Homeland, the Day Before Thanksgiving January 2015

This is an older poem that I don't think I've posted before because I didn't have a pic to post with it. So, two days ago I finely took a shot at Homeland with my favorite model, David!

Homeland, the Day Before Thanksgiving

 

Swerving around the older lady
stuffed inside a whimpering
pair of anemic blue jeans.

 

David on the move, his beat up cowboy hat
turns into a sail that guides him effortlessly
through the cluster of stalled shopping carts
in aisle 24: detergent, bleach, household wares.

 

Somewhere the whisper of electronic Christmas

music, the muted grunt of registers whirling

 

as an elflike employee fills
the baskets in the fresh fruit  section:
bright, red apples, eye blinding, orange
tangerines. No smile upon this grocer’s face;
he does not whistle as he wipes his hands
on a soiled apron and prepares
to load the bins across the aisle
with cucumbers greener than a summer field
and broccoli crowns with their legs cut off;
they cost much more than those with stems.

 

I can't help but smile for him
while the cold from outside still pinches
at my nose and cheeks.

rrw 11-24-13 (rewrites o1-28-15)

 

Regret January 25, 2o15

Sunday
I think I'll post a poem once a week. IF I can't write a new one every week, then I'll post a reworked older poem. I got a few of those. And here's one that I just discovered. Not even sure I ever posted it.

Regret

 

The bedroom stays moderately cool since your hasty departure.

Particularly frigid that side of the bed you claimed for your own
when we first moved in, “The Right Side.” The name chosen
by you, no doubt, to commemorate your point of view whenever
we argued over some unimportant, domestic issue like whether
or not I should toss my dirty socks in the middle of the living room
floor,  leaving them there to pile up until “Laundry Sunday.”

 

Can’t say I regret the absence of your snoring even though

it wasn’t an unpleasant sound. More like a baby breathing
than a locomotive passing through our apartment.
But that thick glob of golden brown hair that always
clogged the bathtub drain? No, I don’t miss that at all!
Standing ankle deep in lukewarm water every time
I took a shower isn’t a fond memory.

 

I often forget that you’re gone asking you questions

as I place my one plate and one fork into the dishwasher,
angry at you for a moment because you’re not here to answer.
Sometimes I’ll roll over in the middle of the night,
my fingers reach for you ... and touch nothing  but darkness.
Sometimes I hear a funny story at work
and say to myself, “She’ll get a kick out of that ...”
then realize you won’t be there when I get home.

 

I suppose it really doesn’t matter, ‘cause

you never, ever laughed at my jokes ... only at me.
rrw 1-4-12 (rewrites o1-25-15)

Hawk & Sunlight, January 21, 2015

This was one I wrote in late 2o14. It wrote it for a picture challenge on a Facebook page. It's funny how poems evolve while you're writing it. The original inspiration may be a picture, a drawing, or whatever. However, once you start writing, it starts to take on it's own life which might be autobiographical in some ways and just straight-up imagination. Writing poetry is such a combination of artistic influences. And there's also structure . . . structure that communicates the intangible ideas (or emotions) of a poem.

Hawk &Sunlight

 

I can barely make you out. This Oklahoma sun

transforms your shape into a bright yellow shadow

floating across a sea of burnt grass.

 

I love watching the blur of your hips

as they bounce up and down
beneath the protective shield
of your cotton umbrella sail
that dances with your hair
in the warm summer breeze.

 

I also love the way you abruptly stop,

swing your head towards me and smile.

 

“What are you doing back there?”

 

Tiny dust devils blossom around my shoes

as I rush to catch up with you.

 

And I love talking to you about this and that

steering away from conversations concerning
the weather, the goings on in Ferguson, New York,
or those other terrible places that seem
so far away from where we are right now.

 

Yes, we can talk about important things some other time.

But not today. Not in this miserable heat
that makes your eyes glisten like rain drops,
makes my head ache and wish I had worn a hat.

 

For now let’s gossip a bit about that black hawk

silently gliding across the harsh sky
right above our heads. You can see him
if you shade your eyes with your hand.
Yes, let’s talk about him.
rrw 12-o5-14

 

 

Dumb-ass, January 2o15

Tuesday,
Been working on this poem for MLK Day . . . It didn't come out as much of a tribute for a great American (if not THE greatest American patriot ever). It is what it is. Got a bit of cussing in it so I didn't post it directly to Facebook. Some folk are a little squeamish about "The F Word" or as people love to call it these days "THE F-BOMB!" Silly. But I'm sort of glad we shy away from the word because it would lose it's power as a word if everybody accepted it, if everybody admitted to using it. Anyway, I plan to do some more rewriting . . . later down the road. For now I think it works pretty good.

