Guppy

Stand strong upon the bow
Chained to the deck
Ocean spray splashed over your fiery expression
Make a fist and defy the gods
Chomp down on the challenge
As the crew watches in awe
The sun bursts through fog
Blisters on hands explode
Casting your line and waiting
The yank from hell
Monster below answers your challenge
The battle will last for hours
You are Lars Larsen of Denmark
Famed hunter of guppies
The Guppy Granddaddy spits in your face
The conquest begins

Fallow

Sunlight bakes his skin
Shampoo searches for follicles
Lice want camoulflage
Insect bites swell
Reflection blind dinner parties
Nothing to ruffle
To caress, to smell, to style
Sweat glistens unashamedly
Cursing genetics
Worships Fabio

At Seventy

Here is my 70th birthday

breakfast, TV
rain and more rain
outside, coffee and newspaper
gym workout
check email
buy groceries
read book, ice tea
another gym workout
backing car out
forgot concrete girder
crunch
crumpled side panal
no left signal
home
watch Yankees
how not to begin a decade

Bulleted Sunrise

You enter a room like a bulleted sunrise
I shield my eyes as you circle space
Rays of mystery strafe the walls
Other guests vanish in your shadow
Out on the veranda
Your spare words like sunspots
I can not decipher
My feeble effort lost in an eclipse of blended color
I bask in your corona
Fearful of being singed by your exquisite lava
Why must you ever set, my luminous sunrise?
Men would die for you sun goddesss
Now I must return to the party
My wife is calling me
I'm out here, Marsha!

HMO Hell

Rivers of blood
Ruah to your head
A gasp of pain
Splash of crimson
Covers the operating table
The floor, the attending team
They yank and yank on the arm
Someone forgot to change the saw blade
Sinew and flesh rip
You scramble off the table
Crawl to the door on one arm
Realizing
Some HMOs are better than others

Strange Dream

I woke up and stared at the ceiling
Everything seemed different
A dream of my sixth grade teacher
Young and beautiful
We were touching and kissing
I looked down at my groin
Sticky
What the hell?

Night Crossing

If I could spit or dodge or detour, I would
I am 215 years old and my sight is going
Across the road are friends and food
This treacherous journey across 50 feet has cost me family
I pray traffic will be light
If I make it across, maybe I'll just stay there
I think I hear an 18 wheeeler
Damn humans
I wish my shell was neon

Flying Insects

The summer caldron ignites flying insects
Against my cindered skin
No swiping or smacking
The Mother of all mosquitoes sucks my neck blood
I want to nurture these creatures
Supply nutrition to those without medical coverage

Summer means displaying my own plume
In the form of hairy, muscular legs and a foresty, bulging chest
Sweat rivulets descend to my Dark Region
Off limits to even the lovliest of insects

On the other hand I hate ants and bugs
I want to punch each annoying ant in the snout
Unable to launch themselves toward the horizon

I would follow a firefly anywhere
Right into October

Clump

So I board the subway and see a seat
 Dart across the aisle
Clump down perhaps a bit hard
Young guy next to me glares
At the last stop I get up
He sticks out his foot to trip me
As he exits I wait on the platform
Make eye contact
Anything can happen
He could have a knife
Then again,I could be crazy
In that moment
I realize a single trip in this city
Could change my life

Morning Things

Navel lint
Toe lint
Butt Crack lint
Ear wax
Nose mucus
Blurred vision
Eye Stye
Mouth Spittle
Armpit yeast
Scalp Cooties
Fingernail grunge
Thigh chafing
Back Boils
Cysts, Polyps, tumors, carbuncles,fistulas, pimples and rashes
Overnight scrotum hair
Ten more liver spots

Orange juice and sunshine

Lousy Poem

I wrote a lousy poem today. I should have just done my laundry and taken a nap. But no, Mr. Literary Gravitas had to create something moving. The only thing that this poem moves is my lunch in my stomach. I have blasphemed the English language.
I tried turning it sideways without improvement. Flat passages, cliches, bad line breaks. I called fellow poet Ronald and read it over the phone. Sounds of regurgitation. Then he hung up. And Ron is compassionate.
Another poet friend told me to send it to the Word Scrapheap Institute in Philly so they can use it as a teaching aid.
Sighing, I collected my laundry and fed it to the washer while reading my poem aloud. A voice came from the machine.
You're NOT going to toss that mess in here with us, are you?

