O, I believe there might be something out there we can't see.
Some Cosmic Orchestrator or Supreme Divinity...

But why would it be calling you, just you and you alone?
If It's just all-so-powerful, it knows to use the phone.

I really see no reason, there's no reason I can see
Why God would bother calling you, and never ring up me.

But then again I'm just a simple man who won't define
The wherefore and the whatnot or the mind of The Divine.

Yet still I have a doubt or two that you've heard Holy Word...
Your actions speak much louder, Sir, than anything I've heard
From your lofty pulpit where you rant and proselytize
And tell us God just told YOU all the things we should despise.

But then again I'm just a simple man who won't define
The wherefore or the whatnot or the mind of The Divine.

Breathe and pant
focus
push
push
wait
Grab onto something
anything
push
push
cry
People stand waiting
curious
push
push
scream
It crowns
It slides out
You have birthed so many
ideas

There he sat
All dark unsaddled
Brains quite addled
From the blow

Brigands laughing
All about him
There to clout him
Should he run

From his good eye
Squinting sneaky
Peeking out
From swollen brow

Primrose Pete
Considered options
Acquiesce
Or fight or flee

Counting up
The five marauders
Such close quarters
Peter smiled

In a wink
The first two fell
Hellbound from
Pete's shining blade

One was cut
From prow-to-keel
Didn't feel
The lightening slash

Two was dead but
Still a-stagger
From Pete's dagger
Through the throat

Pete then turned
His one good eye
Upon the three
Left standing there

"Knock ME from
My gentle ride!"
He chided them
And took a step

In a flash
The third man died
His manhood hung
From Peter's blade

Number four
Jumped up in-close
They danced a rosy
Final step

"One last waltz"
Said Primrose Pete
And short and sweet
The blood ran hot

Last of all
The Highwaymen
The fifth of five
The last alive

A tall man
Taller quite than most
With ghostly eyes
And hammer hands

A man who felt
That pain was fun
This one-on-one
Was just a tryst

So they stood there
Eying up
While trying not
To give a tell

Of their planned
Last brave attack
While Pete held back
To catch a breath

All at once
The fight was on
That bloodied lawn
Would find no peace

Both men fought
With all their might
From Noon til Night
On into dark

No Moon sang
The stars shone mute
A suit of cloud
Hung o'er the fray

Blood and dark
With ought a sound
Save the pounding
Steel on steel

Come the Sun
There on that field
Without yield
For Honor's sake

Cut for cut
Both men held true
And on into
A second night

A third then
Into a fourth
A fifth of course
They battled on

It's said that
Both men died that day
T'was slay for slay
Though neither fell

He fights on
Old Primrose Pete
His ghosted feet
Still dancing true

With his blade
Of shadow pure
Against a worried
******* dark

And it's said
On summer nights
When the wind
Is right and odd

One can hear
Old Pete's mare
Out there braying
On the moor

And beneath
The old hag's whinny
If you skinny
Up your ear

You can catch
Old Primrose Pete
Sweetly dancing
With his sword.

I do not need to know
How far or why
Just push me
And I will fall
Quite high
I will go over what
And under if
With room to spare

I thought I had lost you.
I looked everywhere.
You had been here, then,
In that Good year.
I sometimes thought
I could hear you
Laughing
Singing
But no...
It was only the
Hollow of my
Heart.
But then, today!
Today I found your old hand-mirror,
The small silver one I gave you
Which you left in a forgotten drawer.
And I can almost see you,
Your sweet reflection
Through the dust.

I stand before you open now a bleak and hollow shell
A battered weary tattered piece of man
I've swallowed all my guilty pride and all my sins as well
I'll do my best to fix-up what I can
But I've had years to ***** things up and ***** them up again
And thus this may just take some extra time
So have a seat and while you wait there's magazines to read
I'll call you when your number's next in line.

