WALKING ON THIN ICE

more daily poems for the few

Here are more of my poems from our 5-poet Februweary poem-a-day-a-thon. Must say it’s a wee bit difficult producing this time. Money, politics, class war, liars in office, child-rapist President… whatcha gonna do?

~

Status Report 263

Hey Mister Trashman
won’t you haul my life away
it stinks of rot and scraps
and rabid rats
with soft cell decomposition
sticking to the sides
my rock unrolled
my roll discontrolled
my lay consumed in lie

– 2.17.2018

~

Snow and low outside
inside hospital waiting room
no warmth

– 2.17.2018

~

Ick

Doctor Skuzz on TV
feeding off white trash misery
in whorier-than-thou worship
of more the mess a rating bless…
bottom feeder seeding slime
on our dime

– 2.17.2018

~

Words of life
on page in lines —
Rumi in the room

– 2.17.2018

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Plan B

Walk the wheel of woven weep
checking mirror for mutant meat

sun going up, sun going down
light and shadow in repeat

looks bad now but good near dawn
as old carrot becomes brand new prong

we feed it feel it fuel it fight
or ache in if if we don’t do right

fake it far and fake it long
or remember taste of sweet like peach

suffering daily human mark
shufflle off our heartbreak bleak

wandering from wrong to wrong
done been down for far too long

sometimes feel life’s on repeat
sometimes need to seek a peek

best talk up fair then talk belong
remember taste of sweet like peach

dark and light in circle dance
bad and good around it go

some is planned some is chance
joy goes fast while pain leaves slow

all is merely part of it
gotta play cuz we can’t quit

deal in real to seal the song
reappeal your contract ink

hope to find a friendly throng
try to make the bad guys think

and if of course it all goes bad
enjoy the good in life you’ve had

cuz upstream the rich shit and piss
passing toxins down to us

we foot the bill for their high class
while their greed’s shoved up our ass

they’re killing us with their expense
maybe time for self defense

get the torches pitch and fire
let’s help the bastards retire

– 2.18.2018

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We All Fall Down

The slo-mos go slothful, slow,
the greeders grind in endless gruel,
the stealers stack their stolen deck,
the bullies bruise below.

Heading down the professional line
it’s Entropy by a stretch.

I put my foot in the sock,
the sock in the shoe,
the shoe on the ground,
and take a step…
to where?
Or why?

It’s one hasty constructed lie
from me for you,
from you to them,
for them from them.

Do you read my lie and believe?
Should I return the favor?
Or at least pretend?

It’s worse than Plato’s cave.
We are our shadows
on walls not there
in light unlit.

I ache from wake,
work for woke,
rather roll joints than rock,
and Tantalus can keep his sour grapes.

Every day I seek a seed
to bleed into a koan,
direct roam to unbuild day,
and look for the me I don’t see
in the mirror.

Sacred lies keep lives alive
for the sucker minute born.

– 2.19.2018

~

Another hospital
another waiting room —
free uncertainty, with crackers

– 2.20.2018

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What You Need to Know

I don’t know much,
never have,
never will,
but surviving 72 years of drugs,
alcohol, running from the cops,
stupid stumbling and basic bumbling
thanks to a lot of luck
I can say
it’s best to be kind, patient, forgiving,
and a bit false in face
so others think you care,
(and for the record – start caring, really)
listen, say less,
be more,
but most of all
have good genes,
an unnatural luck,
and amuse the gods
so they go a little lightly,
keep you around for laughter
instead of squishing you like a bug

– 2.20.2018

~

Wake in dark
Look for light
Stumble to start

– 2.20.2018

~

Wake next to my love
hearing unmade coffee’s call
darkness lightens

– 2.20.2018

~

Funky jazz
from pre-dawn speaker
soothes new day’s score

– 2.20.2018

~

The cat
And the coffee
And the dark
And Moondog howling for the sun

– 2.20.2018

use other door

Unmotivated towards blogging. Or explaining. Or exploring our culture. Lot of it has to do with having a blatant thief/rapist/pervert/liar as president #45. Some of it is since we came back to the US in 2009, folk aren’t as interested in what I have to say. Part is I now post 99% poetry and nobody gives a shit about poetry.

So of course here’s my next batch of poems from our 5-poet Februweary poem-a-day-a-thon featuring Mary E. Weems, Lady K. Smith, Ray McNiece, John Swain, and me.

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Limbic System

1981 driving from Ohio winter
to Las Vegas sun to pick up my brother
while wasted on wine and grass and speed
and bone cold from Cleveland
I stopped at an Arizona roadside park
where the sun shone
climbed on top the biggest boulder
and laid on it
face down
arms stretched wide
hugging it lizard-like for warmth.

A car stopped
family got out
began walking towrds the rocks
then saw me raise my head and look at them.

They stopped
turned around
returned to car
and left.

– 2.12.2018

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Philosophy 169

You live for the moments,
slog through the rest.

– 2.12.2018

~

Philosophy 170

More’s not always more,
nor less less.

More can be whore or adore,
less bless or mess.

– 2.12.2018

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Sisyphus Sighs

Despair’s got teeth,
and swamp’s everywhere.

The rich eat the poor,
strip their cupboards bare.

Like Golden Hops & the 3 Beers
too much not enough.

Weighing want and need
kinda rough.

Two empty bottles
don’t a 6 pack make.

For true crime watch the rich
who take.

Liquid lick of like and love
eases pain of rot.

Rolling rock when no one can
takes the knot from not.

– 2.13.2018

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Fame & Fortune

Walked the sand,
water washed my steps away.

Went on hightop dirt,
wind erased my strode.