Tastes Like Blue

I sip life and swallow regret
which tastes like blue
Cerulean blue not sky blue
It lays on my tongue
Seeps into pores
Tinged by gray saliva
Slides down my esophagus
It greets fear in my stomach
Blue becomes yellow
Small intestine waits in red fury
Black large intestine
Dissolves all other colors

Demon Al

Demon Al created ferocious butterflies released from sinister drones ordered from a military surplus website.
They specifically attacked hedge fund managers on lunch break, ripping off patches a designer top coats, defecating on carefully coiffed heads. Engorged with raw flesh, they flew off into the horizon, police sirens in their wake, leaving Wall Street in shambles.
Dow down 645 points.

Fog

Fog stifles discussion
Erases dreams
Gently embalms senses
Fog has a smokey recipe
Descending like ash soup
As deep and dense as vague enmity
As blank and elegant as a bored ballroom dancer
Fog at night is a film waiting to be shot
A threat hidden in rabid nightmares
The sky offering its choking caress
Fog suffocates everything but wonder



 

Reasonable

Here are the facts
I loaned you my thong underwear
You finally returned them
Washed without fabric softener
Now I'm chafing like tree bark covers my privates
Let's be reasonable
Friendship has its boundaries

This is my dirt
Those are your seeds
Potatoes can be halved
Parsley is another story
Let's have a reasonable negotiation
It all winds up in our compost heap anyway
I believe that's my cherry tomato
In your kid's mouth

Eerie Calm

An eerie calm in the canyon
Jackrabbits hopping in staccato bursts
Weak breeze carresses dusty terrain
Ruffled clouds blocking sun
One frightened bird tilting toward the horizon
Ridged bluffs, flat topped sentinals
Horses snort restlessly
Men lean forward listening
Mute cactus wait as whispers circle
He raises his right arm and signals
Troops follow, canteens slapping against leather
Little Big Horn opens wide

Retirement

Sunday Night
A salad from heaven
Lettuce, carrots, tomato, celery, cucumber, green pepper, black olives, bacon bits, croutons, dressing
Side dish of cut yellow beans
David Sanborn on the CD player
Reading the funnies
Watching a thunderstorm
Blueberry pie
Cold Water
Waiting for a movie based on a Dickens novel
Best of all
Sleeping late on Monday
Not expected anywhere

The Sounds of Insomnia

Creaking bed upstairs. My own creaking water bed. Garbage men shouting at 2AM. Conversations in the mind. Humming AC. Cats fighting. Quiet crimes away from street lights. Car alarms. A backfire. Loud breathing. Music barely discernible. Someone is singing. A sad barking.
Two people arguing. Passing wind. A baby burp. Ticking, ticking.
All the things you should have said. The silences you should have respected.
The moon yawns.

Floppy Hat

My floppy hat protects more than my ears from the sun.
It protects me from any expectations.
People see my hat and ignore my lithe, toned body
The hat conveys qualities such as old, slow moving, fragile.
Doors are opened for me, seats surrendered.
Voices are louder than normal so I can grasp instructions.
Teens treat me as excess skin and organs taking up their space.
Women smile benevolently, convinced I'm safe.
My eyeglasses add to the image of vulnerability.
Is someone here with you, strangers ask worriedly.
If I look vaguely confused, others run to help.
No one asks me anything, assuming I'm befuddled.
I look at home with fishermen at lakes.
Except I don't fish.
When I wear my floppy hat
People assume I have a charming, homespun philosophy.
What I have is a sweaty scalp
And a feeling respect is a bus that's long gone.
Which means I can take crap and still live with myself.
No expectations, no pressure.
Now, when I wear my baseball cap
I am nothing less than an intimidation warehouse.

Rain

Rain

A lost day is a lost day
Getting wet isn't the issue
Flooding is not what bothers me
There is something frightening in watching rainfall

What upsets me are all the singles
Crowding into places and ordering coffee
Spending hours reading papers, typing, texting
Sitting in my seat, doing exactly what I do every day
Even in sunshine

None of us can deal with staying inside
During a monsoon
We eat and nap and watch old movies
And at some point panic sets in
As we contemplate our lives

Falling short of whatever plans we made
Wondering what some long ago love is doing
As the drops ping on our roof
Splat, splat, splat
A life running off toward gutters