New Year's Eve December 31, 2o15

I promised some Facebook friends and myself that I'd post one more poem for 2o15. Difficult to write when you know you must do it rather fast. So, this is the best I could do. Good-bye, 2o15.

New Year’s Eve

The world, the whole world

smiles at me this dying evening
although I know no reason why.
I still feel the bitter winds
upon my face, this aging face
which has no reason to grin
so why should I?

This year has drilled a hole

so deep inside my sleeping soul
that I can see my memories
staring back at me from some place
far and even farther yet away
than the day that I was born.

And yet, my “self,” my intangible self,

can’t help but see within its dreaming eye,
a hope (a very fragile hope, I don’t deny)
that this childlike year to come
will be the better times for you and me.

So, I’ll lift a glass (metaphorically),

I might even sing a song (quite loudly)
when the watchman shouts at midnight
and frightens off that bearded old guy who
must bear the grief that we have seen
in these unpleasant  times of 2o15.

And perhaps I’ll find the sand to smile again

as we usher in the year to come.  Welcome, 
and welcome you surely are, 2o16.
Woodie 12-31-15

Scream Gravity December 30, 2o15

You know, I looked at how many poems I had written or did major rewrites on this year and it came out to be 98 poems. So, I found one more from the past that I haven't yet posted on this blog, did a little rewriting and that means that I've got another day or two to write a NEW poem and that will give me a total of 100 for the year.

Scream Gravity

I'm falling . . .

                   down . . .

                                or is it up?

Direction matters little.

People . . .

                 things . . .

                                time . . .

                                            passing by . . .

a breathless pace.

I grab at shadows . . .

                                  they . . .

can’t slow me down.

Before me . . .

                      solid ground . . .

                                              will it bend me, break me

when I hit?

Tiny bits

             of flesh . . .

                                f blood . . .

                                                 cartilage . . .

scattered on the cold concrete below . . .

                                                                or is it up?

The past . . .

                   evaporates . . .

                                        replaced . . .

by a fine mist of sweat,

of  worry for the future of my skin

                                                    and bones . . .

                                                                          and yet . . .

I don’t regret a single moment of life.

I shouldn't think so hard (they say)
on what might be.
Instead, enjoy the breeze (they say)
climbing steadily up your legs.

My legs . . . my arms . . .

my whole body screams gravity.
Woodie 12-29-15

Winter Times December 28 2o15

Yes, I know, I'm a damn liar! I did say the last poem I posted would the final one for 2o15. But please, don't judge me too hard. This mini-poem just popped out of me (Like a "Pop" Tart out of a toaster) one late night and jumped onto the Facebook page. I liked it enough to work on it a bit, create a graphic and post it here for you, my dedicated reader. {smiles}

Winter Times

The cold has come.

Finally winter's here
spreading it's deadly breath
across a worrisome night.
Sparrows have gone to nest,
I'm guessing. The ghost cat
who usually dances silently
through the gray shadows
of the corner streetlight
has given up his art
if only for tonight.
My life . . . still goes on.
The stubborn heater
in my microscopic apartment
keeps the chill of winter
at a comfortable distance
so my fingers can stutter out
a few more meaningless words
onto the blank stare of Facebook
before they (and the rest of me)
seek the even toastier haven
of my bed/couch. Yes, winter
doesn't bother me as much
as dreaming often does.
Woodie 12-28-2o15

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

Dreaming Day December 2o, 2o15

I wrote a lot of poems that I never posted. A lot of them deal with existence, reality, time . . . that sort of stuff. Found this one by accident while looking for another poem! Pretty sure I never posted it on this blog. So here it is for the first  . . . I think.

Dreaming Day

I think I've been dreaming again. Maybe too

much . . . maybe for far too long . . . and maybe
I’ve drifted so faraway from the reality of my
everyday that I only now realize my eyes are open.

Perhaps my consciousness has found

that hidden doorway, the one with
squeaky hinges, the one which usually
opens only wide enough for the fantasies
to squeeze through when I’m sleeping.

But there’s no substance to this daydream, just a

quiet sneeze of delusion from Queen Mab's nose.
Just enough pain to nudge me into a restless groan,
a desperate moan that only the waitress at my favorite
hamburger joint can hear... She smiles at me as she wipes
the counter top clean and absentmindedly checks for the tip
the trucker who flirted with her . . . didn’t leave. Her sadness
at being stiffed is just enough to remind me that once, some
clumsy time before, I could, like her, smile at my own
misfortune, and snicker at the great despair of those who
work for minimum  wage . . . I didn’t wonder or care to know
why the unfortunate never seem to notice me.
Woodie 11-15-12 (rewrites 12-2o-15)

The Nothingness December 19, 2o15

A thought some times gets stuck between the cracks, driving itself deeper into the mind creating a sort of rash that you scratch away at. it never helps. It's like trying to swat a mosquito in the dark. All you have to go on is a sound. BUT writing a poem getting at it that way tends to work like an intellectual salve. 

The Nothingness

Extraordinary to see yourself outside your . . . self,

looking back into those eyes that you've never
really seen before. Counting each wrinkle on that
alien face, each scar that you never were aware of.
You look and you stare and you analyze and criticize
every nook, every cranny every blemish that time created.
There's a warmth gathering around that hole inside you
where nothing lives, where nothing feels more like home,
like all that you are is that nothingness and that nothingness
is more real, more solid, much more than what they've told
you, all your life they told you, what reality is supposed to be.
Abare existence that glares at you through that self you've
never known. You have never known. It feels like butterflies
fluttering around the fire’s light, like the deepest end of the pool
where panicky legs keep searching for the bottom and find
nothing more than . . . than . . . and there's that word again . . .
nothingness. All there is, all there’ll ever be . . . nothingness.

Not even a splinter of a shadow left.

Woodie 12-19-15

Everlasting December 17, 2o15

Typed this little late night rambling out on Facebook. I planned to write more on it, but a few friends thought it didn't need anymore. Picture is of a local artist who's making it pretty big, Katie Williams.

Everlasting

Your eyes fade from my inner sight.

Ethereal fingers reach for you

Grasping nothing but straw-colored shadows

Vibrations, your words, echoing

My ears refuse to listen to the ghost.

Shut it out, all of it out

Watch the bloodless weeping

Their desert sand rivers running.

Stare at that which is there until

All becomes an everlasting darkness.

Woodie 12-17-15