Did I miss a turn?
Are those
Your lights shining
Past  the
Next curve?
Over the next hill?
I can't see this map
On the back
Of the letter you sent.
With the
Sharpie kisses
Dotting
All your
I's...
A left at what tree?
Let me turn down
The Radio
Radar Love
Has confused me
Again.

My favorite song
On vinyl
Side B
Third track in
It was spinning
About to play
For me
Its sweet
Melody
And
OH!  NO!!
The Cat!
The Cat!

There were spooky shadows on my wall
From the window monsters outside
Tall
Wavering
Skinny-thick
Making believe they were only trees
in the wind
oppical delutions,
Bad-boy dreams
Mean
hungry
Skinny-thick
Making my pillow snarl
The heater growl
down there in the
Belly of the House...
Just waiting to ****** me in
**** me down
into those shadow holes
Where the Spooky  lives

She  ...is the Goddess of my four-in-the-mornings
... is the Florence Nightingale of my debilitated wanderings.
...does not judge.
...simply pours as I ignore the menu.
...always returns just in time to top me off.
...wears that stained, pleated apron like Aphrodite wears the summer wind.
          (With that spittle-slick pencil
          Balanced so precariously behind her left ear)
She... renders quiet absolution, with creme, and sugar.

If you could count all the stars
Every one
You would still be shy
By a few
Even the far away ones
Of how many times
I think of you
Shining.

He ran
Screaming
Munch-like
only three-dimensional
demeaned
and
demented
and
fearful
of such a love

Like a painting
He would hang
when
she
caught him
forever
on her wall

Miles and miles away
Yet you connect
No phone or letter
Even better
You find me in sleep
Deep in alpha/beta/theta flux
In-Between Dream
A skinny touch
Just enough, not too much
To wake me from
You.

I promised that I would wait for you.
Hurry up.
I'm hungry
And weak
And I was never good at "saving"

There are stairs
And sloped roads
And hills
And blind curves
And switch-backs
And dead-ends....
Sometimes.
Sometimes there are
Twinkies and hot chocolate.
And comfy chairs.
And Pop-Cycles.
And low-gravity days.
Sometimes "Sometimes" is
Worth it.

With cloud above and planet neath my feet
With shadow sweet within my hollow breast
I traipse this scalded ground from east to west
In search of my one lost love, She!  My sweet!

I dare not tarry on this lonesome quest.
Odd winds afoot I struggle down this path
And even in my emptiness I laugh
At some dark gods infernal, ugly jest.

I do believe I'll find her, one fine day'
And we shall dance together happily.
She'll kiss me, and I'll know our Love is true.

I do believe that we were meant to be.
Until then i will walk these clouded roads'
With sky above and Time beneath my shoe.

I lose my way whilst searching for my Love.
So many, vagrant sins distract and pull
That moment and the subject, and I fall
Into the Pit below, and Sky above.

She beckons still;  she calls me, lures me on.
And so I travel blindly, growing weak.
Some crazy god denies that which I seek,
And wicked women hold me past the dawn.

My heart is true, but I am just a man.
A simple man, an honest Father's son,
A grandson of a man who tilled this earth.

And this I just keep tilling, whilst I seek
To find that Love so hidden from my heart.
I hope she'll wait.  This hellish road is long.

Though sonnets often wail of love, or loss,
This sonnet calls to all the Joy of Life!
Just got the papers from my (now) ex-wife.
She signed them. All those years a simple toss.

I fell in love with her at one hat-drop
(I love her still. I always will.  It's true.)
She set the bar for all the women who
Might try to catch my eye, from start to stop.

The way her tress cascaded, and her kiss...
The bliss I oft succumbed to in her smile...
The miles we walked together, she and I.

Though sonnets often rail at Love, or Life,
I'm happy that she's finally let me go.
These tears will pass tomorrow... (sonnets lie.)

Indeed I trusted her with all my heart.
Her eyes, they seemed to bleed an honest truth.
Her hands were soft and Soothe! I fell, indeed
Into her trap, her dark and dreadful part.

She glammed me in and lied with honeyed verse.
She led me down her lovely, mottled path
With lemon tea and scented candle laugh...
I fell into her subtle diatribe.

Oh heart!  You have deceived me once again!
Yet still I follow all your promised hope
And end up with your noose just dangling there...

And all the while she pulls me on and on
With beauty hiding just beyond her Vow.
So now, dark heart, I walk the final stair.

A poor boy on the sidewalk
watches through the window
as the angry speakers gesture
on the T.V. in the store.

He knows that they are angry
by their scrinched-up ugly faces
and their heavy pointing fingers
and their hands out
always hands out
wanting more.

He knows that they are speaking
of the world and all its problems
and of little people like him
stealing T.V. from the street.

He leaves the silent speaker
screaming anger through the window
and he radars out the sidewalk
always looking
just a little
bite to eat.

Funny how these small things happen
Little ripples in the pond
Spooky  turtles poised for snapping
Just beneath the sweet reflection/

Funny how we seldom notice
What we do to cause reaction
What effects we leave behind us
As we blindly stagger on/

Funny how the Big Things linger
All disguised as normal silent
Meanwhile little ripples grow
While we lean back, smiling, napping/

Meanwhile all those spooky turtles
Gather down there in the cold
Surfing upside down to bite us...
(Little things get bigger....  Honest!)

It's always simple
Eventually
The reasons
Add up to one

The door leads
To the
Road
And to your
Tomorrow maybe

Your pained trail
Will fade
With a borrowed ride
Windows down

There is happy
In dog face wind
Leaving buried bones buried

That wind buffets
Slaps you
And you wake up
Towards your Not Yet

A wild bull
Wakes me from
My sweet dream
Of you
**** coffee
Or sagacious wind
Or pets-needing-out
Just Stop It!
Let me fall back
Into that dark domain
Of You
For a while
For a few more
Pillow-case drools
Where Morning
Is years away.

Daily practice was my Catholic Regimen
On those strings
Blooded fingertips
Evolving into
Callused hammers

D 5th augmented, 7th
A transitional dilly
Will be
The end
Of me

There's no sweet hai-ku
Equal to you or your scent.
No garden holds you.

Words alone can not
Define the undefined You.
Flowers are your eyes.

From the skies clouds fall
To be gentled by your touch.
Whispering fogs weep.

There is no perfume
No stolen, wan aroma
Equal to your breath.

Armies march blindly,
And nations worry to dust,
While you rise and bloom.

There is no hai-ku
None that I can find, mind you,
No words to your Sweet.

You are forever.
A myth in the High Garden
Of Time's Secret Song.

Our hours were short.
Yet each moment was a World.
You bloom in my dark.

Golden petals weep.
You are more than counted lines.
Hai-ku's welter  in your shade.

Love has winded by.
Breezed cool past my open heart.
It was you, Summer.

I woke a moment ago
still alone
in this large bed
But I wasn't lonely.
There was a dimple
In the mattress
Next to me
Where I dreamed
You might be.
And then the dog farted.

She was the prettiest ******* the playground swing
She was eleven
I was nine
I knew that it was doomed from the beginning
Stars in Heaven
Misaligned
Her pleated skirt-fly defying gravities
I was buried by
Her tall laugh singing
Digging me deeper
Years were bigger
Steeper back then
I wonder where she swings now
High and silly-free
Or down in the dirt
Where I still play
Two years behind

Off to the left of my inner sight
I spied a withering shadow
With hope for a
Long-lost dance.
Was it just a wind,
A willow-whisper,
A light trick.
Or a chance
To waltz
A lost soul
Into
the
Into?

A bit of joy has come to me.
Some happy in a small disguise.
These students with their hopeful eyes
And brush and palette ...
I'll seize the day and let them play
With colors wet and rules begone!
We'll paint and splash on papered lawn!
A bit of Joy has come to me.
I am better for it.

Who was it carved these lines
In ancient hand
Faded now
By sand and wind
And patient Time?

Whose voice on chiseled stone
calls on to us
Covered now
With mossy virtues
Lost,  unknown?

Should I now in my crewel
of saddened heart
And remorse
Add a stitch
Of love eschewed?

Should I wield stick and stone
And worry down
into this rock
My ****** tale
Of love unknown?

And ages hence, some thousand years
when this creekbed
sits up high
Will some fellow
read my tears?

No.  I will let my fingers roam
these runic forms
Singing loud
The loss we shared
Beside this stone.

Bootlick Tom went out one night
To get his share of drinkin' on
He soon got into a fight
When all his drinkin' money'd gone

Out there on that beer-lit stoop
He saw that it was one-to-four...
"Almost fair" he chuckled as
He knocked the first one through the door.

Number Two was big and mean
with heavy-handed hammer-fists
But BootlickTom took out his knee
And put him in a scissor twist.

The third big bad-*** came in wild
A busted bottle in his hand.
"Well, that's not fair", Ol' Tom remarked,
And knocked him into Never-Land.

But Number Four stood by the door
He knew the outcome should he fight...
"I've got a few coins left" he said
And Bootlick Tom drank free all night.

He contemplates the Bible
As he adds up every page
Religion's an equation
As he totals every age
Of Man and Beast and Angel
(He's a thick and dowdy sage)

He tries to sum redemption
Through his numbers in a book
He thinks he sees sin everywhere
He's too afraid to look
And so he squints with whetted pen
(to carve his Heaven's nook)

He sits and waits for Rapture
As he whittles souls away
He does it all by numbers
In a slick efficient way
And when it doesn't add up...
("Forgive them... Let us pray.")

"There is danger in that night
Where shadows swell and steal the light
And strangers stroll the emptied street
With   hooded eye and shushing feet,
Where thieves and brigands skulk about...
Please, my children, don't go out!"

          "Mother! Father!  How you fuss!
             Can't you hear it call to us?
             Can't you hear its music play
             Strange refrains from Far Away?
             Young blood burns to run and leap
             Where shadows crawl and myst'ries creep!"

"Wards of Evil roam the road
Wanderers from Hells abode,
Refugees from Satans gaol'
Wicked banshies shriek and wail!
Here inside it's safe and bright...
Please don't go out in that night!"

             *"But how we yearn to wander there,
                Out into the star-spun air,
                Out where sacred secrets dwell.
                Drink, we must, from moon-kissed well!
                So let us go, let us take flight...
                For we are children of the night."

I was seven.
The sidewalk lured.
The Huffy beckoned.
The hill...
The hill...
Skinny locomotive legs
Pumping madness blindness happy
Freedom flight pumping pumping
The hill...
The hill...
Baseball cards in spokes were roaring
Soaring wheels and squinting windy
Boymachine thrumming heavy
The hill...
The hill...
Swerving Fords and Chevys curving
Hopping curbs and doggie-dodging
Lightspeed hoping
Seven and no sign of stopping
Hit the rock...

Funny how it all got slow, now
Boy/machine were separated
One went one way one the other
Gravity
The enemy

What internal music played
As he drew his brush
Softly saturated
Across the Wait of White?

How did he slow the wind
And tease it
Lure it
Into the pale cerulean wash?

What power did he possess
To stop the Sun
To halt the spin
Of the world before him?

What fierce invisible nail did he use
To affix his Now
So long ago
To My Now?

There is quantum stillness
In the flow
In the ebb
Of this flat dimension.

There is distance unreachable
Behind his eye
Beneath his hand
Proffered to us.

There is a God-Wink presented
Intangible, firm
Solidly translucent
Within this window.

Who was this mortal Creator
With Birth-breath
Of colored magic
And patient soul?