Dumb-ass

It was hot, extremely hot, Vietnam fuckin’ hot.

Stepped off the airplane with about forty-eight

other unlucky motherfuckers at this airport . . .

 

There were squads of grunts, short timers,

on the blistering tarmac. Worn-out jungle utes,

un-bloused boots, raggedy-ass covers

on their not so stateside-regulation haircuts,

all of ‘em diddy-bopping towards that sweet,

jet airliner we just dog piled out of.
Them heading home, us headed in.

 

Fuckin’ Marine green cattle car!

Clouds of road dust even hotter

than the air outside swirling

through the metal slits

gagging us newbies . . .

 

“What the hell’s going on here?

Dead center of a war zone

and no fuckin’ weapons?

What the hell’s going on?”

 

Staging area, somewhere in Da Nang.

I step off the transport . . . first thing

I see, two black brother Marines

sprawled out in the red dirt next

to a 12X listening intently

to the broadcast crackling

out of a banged up portable radio:

 

* “I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some -- some very sad news for all of you -- Could you lower those signs, please? -- I have some very sad news for all of you, and, I think, sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.”

 

I’m looking for the convoy that’s gonna take me up North

to someplace called Camp Carroll. Camp the fuckin’ Carroll.

Dumb-ass name for a Marine Base!

Almost as dumb-ass as flying into Vietnam

on a commercial jet . . .

 

The head stewardess freaking out over the intercom,

 

“Please depart the plane

in a speedy and orderly fashion.”

 

Sure, we can do that!

Got no fuckin’ weapons,

got no fuckin’ flak  jacket,

got no fuckin’ helmet,

but we can fuckin’ do that!

 

What a dumb-ass stewardess.

What a dumb-ass war.

rrw o1-19-15

* -Robert F. Kennedy, April 4, 1968

 

Drive, January 15, 2015

Thursday,
I don't like writing too fast then posting before the metaphorical ink dries on the page. But I don't care much for never getting anything done. I heard it took Eliot years (five years to be exact)  to finish writing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. That's a very long time . . . but a damn great poem. I do work on my poems, but never for a whole five years. I write until I think I can't write anymore and hope I got it right . . . most times though I do go into rewrites, usually about a year or so later. This one is new. Hope it's finished, but more than likely . . . it's not.

Drive

 

Sometimes all you have is something,

that driving need to do . . . something,
write something, create fuckin' something,
anything, everything into one poem . . . one word,
two or three . . .  or shout them out the window,
watch them bang and bounce about
against the winter elms, the sparrow wind,
slammed against the naked white walls
inside the cage you build for yourself.

 

Words scrambled together, nailed together,

slapped together, glued together
that itchy need to prove to others, all the others
and to yourself that you do, you do exist . . .

 

in words, if only in your own imagination,

between the hours of 1 and 4am in the shadow morning,
in the dark, in the void, words muttered to the hand
that argues its own being . . .
 the hollow sound  train whistles make
when all turns midnight.

 

Deep end of the pool, I am.

I'm treading water well enough.
Hopefully the sun will arrive soon.
A big, hot sun will come along
evaporate this wet surrounding me.
Wipe it away, throw it away take it way
before I become one . . . with it.

 

Easy enough to give it up, give in,

trade it in . . . the will to live  . . .  
replaced by a solid something . . . concrete.  
A silent, sacr
ed assurance.
All will be well, all will be peace
as soon as I can close my eyes
for the last time.
rrw o1-13-15

Bravo, l'artiste ! January 11, 2o15

Sunday
As I said, lots going on in this new year. The murders in France over a cartoon. Freaked out all of us. Poets felt compelled to write something about it. Here's mine little poem about this horrifying event:

 

Bravo, l'artiste !

 

You can’t kill the voice

that wills to be heard.
The wind that blows,
the rain that falls,
the thunder that comes . . . 
you cannot tame it.

 

There are not enough guns,

not enough bullets,
not a knife long enough
to cut the throat of an awkward bird
that shouts its off key song,
its strident hiss biting at your ear.
kill the poet, in turn, murder yourself.
Heaven bears no patience
for the suicide of spirit.
rrw o1-o7-15