2o15 January 1o, 2o15

 Saturday
Happy New Year readers of my poetry! Sorry it took me a bit to write something new, but it has been a hell of a new year so far. The first poem of 2o15 just for you:

2o15

 

2o15 squats on the windowsill

just like the old man who sat there before him.

Memories, thousands of them

swimming through the barren boughs

of the old trees that are too busy listening

to the gunshots two blocks away

where the drinkers, the sturdy ones

chase all their ghostly memories away

with beer shots and promises to change.

 

There is time, thick, wet barrels full of time

to cast new shadows, younger shadows

to drape the gray halls within the mind.

Sure, a few reruns will find the path back,

will cling to their ghostly selves,

find rebirth no matter the resolution made,

made tonight. And we'll forgive their age

and greet them with open mouth, and dry tongue

and allow them to live at least one more year.

 

One more year of breath we’ll grant them,

those remembrances that fought so hard for life.

rrw o1-o1-15



 

Christmas Time in Oklahoma December 22, 2o14

I've been lazy, yes, I admit it. Haven't posted much poetry lately. Oh, I could come up with some excuse that you might buy, but I'd rather not. Here's something cooked up for Christmas. Sorry, no art work with this one . . . Not yet, at least:

Christmas Time in Oklahoma

 

My sister loves the snow.

 

Disappointed she is
when Christmas rolls around

and all we get in Oklahoma
is black ice roads and a stiff wind
that makes the neighbor’s cat
curl up alongside  the engine block
of my sister’s beat-up old Chevy.

Two cats have passed on this year

due to frigid weather and my sister’s
need to get to work early in the morning

 

But the snow my sister loves

at Christmas time. It has a way
of making even the most dreadful day,
a day filled with cat funerals
and weeping child mourners
seem somehow  cheery.
rrw 12-12-14

Doors November 28, 2o14

Friday

On a Facebook poetry page we do a lot of picture challenges. It's great fun. This one I posted just few days ago on Facebook. Comments were varied. Most people did say that I had a different point of view than the other writers. See what you think.

Doors
There are too many doors inside my head.
Big doors, thick in varnished mahogany,

shiny doors with gold inlay knobs,

and knockers the size of a gardener’s fist.
Shy doors too, cracked and muddied,
bloody handprints dripping from the frames,
their hinges browned in rust and decay.
For far too long have those doors been closed,
and yet,  I always try the handle, listen to the rattle
of their locks . . . they never let me in.

And the creature dressed in black,
a heavy collar (boney white) around
its turkey neck, he tells me tales
of a magical place where the door’s always  ajar,
always inviting, holy and  just as white and stiff
as that cardboard noose that chokes his throat.
rrw 11-24-14

First Snow (Part 1 & 2) November 26, 2o14

Sorry, been away from the blog for a while exploring life AND writing some new poetry. We had our first snow in Norman Town a couple of weeks ago. Didn't last long, but . . . Well, here's a poem (in two parts) about . . . the weather? By the way, if you want to read the poem on the picture instead of scrolling down to the poem by itself and the print is too small, just click on the picture . . . it will get bigger. {smile}

 



 

 

 

First Snow (parts 1 & 2)

 

(12:30 PM)

The first snow of the season arrived early this morning.

No fanfare, no blast of artic air to signal its appearance

just a thin coat of white greeting me when I finally woke up

and raised the blinds. It was a surprise,

 

a pleasant surprise.

 

I may have actually smiled when I saw it.

Not that I love snow or the cold weather

that accompanies it. I don't like winter at all.

 

It was just—well,

 

I woke up in a sad mood, a bad mood,

and when I opened the blinds there it was,

a thin sheet of absolute white staring back at me . . .

 

for a moment, a very brief moment . . .  I felt . . . happy?

 

Well, let's not get carried away.

I wouldn't know "happy"

if it came up and bite me on the ass!

Let's just say I didn't feel quite as depressed

as I normally am when I first get up,

when I crawl out of sleep

into this uncomfortable reality.

 

Yeah, I may have smiled a bit, but nothing more.

 

(3:00 PM)

The snow still falling.  Again, not raging

in any way just falling, drifting,

swirling gently to the ground

and onto the slanted roof

that covers the front porch

of my makeshift apartment building.

