feelings

Thursday Rune: Arrogant Demerits

I admit it. Sometimes I joke about lesser folk,
about how I am grateful to them
for making me look better than I am.
We called them shit screens,
or wedges that raised everyone else up
the totem as they forced their way into
the bottom of the pile. Isn’t that awful?

I don’t know by what standard I should be judged,
nor how I should think about myself.
I just want hot coffee on cold mornings
and time to think about a full life,
or to worry about people I love,
for no specific reason except I care.

To all those whose tarnished image I have improved
when I wedged my own way down,
or screened out the shit storm on my own,
or played the bug on your windshield,
you’re most welcome,
from the bottom of my sniffy faults.

Look both ways and reflect on things like envy and greed.
Mind the gaps as dysfunction becomes the new normal.

A Thursday Rune (walk with me)

’tis Raining Intimacy

Here’s the thing, people think I’m crazy
when they scramble for cover
seeking unrequited protection
from spit and sprinkle.
As my smile betrays my thing for rain.

Well, you see, proud me knows
what they don’t.
I feel something
they flat-out won’t.
Yet I’m not alone.

I dig walkin’ in all the rains—
deluge or drizzle,
mist or mizzle, or
let it pour a storm.

Control Nature? I cannot!
But guess what that
atmospheric effect does for me.
If I could, I’d make it so, and gawd,
you’d see; it would rain a lot.

I dunno, though,
cuz here’s another thing;
what I get is more than wet.
Rain’s just Nature’s grace
poured out on us
says no less than the likes of
John Updike. I get what he meant.

Anyway, it’s more than water,
more than moisture,
rain refreshes me, spiritually
cleanses me, it quenches my thirsty soul.
You know what I mean?

And Jeeze Louise, we always need rain.
It’s a feeling—a cosmic commune—
with what, I’m not so sure, but it,
in fact, flows with cycles of life.

Okay, I get it. No freezing cold.
Likewise,
I’ll pass on thunder and lightning
so close
it makes me mess myself.

Don’t worry though, I dress for temperatures.
On warm days, it’s shorts and old cotton tees;
my warm red rain jacket at colder times.
I eschew ducking under umbrella’s shadow.

I wear wet-able shoes. And I walk alone.
But then again, don’t you know?
I’d never refuse a fellow Pluvio,
and we’d want to dance
to the music and the rhythm of falling rain.

Look both ways.
Feel it, smell it, taste it, hear it, and see the rain;
all that it does, all that it loves.
Mind the gaps, the dips, and the puddles, unless you’re five.
Then, just dive right in.

Sammi’s Weekender #239 (smuggle)

Click the prompt graphic to teleport to Sammi’s blog and other poetry or prose.

Egregiously Absurd

Smugglers
of humans seeking better lives, liberty, to taste
freedom, asking only workman’s wages.

They flee to us with wicked problems,
bringing constantly changing confusion,
due to undefinable inequalities of states.

By coercion or consent, trusting snakeheads,
coyotes, or polleros; at great cost and risk,
begging asylum from worse.

We pick them up, send them back;
our failed fences, blank walls.
WTF is beautiful about that?

Look both ways and “Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too.”
Mind the gaps on the high road of morality.

Sammi’s Weekender #238 (familiar)

Click to go to Sammi’s blog and read other literary wonders.

A Poet’s Niche at Night

I sit alone,
here in my nook
surrounded by dark night’s midst,
awakened by who knows what.

It’s not gloomy to me
in my shadowless gray nest,
with familiar walls tinted sepia
by computer screens,

And light from my
black plastic, ergonomic keyboard.

I like it dark without sounds
I couldn’t hear anyway, just midnight feels.
I like them, too.

As I think,
I write
this poem thingy
cuz that’s what poets do,
in the middle of the night.

Look both ways when you sit alone in the darkness.
Mind the gaps,
the things you hear,
the things you feel,
and especially those you don’t.

Thursday Rune: Thanksgiving Poem

Grateful

The mythical geneses
of Thanksgiving Day
doesn’t matter to me,
nor the religious significance,
or supposed underpinnings
of this America’s holiday.

