My dad
a tired old guy
drinking **** warm beer
one can after another
in a basement refuge
he called The Shop
He was kind
but very quiet
His silence
a gift of the War
and its visible
atrocities
He didn't spend much time
upstairs
with the rest of us
but we could always
enter his domain
of cigarette smoke
and beery mist
to panhandle some change
or just sit with him
in the half darkness
listening to baseball
on the radio
Until the day
his liver
generated
another
final
plan
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 7:17 PM UTC
I'll be pleased
when your
name
is a cargo
my memory
no longer
hauls
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 6:20 PM UTC
I want
to stop
writing
these things
But then
another one
shows up
Begging for
garments
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
Presenting
something
well crafted
With a
blind swing
of an axe
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 6:12 PM UTC
o raspberry
donut
please
accept the swing
of this hammer
and its
readjustment
of your
seeping
convictions
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 6:32 PM UTC
Welcome
Initiate
to the
Big Room
of the Summit
County Jail.
Specialists
will handle
the theft
of your blanket
while you're
watching TV
The game of Hearts
shall be played
each morning
after the pancake
with cold coffee
and the
entertainment
features your
inaugural public
performance
on the alfresco
commode
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC
My best friend Steve
had a rat named Beulah
and although she wore the white pelt
and pert whiskers of a domestic pet
she never generated the heroics
of Disney’s menagerie;
rather, she’d
unwind her days doing a scurrying
hunch'n'hop
around the perimeter of the living room.
As a native Pittsburgh rat
Beulah escaped the bizarre fate
of her Baltimore cousins
who resided in neighborhoods
where the residents fished for rodents
using Kmart rods and big steel hooks
baited with cheese and rancid bacon.
Instead, she died rather mundanely
like many rats
at the end of her life's only adventure
fleeing the tame existence
of the living room
for the fresh air of the driveway
where the rear wheels
of Steve's dad's pickup truck
flattened and whirled
poor Beulah
in a counterclockwise
spinfest
of radial belted
frenzy
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 7:40 PM UTC
Courtesy of the
efforts
of the brain’s
nightmare
software
I’m extruded
onto the path
leading to
Mister Coffee
via the bathroom
hoping that
the quality of the
aborning day
matches that of
the imminent
cinnamon
oatmeal
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 1:24 PM UTC
Before our Moon
dips below
the romantic
horizon
I'll swing you
around
with such
affectionate
torque
that
paramedics
will need
the Jaws of Life
to extricate us
one
from
the other.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC