Taboo to Torched
Frightened by arrogant kens against freedom,
shocked by hubris karens of hyperbole,
flummoxed by fiddling fascist Boards,
saddened as lone librarians dodge discovery,
humbled by youth’s perseverance;
I ponder and cry, with my personal pride,
I stand wondering why, ready to satirize.
Look both ways as you war against the lunacy of banned books.
Mind the gaps and detest book burning and the dark side of religious fanaticism.
The lovelies, Rochelle and Na’ama, teamed up to tempt my darker, speculative, micro-fiction side. It’s 100 words. Fewer is fine, but more is too many. My story follows Na’ama’s enticing photo. Click on it to bat fly over to Rochelle’s place for rest of the tantalizing story.
Genre: Erotic Spec-Fic
Title: Leave the Light On
Word Count: 100
***
Drunk at midnight. The doorbell. Instant love.
She said, “I saw your light. Would you like to donate blood? Invite me in. Vodka Collins, please.”
“Yes. Come in. I’ll get your drink.”
Her phone. “Party at David’s. Sunrise. I’m getting bloody marys now. Maybe a sperm bank donation too. Cute guy, but older.”
I handed her the Collins. “I thought y’all bit us on the neck.”
“Too messy. We’re high tech now. Like Red Cross. Instant disease tests and all. Join our frequent donor, blood-bag club.”
“Really? No more biting?”
“Nope. But I give a hell of a hickey.”
***
Look both ways for erotic vampires.
Mind the gaps and floss daily.
***
Now Dance
I can almost see in my memory
when mother was proud of me
for those first sobering steps,
my cheerful run. Later,
I saw and heard mine;
Billy, then Steven, finally
Julie taking first frantic steps of life,
another charge without
casual saunter. We learn
to run, then we slow down.
Look both ways as we walk, run, or saunter through life.
Mind the gaps, do the best you can, and have fun.
It’s a one-way ticket.
***
And now, a 1980s fun rock as Dire Straits teaches us about the “Walk Of Life.” (Hilarious)
Dig It
Destined to climb
cliffs, walls, grottos,
towers, trees, and poles.
Discovering, exploring
hidey hole caves,
abandoned mines; hunters of
excitement and danger.
Excavators, trail blazers;
spelunker boys still alive want
to climb the stairs.
Come closer to me.
Look both ways.
Explore the Universe while you can.
Mind the gaps in the grottos for hidden treasure: the mysteries of the past.
Candles in Darkness (Time to go home)
The streetlight was
outside my second-floor bedroom window,
about sixty feet away,
kiddy corner from me,
but right across from Packy’s Bar.
At night, it dimly lit my bedroom.
(I didn’t like the pull-chain single bulb
that hung from a chain in the middle of the room.)
There was another light
a block farther up on Main Street,
and another was down on Washington
where a traffic signal clicked
when it changed to another color (all night long).
It had to be late and quiet to hear.
I didn’t care.
When I pushed my bed next to the window,
I could feel and smell smoke-free night air.
I saw and heard street and sidewalk sounds,
I watched the glorious night rain,
and sometimes people who were quieter at night.
Summertime I could see bugs flying around the light
as I listened to the raucous people up at Packy’s.
The light was near enough
to work with my mind adding drama to boredom
as the nearby maple-tree limbs and leaves
silhouetted diabolical shapes and shadows.
That’s how I saw them.
Frightening then. Old friends now.
Along with rain, the streetlight showed me
falling snow or eerie fog on dark nights.
Streetlights comforted me.
Now, when I get up before sunrise, I look out
to see another lonely, bored streetlight father away
on a much quieter street with no bars (just houses with old people).
I recall the days when I looked out for the light to tell me things.
I still do.
Look both ways to see the light.
Mind the gaps, the bars, and the interesting shadows.
Watch people.
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 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.
Over The Susquehanna River
From New York it winds
nine hundred mudlarkable shoreline miles
through the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic.
Unlike Billy Collins, I fished it,
caught carp, sucker, catfish, perch; swam
polluted waters; climbed and walked
bridges and trestles. I grubbed its mud.
Remember disasters. Before mountains rose.
The Susquehanna is in my blood.
Look both ways when the river flows.
Here it comes, there it goes.
Mind the gaps, the pits, the whirlpools, and vermin.
***
Poetic license: The Susquehanna River is 444 miles long from New York, flowing through the State of Pennsylvania (where I knew it) into the Chesapeake Bay. That’s 888 miles of shoreline. I rounded up. Disasters include the Knox Mine crime, Three Mile Island, pollution and environmental catastrophe on an epic scale, and many devastating floods.
Let the Season Begin
Halloween is coming.
Costumes, children, singing
and tricking for treats or gifts.
Midseason American football,
next is a Marine Corps birthday,
Vet’s Day for live parades,
And the eating of ugly birds.
More football and Black Friday
sales as time to spend, soon
another year is at end, and
off we go to auld lang syne.
After Christmas,
nothing good happens
until Saint Patrick’s Day,
when some damn fool
drinks green beer,
remembering The Troubles.
Halloween,
the threshold of good times,
and New Year’s Day
as we wait out Winter.
Endless beginnings
and sadness of endings.
Spring—the only good thing
about Summer.
The burden of January,
is less than July,
has cause
in mourning the loss
of October’s promise,
the harvest
of November, and
December’s done revelry.
Look both ways along the line of time.
Mind the gaps, bless each day.
Damn Yankees
Peckerwoods range southern from taproot wormwood sagebrush out west,
to different dialects in deep East Texas’s vast Big Thicket Forest
with snake-filled, gator-infested swamps.
Coon hunters haul coonhounds, like Ol’ Blue,
in pickups circled round night fires.
Dogs tree them coons for the bark and fun of the run.
Where cultural racism thrives as casual and common as an Easter toothache,
in tasteless towns, where hate breeds happiness decayed.
Damn longhaired, white-assed Yankee,
“What cha mean ya never been coon huntin’?
Grab yer wahoo and follow me.”
Look both ways and wonder, why does it have to be this way?
Mind the gaps for gators and snakes.
“Old Blue got one treed, but Scout is a-trackin’ some tail.”
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