 

A few snowflakes land in the street

and instantly they disintegrate,

and just as quickly reincarnate as water,

a mishmash of runny puddles.

I feel sorry for them, I truly do.

Very little time on this Earth do they have

before they changed into something lesser

than the celestial selves they were born to be.

 

But don't get me wrong, I love rain.

Many of my favorite days are rainy days.

Let's face the harsh truth, though.

There's something regal, refined,

and elegant about snow.

 

Whereas rain?

More working class, rain is.

Rain is sturdier, more utilitarian,

more earthly than heavenly.

 

Rain is something you make love in.

 

When it snows, you snuggle up

with that special one you love

and marvel at all that snowy white

floating majestically to the ground.

 

Yes, rain is useful; snow is pretty to look at.

I play my blues albums when it rains.

When it snows . . . a Christmas carol

or funeral march seems more appropriate.

rrw 11-16-14

 

 

Johnsongrass rewrites November 13, 2o14

Thursday,
Well, this original piece, Johnsongrass, was created in 2oo6! Not the first poem I wrote (I started in 2005), but I was just getting the hang of things. Wrote primarily in monologue style. I've since changed to breaking up my poetry into stanzas. I don't know, feels a little more reader friendly in this structure. That's almost all of the rewriting I did to this piece, change the structure and changed a word here and there. In the picture: Me and Patricia Crespin in The Seahorse.

Johnsongrass

 

A simple heart bleeds slower

than those more complicated ones
which walk the straight and narrow road.

 

Awhile back, when the moon

still had a sense of humor,
I'd quietly laugh her rings around
her pale but ample body
as the blooming stars streaked 'cross her thighs
in blazing colored punch-lines.

 

They enjoyed a good joke as much as me—

as much as we I should say for you were always there,
an important part of my drunken landscape,
the weeping willow of my conspiracy with
your rather mossy side always my faithful guide
pointing me north toward a sacred promise
to live life one touch at a time without
earing any consequence.

 

Do you remember

that ratty old blanket we laid out on in your backyard
so we could watch the fireflies play,
how those sharp blades of evil Johnsongrass
would prick our tender, naked flesh as we
made love beneath the stare of eternal youth?

 

We tried—well as best we could—

to never disturb your Mother as she
watched TV in her kitchen. But no matter
how hard we'd try to stifle those ancient cries
of teenage pleasure, one would always slip-out
at the most inappropriate time—

 

"What are you two doing out there?!"

Mother shouted from behind the open window.
"Nothing, Mom!" you shouted back
much too loud to be believable.
Damn, how we laughed at our own
inability to tell a credible lie.

 

I wonder, did she ever figure it out?

rrw 12-3o-2oo6 (rewrites 11-13-14)

When the Flood Comes November 1o, 2o14

Monday,
Slowly getting back to the writing and posting of my poetry. Still need to write more, think more, experience the poet's life more. But I am getting there. This poem is new and uses a more "formal" form than most of the stuff I write.

 

 When the Floods Come

The weather channel grumbled something

about a thick rain tonight, maybe tomorrow,
with the likely possibility of raging floods.

Afraid I wasn't listening.

Too busy these days mastering

all the weather beaten thoughts

inside my wicker skull that fall
in steady drips and drops—
falling, yes, most times they fall

like snow, crawl like snails,
or crash like hail against my ears
drowning out those puny sounds

I often make when no one’s near
enough to hear
the rusty creaking of my voice.

Why yes, of course, I sometimes mutter
to myself, divide myself up into  
several little things that look just like me,

other weary little things 
that no longer care or fear
what the mirror might reflect.

Is it true that memory’s a ghost
which only haunts late at night
when the rain comes calling?
rrw 11-o6-14

Damn the Dead, November o9, 2o14

Sunday

Yep! A new poem! I wrote it in a couple of days for a poetry challenge on a poetry site. This is the original picture on the left (no, your other left. Hee!).

