Mary owns a bakery
So plump and dough boy round
She likes to check out movies
For there's no one else around
She drives an old Toyota
That's seen it's better days
The horn has been broken
The radio never plays
Mary has many pets
Two dogs and lots of alley cats
And one used up circus clown
Pees off the porch out back
She likes to take her pets for rides
Sometimes they go downtown
To the city parks where her dogs
Dump upon the ground
Joe was Mary's older brother
He died in Me Lei , Vietnam
She has a younger brother
But it's been some time
Since he has been around
Once Mary got an offer
To run the library on the green
She procasternated until it was to late ,
the job was filled by Mr Clean
Mary had a boyfriend
But that was long ago
Now she eats buttered popcorn
While the movies roll on and on
With a cat purring on her lap
Two dogs sleeping by her feet
It's Sunday morning rising
And the clown gives me the creeps

It's OK not to be inspired.
You can look at a sunset
Without seeing the colours as smudges of chalk
On the divine, stretched-out canvas of sky.
And you don't have to write everything down,
Because not everything has to be permanent.
Some things only last for as long as you remember them,
And it doesn't make them any less special
Just because they weren't written down or spoken life into.
Existing is art, and creating something
That no-one ever gets to hear is still art.
You're a poet even when you're not rushing to your notebook
Before the words fall through your fingers, slippery with desperation,
Motivation, inspiration for the next poem.
So slow down, because if you forget your masterpiece
Because you were enjoying a careless moment of misplaced inspiration,
Who cares? Even if no-one saw it, you know you created an awesome poem.

"where the sun smoothes the dust-dry earth"  

the summer is not poetic,  
what is there in the gold
of the sun to write about?
just the heat and the stones
washed flat.  
the signs say you can't swim.
everything has stopped.  
there is no music in the air,
the mornings shrill and hum,
the afternoons drowse with beer.
is the ocean going to wake for me?
will it dance like a flower?  
along the dust black roads
the tarmac starts to sweat.  
torn open the thundering roads,
there is no poetry in them either.  
everywhere there are green leaves
and little drops of peace in the shade.

She is such a sweet pale hell
That makes me touch myself
Pleasure dangerously close to torture
Eyes lit with the softest furies
Lips that melt the ice of my soul
Whips that chain my pain to hers
I cry out “all my verses are for you.”
But she whispers “I am not yours.”