It’s healthy to have
the attitude—to feel
thankful, to reflect,
to summon love & respect
for others in my life—
today and those past.
There is the good,
the bad,
and the ugly.

My family, love,
music, art, health,
heart, happy stuff,
rain, books, writing,
babies, moms, medicine,
motorcycles, children,
grandkids, good coffee,
air conditioning,
electricity, good teeth,
this poem.

Today is about all the good!

Look both ways with a grateful mind and heart.
Mind the gaps but see the good.

Sammi’s Weekender #234 (Empire)

Click the graphic to go to Sammi’s Blog. There you may read more prose or poems, and you can play along.

Yearning for Old Broadway

The Empire State’s
wonderful people
of the city that never sleeps.
Coney Island, Manhattan,
Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
That tall building, George M!,
Lady Liberty, the Bronx,
‘the city so nice
they named it twice,’
Gotham,
Broadway Joe, the fucking Yankees
in the Big Apple.
Herald Square, Times Square.
How I want to be there.
Sadly, the day of many hearts
broken by hate.
I love New York!

Look both ways.
Take the Staten Island Ferry and the NYC Subway.
Mind the gap, as in watch your step in the City of Five Boroughs.

Midweek Poetry: My White Rabbit

My White Rabbit

I like beer, pizza, and poetry.
And those mysterious rabbit holes.

Poetry is to life
what hearing is to sound,
what thunder is to lightning, what love is
to marriage,
what sex is to love,
what water is to thirst.

I like dark beer, such poems
I love to hear. Poetry
is to me what color is to art.
It’s the butter
upon life’s devolving bread.

Poetry is to life as dreams
are to sleep, like light is for day,
poetry is rain ending a drought.

Life and poetry, infinity woven
together like two heads for sister.
A poem is my White Rabbit.

Life without poetry is sad,
dysfunctional and ignorant,
like breathing without air.
It lacks reason and purpose.

Poetry is as human as skin,
as thoughtful as mind, it goes
deep – beyond any abyss.

No culture is without poems.
The poem-less are like sailors
without songs or sirens,
poetry is a beacon for living,
it’s an eternity for the dead.

Not every poem is perfect, but poetry is
the ancient sound of a beautiful gift
waiting at the core of a newborn,
as the eye of a painter or a touch
of the sculptor forms art,
the words of the poets
are the pipes and drums of humanity.

Look both ways.
Be skeptical of all you see but shed foolish ignorance as soon as you smell it.
Mind the gaps. They didn’t put themselves there.

And this, just cuz I can…

Poetry: Moving Forward

The boy hid quietly in the back,
never raised his hand, got low grades
for lack of class participation. A shy,
quiet, introverted mama’s boy—
a child, it was his nature.

Adults criticized that he cried too easily.
He cared too much.
Felt too deeply. For a boy.
They would not let him be.
His siblings knew
and encouraged another side.
He learned to deny
his own deep-felt emotions.
Authority ran his life,
maybe his spirit.

He listened, learned, observed,
and grew; first, into a troubled teen, then
he became a young man.
Gradually, he moved
closer to the front, like a warrior
toward danger. Down range.

Today, an old man walks in and sits
front and center. Sharp tongued,
the quick-witted septuagenarian,
with a grin of secret wisdom,
is ready to advise any damn fool
playing games of authority.

Look both ways in the spirit of the young
and the eyes of the old.
Be careful what you wish for,
watch your step, and mind the gaps.
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

Sammi’s Weekender #223 (pre-loved)

Click on graphic for Sammi’s blog. I dropped the hyphen.

 

Passed Gas

When Dad said, “secondhand store,” I looked at my hands. Wondered which was bought second. It’s a euphemism for used. Now it’s preloved. Just bought a preloved printer. Nobody loves evil printers. They’re used.

Daughter, Julie, likens me to George Carlin. Not as funny, but I’m snarkastic. We both rant about softening lingo with euphemistic bull shit excrement. It’s doublespeak. Even good bad words, a euphemism for euphemisms. What’s your favorite?

Look both ways: a euphemism for pay attention or consider all options. Mind both past and future.
So is mind the gaps. Maybe metaphor is mo’ betta’.