Dark Mood December 23, 2o15

I rush my work a bit when I'm actually writing and not rewriting an older piece. Not sure I should be doing that, rushing it. But I feel a need to post my poetry. Maybe I need to stop worrying about 'producing" fast and concentrate more writing in depth. Well, nice idea. But for tonight . . . I'll post this last one . . .

Dark Mood

I’m not sure who I am tonight.

Though my orange-red hair has
long ago buried itself in a fleshy grave
on top of my head, I still see him, feel him
in my heart (my actual heart) running, jumping,
kicking cans and the occasional stray cat
that trespassed across his tennis-shoed path.

I guess it’s just this particular midnight gloom

that for some ungodly reason wishes
to roam through the thick, murky depths
of yesterday. Sheets of memory
hanging from my mother’s clothesline
the summer wind beating them dry.
Of course, memories should be dried,
deep fat fried by the morning sun,
stored in a cold sub-consciousness
then pulled out and thawed out
for snacking . . . on nights like these.

I’m not afraid anymore, yet, shaky my fingers are.

But not from the boogiemen an idle mind dreams up,
or the elm tree shadow that shimmies on the wall.
No, they don’t scare me anymore.

No, no black crows cawing panic in my brain tonight.

No echoing bark from the crazy Labrador next door
who fears the rain when it comes, the trains rushing by.

I never understood his mood . . . or mine.

We think even darker than the evening fog
that limps across the yellow lawn,
but stops just short of crossing
the asphalt brow of Trout St.
Woodie 12-22-15