://www.museodelprado.es/imagen/alta_resolucion/P01540_01.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27493281

We Laugh, Therefore We Are

Podiatrist office,

Walk-ins welcome.

Proctologist office,

please be seated.

Optometrist office,

the doctor will see you.

These things make me

chuckle. They’re just

dumb enough to tickle

my funny bone and

remind me.

Remind me that the

world isn’t always

full of doom and gloom

no matter what terrors

are globally occurring.

Humankind is funny.

We can’t help ourselves.

One person’s tragedy is

another person’s punchline.

We’re just funny.

The sound of our laughter

in a room, crowded with

all different types, creeds,

beliefs and sexes is the great

human leveler.

When I am in a group and

we’re all laughing hysterically

at the dumbest thing is the time

I feel most connected to the

whole of humanity.

Levity, mirth, absurdity, jokes,

are our keys to success.

A people without humor are

cursed and miss the subtle joys

of recognizing our ridiculousness.

Laughing to the point

of tears and a belly ache,

trying to catch your breath

and waving your hand in your face

make us all the same.

Internist office,

please check in.

Neurosurgeon’s office,

mind the wait.

Otolaryngologists office,

ENT-y thing for you.

Oof, that last one was

rough. But I’m sure you

have your own terrible ones 

to share.  Cheers!

What are you Writing About Today?

I’m all starts and no

finishes today.

I’ve started several

poems, short stories,

essays and pieces of

prose and all of them have

gotten stuck at the tips

of my fingers.

I’m unable to navigate the

roiling seas of my thoughts

to any white crested clarity,

worthy of putting word to the

page, or screen, or program,

or whatever this machine for word

making is.  

No one is at the wheel

as it were, because the Captain

is in his cabin, doing things…

Which, for the lack of a better

metaphor, makes writing something

worthwhile sort of difficult.

My thoughts are watching,

shrugging at me as I prance

around like a lunatic

at an anti-prancing convention

because they have no idea what I’m

doing either.  

“It’s all part of the show,” I yell.

But they’re not buying it.

They know me better than I

know myself.

“You’ll get tired of prancing soon enough,”

they’ll say confidently.

And of course they’re right.

I’m not focused.

I’m aloof with ideas

and lost in their muddiness.

[Erase, erase, erase, erase]

Whatever I had written,

It was not good.

“Getting tired yet,” asks my thoughts.

I hate to admit it, but I am.

“No, I’m gonna keep prancing till

the world ends or I find love,” I shout.

My thoughts give me a thumbs up and

return to reading the novelization of

Dirty Dancing.

“Damn it.”

The Trick Is...

What are you missing?

What isn’t there?

There’s a space for

something, but nothing’s there.

Who’s really whole?

Not missing that piece?

Full of themselves,

yet incomplete.

Is it in a song?

Is it in a poem?

A lover’s longing look

as you stare into each other.

In the mirror?

In the thoughts of others?

A reflection of the self

with jigsaw spaces.

What’ll fill that hole?

The gulf of absence?

A hand held close to the

heart and a kiss on the cheek.

Is that enough?

Is that all you need?

Some need more,

some need less.

But most of the time,

it’ll do the trick.

In the Shade

Under the shade of

an old gnarled tree,

knotty and twisted

with the arthritis of

age etched in the bark,

sat a young boy picking

at the dirt.

A hot summer breeze

riffled the leaves and

creaked the branches

but brought no cooling

relief to the boy in the

shade, picking at the

dirt.

A picnic party of adults

was taking place across

the clearing, they were drinking

and dancing and joking and

smoking, and doing those thing

adults shouldn’t do. Things the boy

couldn’t do.

The boy leaned back in the shade

and felt the rough old bark against

his skin. It was coarse and sharp but

not uncomfortable. The boy looked

up through the twisted branches

as the hot summer air brushed the

leaves to and fro.

The sun sparkled and dappled

in the flapping leaves, the tree

groaned slightly in the wind,

the boy looked back over at his

mother at the party, dancing with

some guy who wasn’t his dad,

just some guy the boy didn’t know.

The boy folded his small arms over his

scabby knees and pulled them up to his

chest. He rested his forehead

on his forearm, but it was too

sweaty. He was the only kid at

the party, but he wasn’t the only

child.

The old tree creaked in the heat,

the boy looked down in the dirt

around the thick stitch-work of roots

trailing through the dry ground, he pressed

his hand into the cool dirt and let it

linger. He thought he could feel a

heartbeat in the ground.

The boy turned from the base of the

tree and felt along its rough hide,

the boy could swear he could hear

whispering. He pressed his face close to

the bark and held his breath but it

was quiet except for the gentle creak

of the branches above.

There were yelling voices from

across the clearing, adults fighting,

the boy’s mother yelling for him, that

they were leaving, while two other men

shoved at each other, neither one was

the boy’s dad.  The boy felt the tree once

more, gave it a pat on its knobby side.

The boy ran from out of the shade at his

mother’s beckoning into the hot

summer sun. They’d get in the car and

drive back home to the city where there

were no shade trees to listen to,

no old souls to lean on. 

Post-Modern Romance

The only things left

to remember anything,

were a pair of ankle socks

and a pair of sunglasses.

A day of irresponsibility,

irregularity, nonsense,

foolishness, and an all out

zest for living in the moment.

Has no memory, other than

a pair of ankle socks and a

pair of sunglasses left behind

in her hurry.

Moments of wild speculations,

impossibilities, never will be’s

and never were’s, mashed between

slurred cocktail stories and heartaches.

The time and the place for

responsibility had no grip,

the only purpose was in the time

spent wondering about nothing.

Avoidance, preposterous avoidance,

of the ills and ails plaguing our troubled

souls, yet spitefully damaging and adding

to our woes.

A clink of the drinks, a toast of half

mumbled love, kisses and hand holding

meaning nothing other than what they

meant for the second they existed.

Until all that was left was a pair

of ankle socks on the floor and

sunglasses on the table as the

only reminder it happened at all.

The Strange Ballad of Gary Lemonade

Gary Lemonade doesn’t

care about your party.

Gary Lemonade doesn’t

care about your dress.

Gary Lemonade doesn’t

like that look on your face.

Gary Lemonade doesn’t

want a quiet night in.

Gary Lemonade does

want to dance.

Gary Lemonade does

want to touch your lips.

Gary Lemonade does

like your legs.

Gary Lemonade does

need a drink.

Gary Lemonade wears

a leather jacket with spikes.

Gary Lemonade wears

steel toe boots to weddings.

Gary Lemonade wears

boxers instead of briefs.

Gary Lemonade wears

neck ties with tee-shirts.

Gary Lemonade wants

a date with you.

Gary Lemonade wants

to sleep with you.

Gary Lemonade wants

the red Kool-Aid.

Gary Lemonade wants

a houseplant in the car.

Gary Lemonade didn’t

know about it before.

Gary Lemonade didn’t

learn about it then.

Gary Lemonade didn’t

bother to read the book.

Gary Lemonade didn’t

see the film.

Gary Lemonade is

thirsty for trouble.

Gary Lemonade is

hungry for bad.

Gary Lemonade is

practicing with a knife.

Gary Lemonade is

stealing hearts.

Gary Lemonade feels

his age.

Gary Lemonade feels

the Earth spinning.

Gary Lemonade feels

mortal.

Gary Lemonade feels

too cool for Friday night.