This wall is a cathedral
To His cathedral

Through his honor
He honors us
With one note
Of his internal hymn.

God cut Existence into eight even slices.
     God was Italian, after all...
     Rome, and all that...
     Jesus was a fluke...
But the wine trick was good.

So God passed out the pizza to the worthy:
     A slice to the Needy-
     A slice to the Humble-
     A slice to the Rich
(But he picked off the pepperoni.)

God gave a piece to the dour, unbaptized;
     A slice to the children-
     A slice to the Fallen
     On their way to Hell
(It's a long ride, and God is Forgiving).

God looked down into the box at the Last Piece:
     Angels hovered, drooling...
     Seraphim, Cherubim,
     Arch and minor-winged First Born
Salivated above the Cardboard Holy of Holies.

God just laughed and shoved it into His Omnipotent Mouth.
     And He Screamed!
     Rivers ran dry!
     Oceans parted!
"**** cheese is HOT!"

He staggered from the bar stool
To ask a lass to dance.
Alas, he'd had too many more,
He did not stand a chance.

A chance was just a fraction;
Hell, he could  hardly stand.
He took out fourteen tables there
And headed towards the band.

The band was playin' Old Fat Rose",
A favorite of the crowd.
But no one heard him crashing.
The band was Oh! so loud.

The lass what he was aimin' for
Caught sight of him and fled.
He tried to reach and catch her
But he snagged her beau instead.

Her beau, he tried to pull away,
But he'd been drinking too...
And so they danced the night away.
A fine "How-Do-Ya-Do".

So gimme a HI! and gimme a HEY!
And don't step on me toes...
We'll drink and dance the night away
To   Old   Fat   Rose!

This **** place just lost my words.
Forty lines or so.
I inquired about the mishap.
Several times.
Several times.
Several times ago.
No one felt to write me back
No one felt to check or track
Where did my words go?
It was quite a lengthy write
Took me **** near half the night.
But they lost it!
That ain't  right.
That ain't right..
Not right, no sirree!
Though I'll never get them back
And I know they're gone for good
Maybe someone somewhere could
Look to see
Look to see

To sew a shoe
A simple thing
To do
Or to stitch a sole
And nail a heel
For a Gentleman's
Stroll

A thimbled poke
A tug of string
A knot
A dozen brads
And a hope
A whisk of shine
For some Lad's
Trot...

Upon this bench
My tools of trade
I work
To ****** a soul
One shoe, by shoe
They all walk down
My road.

A Lady's boot
A slippered foot
Some lace
I'll fix them all
I have the time
They all pass by
My place.

There was no showdown
no paper-tied-to-rock-through-the-window
ultimatum
nor
last minutes
to prepare

There was no warning
no alarms-sirens-bells-flashing lights
no manual
nor
instructions
to save him

There was no face-off
no walk-ten-paces-then-turn
no preparation
nor
split-seconds
to stop and aim

There was only the kiss
He was doomed

Cats is funny
On the floor
Too darned quiet
They don't snore
Silent even
When they yawn
Bite and scratch
When stepped upon.

Dogs is better
When they *****
Wake 'em up
And they so happy
They ain't jealous
While you're at
The molling of
The Scornful Cat.

He was all of fourteen when they stomped on the Queen
(Such ungainly, undignified bounces)
And he sat, wide of eye, while up there in the sky
Those two men juggled pounds weighing ounces!

He dreamed that night of their glorious flight
(Of the WHOOSH! and the ROAR! of those rockets!)
And laughed when he learned that they later returned
With nothing but rocks in their pockets!

Three Bones lives in the olde dark wood.
Three Bones up to nothing good.
Shiney tooth and long dark hair
Olde Man Three Bones everywhere.

Humming songs without a tune
Swell'd up like a fat New Moon
Dark and shadowed, in his hood
Three Bones up to nothing good.

copyright 2011 T.P.Mooney