Climb to mountain top,
rock wont take my print.

– 2.13.2018

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Rock Uproll

Blood’s so red
I’m so dead
the life I led’s a whore

Quoth the craven evermore

Release this cloth
that leads such loss
to light like moth

And weigh the right of wrong

We walk the stairs
to higher wheres
seeking prayers

In search of sweeter song

So end of day
our do and say
maintains way

As we count up score

– 2.14.2018

~ ~ ~

Karmalization

The last sip of coffee coats my throat
with the warmth of an old overcoat

Night stacks dark on dark
for dreams to lighten

Day slides hope after hope
hiding in plain light

Life’s orchards become more fertile
at full moon and high tide

Let us outlast our shadow

– 2.14.2018

~ ~ ~

Winter’s discontent
assassinates summer
seeds spring

– 2.15.2018

~ ~ ~

In the Beginnings

The Void rose in the unrisin
and after creating black and grey
and fog and slow and fuzzy
and endless
and sad
said
“Let there be coffee”
and life began

– 2.15.2018

~ ~ ~

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty

Start and stop
is most of what we got

I mean
there’s direction or speed
want and need
hole in bleed
you know
the knot in not

Which leaves the cat dead
or alive
and we here
or there
(but only if someone’s looking)

Best guess less is more more or less
and all illusion anyway
weighted dice from the bones of the dead

– 2.15.2018

~ ~ ~

Anger Management

Everyday is Soylent Green
reduced down to fat or lean
in every way we’re nibbled nub
gnawed, declawed, wrongly rubbed
walking wall of wretched wry
to answer cattle call of lie
jerking here or working there
vector stresses everywhere
snubs and sharps and flats forlorn
fade in rush and gush of lore
till soft and dreamless sleep doth fall
to mend the rend that tends us all
hurry scurry worry more
strip your soul of moral core
doesn’t mean you’re a whore
but shouldn’t there be some soar
faster farther further flux
makes a difference how one struts
instead of pay to play or be called nut
jump on in and rub your rut
run to ragged rend of life
jumping over hurdle strife
protecting back from the knife
hiding anger running rife

– 2.16.2018

catch up ketsup

These past 12 months have been difficult for Lady what with discovering eye cancer, 3 days radiation, the radiation worsening her vision by aggravating a cataract, and now a gel glop of steroids floating like a squid black ink spill inside her eye for a couple weeks — in 3 months she can get the cataract removed and once healed get new glasses and see what she can see.

Here’s my latest monthly feature ion Medusa’s Kitchen.

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2018/01/raining-cats-gods.html

All 246 poems published so far by Medusa’s Kitchen since October 2015 will make up my upcoming book “Where Never Was Already Is” from Crisis Chronicles Press. Medusa’s Kitchen resides in California, where publisher/editor Kathy Kieth posts a plethera of poets and artists every day of the year for years and years. My poems range from 1965 thru 2018. Once a month since I’ve sent her 10 fotod, 9 poems, and 1 song which she posted. It’s my 2nd best best gig so far after my publishing 21 issues of Artcrimes in 21 years (at a $20,000 loss).

Should be an interesting book because each month I’d pick the 9 new and or old poems that appealed to me most at the moment. I sent all the Medusa poems to John Burroughs (editor publisher of Crisis Chronicles Press) thinking since I’d selected the 14.5% of what I thought were among my best, he could take the best of my best for the book, but he read them and said “Let’s publish them all.”

And since they were spread over 27 months, we’ll have 27 chapters, each with its own mood and feel and Smith collage as cover art.

Really looking forward to this. It will become my public reading bible.

Poems by decade in upcoming “Where Never Was Already Is”
———————————————————-
1960s – 2
1970s – 4
1980s – 9
1990s – 10
2000s – 29
2010s – 186
(seems be a discrepency in my counts… have to recheck).

3 recent posts up at WineDrunk Sidewalk where publisher/editor John Grochalsi is posting a political poem or art daily as long as small-handed but greedy-fingered Trump’s in office. Here are 2 poems, one collage.

https://winedrunksidewalk.blogspot.com/2018/01/day-three-hundred-and-fifty-eight.html

http://winedrunksidewalk.blogspot.com/2018/01/day-three-hundred-and-sixty-three.htmll

http://winedrunksidewalk.blogspot.com/2018/02/day-three-hundred-and-eighty-one.html

Here’s today’s Februwary 5-poet poem-a-day-a-thon.

Booking the Dead

Early 1950’s mom gave birth
to child three
a continuous squawl
who cried 9 months and died.
Next morning before school
I looked in on him
saw a live baby unknown dead.
When I got home and was told
I tried to resee with new eyes
but it was after fact
dead baby gone
no goodbye.

33 years later 30 year-old child four
blows his brains out over
too much speed and alcohol
woman trouble
and having to carry his work partner
our failng father
whose polio shriveled leg is crumbling
from 50 years of brick, block, and stone.
Pappy’s call wakes me.
“Vince shot himself.”
“He’s okay isn’t he?”
“No.”

Two year on Pappy died
wasted from missing his suicide son.
I flew out before he went
to see a 1/3 smaller once proud man
carried to the toilet
wiped when done.
He was good, kind, patient.
I loved him but left home at 17
so didn’t know him.
Mom called two weeks later
with he’s dead don’t come out
nothing to be done.

Moved her in with me
for final 16 years of her life.
When she went
she was home holding my hand
slipping in and out of consciousness
stopping breath
restarting
again and again for hours.

One unseen disappeared dead baby,
two long distance phone calls,
and one holding hand
slow taking her through passage…

Take door 4 every time.

 – 2.11.2018