We snap a shameless selfie
And post at once online.
Me and wifey smiling sweet
Whilst we play or dine!

Now some say it quite conceited
To paste one's mugs so much.
But we know its really just
More modernly in touch.

It took a bit to email,
And then to switch to text -
Now it's all on Facebook.
Who knows what will be next?

So easy on our selfies
It's really not self toot
It's more about assuring
We still live and compute.

(C) 2011 All rights reserved

But for opposition, thought disintegrates, dissolves!
No contradictions noticed! No doubt and no resolve.

Take away each yes or no, eliminate off and on;
Neither true nor false decide: discrimination gone!

Time and space evaporate. No concepts thus remain.
Though reality still constant, no knowledge to retain.

When I was six my mama said
She’d pay me for each ten
Flies I got alive or dead
A penny.

So I wandered room to room
Swatter cocked to ****….
Listening for the tell-tale buzz
Of a fly on a windowsill.

Whap! Would go the swatter.
Splat! Another fly.
Whappity-wahappity, WHAP! SPLAT! WHAP!
Die. Die. Die.

Soon the hunt was over.
Not a fly remained.
The windowsills were dotted black;
the swatter smeared and stained.

I collected all the bodies
To see what death would bring:
Mama paid me seventeen cents
(and some were only wings!).

Today at school we learned about
How baby seals die:

“Mama, did you make a hat
Out of all those flies?”

My woman, she done left me,
My wife, she may go too.
I shake my head and wonder
What am I going to do?
I got the busted knee blues.
Yeah, the busted knee blues.
I’d get down on my knees and pray
But that, I can not do.

I limp around the house at night
I limp into my bed.
My wife say she don’t do no limp;
And that is all she said.
It’s the busted knee blues,
Yeah, **** busted knee blues!
I’d get down on my knees and pray.
But that, I can not do.

I shook my cane at God on high!
But He was not amused -
He lit my cane wit lightning
And now I’m all confused!
I got the busted knee blues.
Yeah man, the busted knee blues.
I’d get down on my knees and pray.
But that, I can not do.
I’d get down on my knees and pray
But you know Lord, that I can not do.

The image of a woman stuns me -
My fiver year old daughter’s flower,
Left in green thin wrap to wilt

Now stuck through the water
In the giant plastic glass
I keep by my sink, opening,

Vibrant, in the incandescent light
As I brush my teeth and tongue
Spitting dreams one instant, then

Studying tooth stain and belly
Overlapping the new day
And my naked soul diffused.

A pink carnation spreads across the bath
As much aware of me as the effort
Needed to crush the moist petals

Isolates intent from joy
And fragile insights blossom
Into observation nearly lost.

Now, I delight; though, only now
A giant plastic glass filled
Sustains a few moments: embellishes

Simple life almost lost unnoticed
In the crisp and folded expectations
Of foregone conclusions.

Her mother stands naked too, her hand
Touching her soft skin wilting softer
And her soft *******, softer still – and desire

Crumbles unnoticed in a delicate heap -
Yet an unearthed Flower ***** the air and
Blooms easily through its final hours.

It somehow makes sense that
My daughter’s flower blooms
While the image of a woman stuns me,

And the water and light infuse my soul
Tightly aware that confounded and confused
I comfort her like a stem.

By one hand the knife made ready,
In the other flips a fish;
Suddenly, the two are steady
In the rhythm of the slish.

And worthy men and worthy craft
Rebuke the jarring waves that lash
Each man starboard, port and aft,
With bitter wet and violent crash.

And carcass after carcass tossed
Lifeless to the ****** hold
Shimmers, though the light is lost,
And the dreary day grows cold.

And vagrants in the trawler’s wake
Bobbing back atop the swells
Flutter up then swoop to take
The sacrament of fish entrails.

Here, wind and rain and haze dilute.
Yellow, green, red, brown converge.
And the gray is absolute,
And time and mind and sense diverge.

Moments roll as waves uncounted.
Thoughts are scattered as debris
On pebbles of perception rounded
By the endless surge of sea.

And rivers rise and passion flows
Inward channeled by belief.
Images drift by then go
To certainty, or doubt so brief.

And certain as the banks concede
To the wash and swirl and spray
So the tide and time recede
Shaping yet another day.