I'm not totally satisfied with what I wrote. Well, that's always the case with me, isn't it? But challenges force you to write faster than you normally would. However, the key to writing is to write on a dime . . .  that is to say, to write without necessarily being inspired  . . . just write, put something on the page and let inspiration find you busy at work. Nothing coaxes inspiration more than you writing . . . it is always curious to know what the hell you are up to with your pen in hand scratching away at a blank piece of paper, or hunched over your computer board and chicken picking at the keys. Once you got her attention, she's always more than willing to help out . . . most times. So, the new poem is inspired by this picture an as usual I take different take on it than is expected. I even changed the picture a bit. Hope that's not cheating . . .

Damn the Dead

 

I’ll paint an ocean on the floor
Submerge myself within its foam
And hope that someone on the shore

Will pull me out and drag the body home.

 

I hope the loathsome gulls adrift above

My soggy head, I hope they screech prophetic sorrow,

I pray my stoic exes may willfully cry, “Why, oh, why, my only love?”

As the gardener props me up outside his humble burrow.

 

I will not die at sea and let the portly sharks devour me.

I will not die as I have lived alone without a single friend

Alive to mourn my getting on. I wouldn’t like to be
An unknown pauper buried in a massive grave and then pretend

 

It doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter anymore.

He’s so damn dead! It doesn’t matter anymore.

rrw 11-o8-14

 

The Dead Halloween 2o14

Friday

Yes, I is my favorite holiday . . . HALLOWEEN! And yes, I've been up all night. Too excited to sleep. So, how about my Halloween poetry for this season?

The Dead

 

Dead. We are the dead,

mere shadows lingering between
 the narrow slit of eyelids closed.
Words mumbling mournful things,
a prayer, a whimpering so lonely
the darkness weeps for us.

 

Dead, we are the dead.

Vacant minds burnt in sacrifice

slithering toward the open grave,

sores bloom to yellow plumes,

raving lunatics knocking at the door,
neatly tied up bound in every lie,
in every promise made and broken.

 

We are surely dead.

Apostles to the bone, the breath
adrift on streams of unconsciousness;
we drown in chaotic harmony
with all those other souls grasping
at malignant straws . . . they do not float.

 

We are the dead . . . breathing in

a world that spews us out
upon the dank Persian carpet
where mother lies bleeding,
receding from her life
in short agonizing gasps.

 

Dead, we are dead

from the day we were born.
rrw 1o-3o-14

In Silence Halloween 2o14

In Silence

 

Bring on the darkness, let it come.

I’ll rummage through her eyeless realm,

seeking out the quiet places,
wicked places, all those regions
hidden deep within her swollen womb.

 

I’ll wander with the vagrant shapes

that dwell behind her fluttering lids,
the ones that live
much better lives than ours
if only when the lights go out.

 

For we are as they are,

too much like them, we are.

 

And when I awake into this world,

this vengeful world that never sleeps?
I’m but flesh and blood and so unlike
those other things of flesh and blood;
I’m what they say I am, what am I then?

 

An empty corner of a crowded room

where no one dares to look,
that pathetic shadow clinging to the wall,
out of phase, out of time, out of sync,
into a whispering, a wink,
a muted clatter, garbled mutterings,
the one they never speak about in full voice.

But in that other place, the dreaming space,
the one that springs to life when eyes are closed?
That’s where we, the invisible, the weak do truly,
painfully . . . become what we become,

 

dreams dreamt in silence.

rrw 1o-21-14





 

The Gobbley Goom October 23, 2o14

Yes, it is the Halloween season. I got a few straight up Halloween poems I want to post this October. Three poems to be exact. Thought I'd start with the earliest one first. I wrote this little thing in 2009. A bit of a nursery rhyme feel to it. I tried t capture that childlike wonder about Halloween and  . . . those things that go bump in the night {smile}.

