Category: Penman Lounge

On this blue sky day
the clouds are painting poetry.
Is the wind the author, I wonder?

Long lines wisp straight across the horizon,
could be “projective verse”
far as the breath will go.

The short puffs are Williams or Cummings descending
down toward earth, its vast girth the open
auditorium where this all plays out above.

The palm trees behind the wall are exclamation
points breaking the lines that ever
change and fall before our eyes.

The birds dot the phrases
with deft maneuvers moving
in and out of the spreading stanzas.

And as it all moves west what remains
is the zen of the capacious screen
in all its ravaging completeness.

An Observation, Not a Condemned Nation.
This from the Eyes of an Army Veteran…
Red is the Blood we shed. All men and women

Limbs on the Floor. No matter what Color or
Race..
White is the Corporate mans’ Financial
Gains, Boardroom Games. Filled with the poor
Mans’ Pain. Oil prices higher, Soldiers
Under Fire…
Blue is the Remains and Feeling to
Lost Limbs of Brave men and women. Fighting,
Dying, Trying to see the Patriotic Cause.
Keeping US Free from Cruel Leaders, who’s
Only Care…
Is for Oppression and Capital Gains.
Last…
The Stars are Years of Tears….

Hollywood sold me a story
When I was a young Boy. A tale of
Family, Caring, Love and Sharing.
What’s that Morning Sound?
As I yawn from My bed?
The running of little feet but not of
Playful Children so Sweet. It’s the
Pitter-patter of furry rats looking for a morning treat,
Maybe a bite to eat?
Where are my tree lined streets and
Mrs. Cleaver with Her breakfast sweets?
I look around and hear the sound
Of Naked City Streets.
Yells, Sirens, Bullets whizzing past,
Bodies lying on the Ground.
Not a Tree or a Smile to be found.
Just Sad faces looking to the Ground.
Searching for that missing
Peace, Love & Happiness.
I know it’s somewhere Around?

1. The vertical and the horizontal extend out
to plain forever. The trees are dripping
leavings over unknown lives.
Collateral outfits crowd the gutters.
Last night’s bar bottles glisten in the street.

Coarse recourse & cheap sh*t talk
scatters the mom & pop grocery dirge.
We’re smoking & looking for options,
glassy-eyed, sun-blind, off course again.
Still pumping the stuff, waiting for enough.

2. Columns wake morning light stays
aspiring delivers sight caught rays
engulfs drains rashers part senses
glow listing strains fringe fences

as throws tilt amidst carnage doze
slows leeward bulks turns frees silt
raining, gathering, ameliorates lilt
sums, as the quiet after morning storm hums

When the space arrived at the end
when all else that day was done
there was nothing left to do about it.

The chatter, packing and unpacking of
the business day, banter of a shallow sort,
the very pretend was the reality that capitalism brings.

Those left quietly to their own just
desserts were holding empty plates as darkness arrived.
Those moments in the background static held sway.

There are no ends they will not go
to hold onto the pittance they have
acquired and turn it round again

as it wears thin
with this rubbing about
as the nuance wears out.

The part you are left with
is the same as the one
you started out with so

long ago before you
knew what is what
and what isn’t.

For Kay Ryan

The table is always empty
in their house,
where neatness is kin
to religion.
The idea of the horizontal
surface’s power to hold
disparate refuse of the day
never flowers in their room
where perfection in appearance
becomes a tomb.

We are so many
different places
part of the time.

Different places
define how we act, present
ourselves part of the time.

We are so many
turning about to hide
the others we show to no one.

I hold the hand
mirror behind my head
to show my leaving the others.

Alone with no one else to please,
no one else to be, releases
the others, and they leave.

I am not interested in how
you put together your life,
only that you were betrothed
to me in your conglomerateness.

Paging back through the bits
that made sense or were interesting
holds us enthralled like watching
the life of the aquarium in the city in the dark.

Pausing to catch your breath
as you exude it into mine is solace
of a sort I had imagined comes
to this age, this day, as all else falls away.

Where are all the lotus farmers off to
Now the hubcap salesmen have up and left?

I come from a long line of coal loaders
Down by the rusted tracks of the B & O.

How the winds carried away all voices
That long enough ago is cannon fodder

For us all left holding the bag
After we dropped the bottle on the gravel

Ate crow bait year after year with the new
Immigrants in the somnambulists’ diner.

Get a crowbar and we’ll go hunting.
“Catch as catch can” says our jailers.

no waiting
on checkstand zero

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