(20 minute poetry)

Fill it in Friday
dye it blue,
what does anything
have to do or anyone
have to say,
but
Friday.

send me a test card
hung on a lanyard
or up on the yardarm
where I'm swinging
my bones

Weismuller's
full of something
now
that guy knows how
to swing
but
you're probably too young
to remember him,

Guess again
I'm back on the
underground train
and
it's snowing down here
either that or my eyes
have gone queer

it could be the light
or a trick of the night
looks like snow
though.

Nearly done for the year
eight more hours here
and a beer for a chaser.

Going
but not quite,
Injecting
testosterone
deepening my voice
a tone
heading on home
for Christmas.

Could have been a rockstar up there on choctaw ridge,
tallahatchie bridge, but just a song that flew so long back then.

pen a line and you're flying
or dying for to pen one more,

I could be her with the hair in my face
or me with myself out of place
could pump iron or jump
either way I am flying.

Choctaw was just a bridge too far
and they made a film of that.

Never can be
but always will be,
still we can only try.

buy a sidecar
ride a tramcar
slide your fingers in the jam jar
marmalade tastes great.

A Legal high?
legal to die?
sanctioned.

They sell poppers to boppers
and coppers come calling,
I'm nearly not quite though
falling through light
oh
it's shiny.

It's time we went
the rent's due
and I'm new
at this game.

Food for thought, the school
is torn down, McDonald’s
took its

place, and the old man
living in the corner
house

masturbated on his  front
porch until the police
stopped him

is decades dead, I don’t
remember his name

but the poor as horse meat
children who attended
class with me

I see like clean
glass.

She dug ***** after
***** of soil until
the hole was

long, and deep enough
to cover Brownie’s tan
and white speckled
body;

I was twelve years
old, and Beverly
fourteen.

(20 minute poetry)

Colouring in the haggard look,
*** it's chill outside, I am
painting on the shivers
as slivers of ice drop
from my nose.

Snow is in the air
bare branches on the trees
Dear Santa
I'd like for Christmas
a touch of Summer please.

The scent of cologne
floats softly through the train
an underground smell in
an underground hell
but
at least I got a seat,
cold ears
cold feet
in here it's even colder heat.

A young girl next to me
rosy cheeks
peeks in the compact
makes a snack with blusher
I watch her
it doesn't faze her
eye liner
why?

colouring in the haggard look
my days become a colouring book
every moment is a crayon

Young girl gets off
I stay on,
a smudge of lipstick back of the seat
cold feet?

Always full
ready to pull me
this way
that,
I colour me blue to match
my eyes and toes
the colour goes flat.

Glad I brought my gloves.

Jingle click
keys, hinge
squeak;

step on  five
gallon bucket,
hoist out

window, disappear
Durham Avenue,
walk.

I  hated the scent  of Old Spice and Vick’s
VapoRub in the old couple’s home,
and the stench of ****** diapers

in poverty’s  bedroom, and the stink of
*** and bacon grease in my friend’s
house;  when I remember these

smells I want to throw steel
at glass and cry into
the sun.

You tied  shoelaces together
and tried to hang yourself
from McMillin’s
basketball
hoop.

The neighbors talked about
it for years over flapjacks
and grits.  

They couldn’t understand why
anyone would attempt
suicide. I knew
the reason;

you were homely
and dull, kind of
foul smelling

too.  You failed
at  death, me
at life.

Nothing remains,
not  one  rhizome,
stem, or hairy root

travels, shoots, or buries
itself during barren  fall;
only  impending winter

resides in my garden
this unpredictable season,
and it is waiting for spring.