The Gobbley Goom

 

The evening moon is burning bright

The door is locked-up good and tight

The world outside burns dark with gloom

Beware sweet children the Gobbley Goom

 

He stalks on leggies made of clay

His face is yellow with decay

His breath smells like a rotting tomb

A nasty brute is the Gobbley Goom

 

When midnight comes he roams the streets

He looks for children bads to eats

The child who doesn't clean its room

A tasty treat for the Gobbley Goom

 

I heard there was a boyish brat

As dirty as an alley cat

And late one night he met his doom

Becomin’ a stew for the Gobbly Goom

 

There was a little girl they say

Who always had to have her way

She never learned to sweep a broom

Guess what? Yup! She got served up

as brunch for the Gobbley Goom

 

So all my precious ones take care

Mind your manners and brush your hair

Do all the things good children do

Or the Gobbley Goom will come

FOR YOU!

rrw 1o-31-2oo9

(rewrites 1o-23-14)

SometimesThings Change October, 2o, 2o14

You know, I should keep better records about where my poetry is at any given moment. Not sure I've ever posted this one. But then again, I don't know. But Nature's season, the one we are experiencing right know, tells me that it is the proper time to post this write. P.S. If the pic is too small to read on the site, Left click on it and it will become larger. Magic!

Sometimes Things Change

 

He loved the Moon once, way back in the day.

Lying on the warm hood of his beat up ’51,
he’d watch her all night long, watch her roll
lazily across the sticky summer sky.
The steady thud of cars passing by and over
the 9^th Street Bridge kept him company as
he chain smoked Lucky Strikes,
sipped at a cold quart of  Brew 102.
Just kicking back, staring up at her.

 

He wasn’t like them punk ass friends of his,

those young rowdy rednecks with spit
in their eyes and Saturday night
anxiously tugging at the crotch of their 401s
anytime a sweet young thing strolled by.

 

No, he wasn’t like them, nothing like them at all.

He was content to sit on the hood of his car
parked down by the dark shores of the South
Canadian, and watch in silence, just sitting there,
watching her endlessly roll.

 

Lately though, he noticed the Moon, his Moon,

her looks had started to fade, to go.
Too many large craters along her brow, these days.
Shadows cut deep gullies along the inside
of her tender Maria . . . transforming her,
bending her pale smile into a dark and dusty frown.
Her charm all but dried up, and his desire
to be with her . . . all of a sudden . . . gone.

 

Somewhat sad it is.  How time can kill a passion.

Once he smoked and drank and gawked at the Moon
with loving eyes, and now?  Now, he barely looks at her.
rrw 1-14-12 (rewrites 1o-2o-14)

 

 

Giving October 18, 2o14

As I said before, I' rewriting a lot of the poetry I've written in the past. Some of them date back to 2o11 and 2o12. A few go back much farther than that. I will try to get some brand new ones up in a few days. Until then:

Giving

 

The flesh dissolving to a fine paste,

bones splintering, cutting away
at tendons, the muscles ground
down to mists of foggy red. There
was blood once, rivers of it, rapids
rushing to the open seas of an open
heart, engorging the brain with lakes
and oceans full of malignant thought.
Rushing, forever rushing, filling
the empty knot between my legs.

 

Will I remember the feeling of fingers

impatiently tapping the back of my neck
when my desire to feel has withered away?
Will I remember you? Your kisses wet,
somewhat smoke-stained bitter and yet
somehow uncommonly sweet, your spiky
tongue drilling a path between my teeth,
impaling itself to the roof of my mouth.
Sometimes the only love we felt was
the pain we offered each other.

 

Soon the memory of time will be dead.

Days will waste away into hours, hours
will fade to moments, to seconds.

 

If I had the courage, I’d shut my eyes so hard

the sun would refuse to ever shine again.
rrw 4-15-12 (rewrites o9-o1-14)

 

Waiting October 16, 2o14

yes, quite a while, in human years, since I posted any poetry on my blog. I started a new one because the last had 100 poems attached to it. Add to that the first blog of poetry I wrote and the total comes to 148. And I haven't even scratches the surface of what my flash drives can offer up.

Waiting

I can’t wait for the horsemen to arrive
I do long to hear their bloody hoofs

beat against the bold, gray sky.

 

But I’ve learned to be patient

when the  thunder prowls the night
by breathing in its deadly scent

 

the lilac slumbering beneath
the change in seasons
while the sparrow sings of death.

 

There are no graveyards anymore
just fatalistic churches pale as ghosts

no truths or lies left to explore.

 

A few of us have mustered up

the common sense to run away
when the darker souls erupt.

 

We could walk awhile me and you
hand in crippled hand skipping past
those shattered corners of the world

 

where the barroom lights refuse to shine

on those of us the lonely ones the ones
that Jesus left  behind.
rrw 1o-o3-14