All A'Titter

This January morn’ at 50 below

‘cross one hundred years of fields

A nipple-pink horizon grows

On the edge of the great white lie

A blood-red centre bursting ‘bove the round

The timeless game of hide and seek

Drawing at my eyes to peek


Blue

The sky becomes

As I cave

And stare

And aware of it, the centre explodes o’er the everything

With deep yellow warmth

Weather and lace

In place

Of the truth.


This January morn’ at 50 below

‘cross one hundred years of fields

Living on the edge of the great white lie

I succumb again so typically

To the allure of the nipple-pink horizon.

Halftime

Halftime

I am at the half of my life

And wifeless; not strifeless

And it shows

 As I forage through the throws

Of life and it’s tribulations

And on trial for why I don’t know

But Oh! How it hinders my wonts

And in the cinders of my past I find

A rind of the fruits of my labours

And squeeze from it all that I can

in the hopes

That the dopes o’er which I mope

Will succumb and soon go.

There is life beyond asperity

And clarity beyond

And my yawnings are but the gage

Of my tries and my age

And the page that I’m at

Of this sordid story.

I’m Sorry.

‘Till the day that I die

I’ll live and I’ll try

The life that I choose

And you’ll lose for trying to stop me

From hopping on the gravy train

That I vainly proclaim

Is mine to ride.

YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT

You and your bullshit

Up to your knees and up to no good

And everything you say and do

And you and the bullshit are so well suited

To each other.

You and your bullshit

I’m fed up to here and you and your shit-faced grin

In and out of my life

Like my ex-wife who you must know

From your bullshit past.

You and your bullshit

In your Abercrombie rags drinking pink martinis

In retro lounges

Alone, because in the real world

Your bullshit repels.

You and your bullshit

In a spanky new mustang you borrowed

to drive through McDonalds to share a Value Meal

with a girl who by now

wishes she was dead.

You and your bullshit

And your “love of jazz” as if you even know

Who Chet Baker is or that Elvis Costello hired him to play a trumpet solo

On his 1983 album “Punch the clock” on the song “Shipbuilding”.

(Anyone who claims to know jazz, should know that Elvis Costello

Hired Chet Baker to play a trumpet solo on his 1983 album “Punch the Clock”

On the song “Shipbuilding”)

So I call bullshit.

You and your bullshit

When does it ever end and who do you think

Believes any of it except you

And your bullshit

And your make-believe bullshit world.

You and your bullshit

Might change the world if it could be tapped

and used to fuel cars or clean water or

convince cancer cells to stop growing

(though the way you tell it, it already does.)

You and your bullshit

Was mentioned on the Discovery Channel yesterday

Because the janitor at the International Space Station

Smelled something bad and determined

it was you,

and your incredible, ruthlessly and unrelentingly annoying

bullshit.

Moonglow

Moonglow

Under a full moon’s wrestling beams through cobby grey clouds

The village is ghostly

and mostly blue, like my mood.

Not so much eerie, as weird is the moonglow at 4 a.m. in January.

Standstill.

The world has stopped:

A short reprieve from distracting views

And news of who’s screwing who

and other non-truths.

The moonglow is happy-sad and peacefully disturbing.

Even dog-barks end in echoless stop.

Like everything in January at 4 a.m.

Under the moonglow.

Frozen.

In time, everything ends.

So the full moon is timely

The blue snow sublimely

Whispering the great unspoken truth.

Oak

Oak

How patient must I be to be

as patient as the tree ‘fore me.

He stands and stares and doesn’t care

(it seems) that I must move and it behooves me to say

his patience is trying mine.

Fine.

I’ll stand here too and sometimes bend a little

Or thrash about or out and out scream at passersby,

But no, it’s not the same for me, tree.

I cannot spend one hundred years like you

To do nothing but defend myself,

Avenge myself, sleep and wake and never delve

Into other occupations;

I haven’t the patience or inclinations

Or subtle consternations as you.

Yet you’re magnificent and I am not

And ought to be so much more for my troubles.

I saw an elderly couple (almost as old as you)

Stop beneath your belly to admire your magnificence.

I desire of it,

Sit and stare and tire of it,

For I can’t ever hope to be

As great as ever you, old tree.

Not So Funny

Not so Funny

In great distress you tell me that the planets aren’t aligned

So I tell you that the problem is Uranus

And I laugh

But you don’t

So I moon you but you don’t get it

So I explain and you tell me I’m an ass

Which I think is funny but you’re mad

Because you said a joke without wanting to.

Funny how things have changed.

Finally

Finally

He keeps his regrets trapped in an old tin cigarette case

Which lies under a pile of worn-out socks in a dresser drawer

That sticks.

He coughs up blood and guts and spits smutty curses at Polaroids

He took of sluts who posed stoned sucking bottles of Wild Irish Rose

And pricks.

His breath reeks of lies and contempt and unkempt morals

Which wheeze over blackened teeth and dribble down his chin

Into a rat’s nest beard where his tongue reaches down

And licks the stains left by never-healing wounds.

 He curses his memories,

Rehearses his future and butchers his past

Then, for lasting effect: pulls the trigger.