3 X 5 index card poems

3 smallish poems in five minutes
~
reheating

honey can I make you something to eat?

no babe, you know I hate to see you cooking, frying
standing over pots and stirring sauces
trying to brush
wisps of bangs from your eyes
  while wearing kitchen mitts

What I would prefer is something leftover,
reheated served with a smiling grin from my ear
to wayover down under there,
next to you

<•>
old words are better than than new ones

hey, hi! how you doing, old friend?

“yo, out of the hospital feeling so much better;
had some kind of ‘itis’ which they cured with an ‘yisis’!”

glad to hear; impressed by all those new big scientific words;
frankly preferred your old ones,  that were rediscovered and
reoriented in new ways in your poems verses;

me?
never better cause to hear from a man
whose optimism has yet to meet a
match
that he can’t best,

heals all our wounds

<|>

if you told me

that I could spend three successive rainy days in almost all silence, perfectly contented by myself,
i’d said you crazy,

isn’t that true babe?

Your grandmother wants to be friends on Facebook.  

hey you,
can’t recall where or how i know ya,

but your grannie is very kewl,
(we agree on the proper pronunciation)
boldly asked if that included “benefits,”
she heartily answered “**** right”

“one man is pretty much as good as the next,
but younger is definitely better, and you a spring chickadee,
at age of sixty years and three,
so many years ahead to share,
your social security bene-fits,
making me swoon
and giving me ‘flashes ‘n fits’
and given your life expectancies,
spousal wud be nice,
even ain’t a necessity,
looking forward to pleasuring your company”

remind me again,
where do I know you from?

shoot.  

HELLOOOOO POETRY!

•helping the kids with homework•


no one told you,
was part of the job description
paycheck earner a-ok,
gruff but tender lover,
knowing her special places,
building a tree swing,
a tree house safe and satisfactory,
one the neighbors envy

taking them to the hospital for
broken arms and chemotherapy,
part two of the non-routine but a very possible foreseeable,
going to school to give that principal a look
that will make him think twice before suspending
one of his for defending himself

you remember your daddy doing the same for you,
forgetting to repeat the tar and hiding that came later

the tucking in, the pretense ouch
when your end of day
scratchy beard ruffling the skin of babies,
carrying tissues in a toolbox,
never heard of, nevertheless done,
tho not a memory defining the future inclusive,
definitely a learning ability, a likeability

doing homework, nuh uh,
no way jose, don’t dare let them
know how you never got a gold star,
always sat in the back row, outta sight,
all day dreaming, chemistry rhymes with mystery,
and poetry is rhymes needing a big vocabulary
which means lots of words for a man who don’t talk much

ain’t exactly his strong suit

sure, heard of Shakespeare but never met him,
know where the on/off computer button hides,
the rest is up to them;
got no email address, but taught them sir and ma’am,
how to address humans with respect,

i’ll promise them anything
but not doing any homework,
unless it the kind that that makes

“a home work”

and

you think you are done with it.
but the notion potion returns
with your stolen free will
taunting and tearing, sealing
and then dissolving
the seals

no retirement in this world
from where human means pliable
and pliable means capable of being
twisted; nay, retwisted...

last we left you,
we were weeping on the
concrete sidewalk of
Third Avenue, the police,
giving you a move on command,
as Jean Valjean earworms one into
the incapacity of movement  
because of the audacity to request
to bring him home

such is the sorrow of the lost child;
it comes with irregularity
yet, never failing to return,
the child lost, the residual, resides
within like a violin adagio reaching
the punishing silence
after a crescendo that  pretense
promised momentary relief

we struggle to keep any and all keepsakes,
polished and fed; rust and time,
no polish in the five & time dime
that does a good enough job,
but you buy it anyway

well aware that fate will inevitably
rob you, it’s so purposed

twist you, retest you and re-will you, to never forget until
you have no need for forgetting but the peace of
constant remembering when all on that day
molecules and nucleotides
collide in the atmosphere,
dog licking, cat weeping purrs, meaning hallelujah home

the endless sadness of the lost lad-ness,
dimly grow the recollections of the first word,
the first delight, the confidence complete
that your babe is non pareil;
the violin sweeps you along and the
genteel tide still too string strong to resist

the woman comes into the room;
the reddened eyes no hide
the weeping outside and in the centerpiece of a soul;
why she asks, not surprised for she’s seen it
too many **** poem-times:

my Adam, I answer;
suffices and wisely
leaves me to
compose and decompose simultaneously
weeping weeping forever weeping
even when not

furious eddies rock smashing,
curious they splash me with taunts
"you want for naught!"

but naught is the only possess
that owing it makes one impoverished

perhaps he will email me, ewail me,
does he know I am at the
Wailing Wall, Jerusalem,
insert parchment prayers for his safety

oh my Absalom, oh my Adam, my favorite first born,
come sit next to me on the sidewalk
so close to where you live,
comfort me as in the days of your youth,
now that we are both
so very much older

sleep well all you lads and children,
never mind these unstoppable tearings,
never mind the heaviness,
for it has passed
as the tears ~shed,
enlighten and lessen
my embodiment

7/16/18 prone and alone

Prologue

casual glance at my notifications while driving even though
I’m all ready a bad bad boy, cruising at a sedate,
cruise-controlled 70 mph  vs. the bureaucrat bifocals 55,
a remnant regulation of the Eighties,
all the while humming with Gilligan
“a 3 hour tour,
2 passengers set sail that day”

then execute a four lane 180,
gotta get highway sideway grassed ,
cause i’m gassed...
by a Poem Breach

of the poems promised by me,
to write of thee,
you, my best inspiration,
the list grows longer, faster
than the hours provided

pull over fast emergency for my composure breached,
my vision wetted, my eyes hit by an unplanned unexpected,
sudden summer thunderstorm

<•>

The Poem Breach

once more into the breach thy words breeze through my chest,
like on a flamed stick, night roasting, toasting beach summer marshmallows,
that cut direct to the ineffable sadness that resides resists within,
that sticky, white mess,
a human heart melting

a thank you message that I’ve read before,
many times more than once,
how my unasked poem, a sun unique,
arrived at the
precise time and place,
to lift and even save,
how could I’ve know?

I did not know

but these messages collect on my chest,
unsought words of purple ribbon metal that make a
less burdened cowardly lion,
grown man cry,
do crazy things for it is a possible solution to his
age old quest

Why do I exist, is this my purposed plan, don’t understand, all
but the answer peaked and peaceful accepted in the breach unreasoned,
my port of entry, a gateway to the scales, a bridge it is, over a time-life river styx and unstuck, yet certainly always confused...


“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”


thank you so insufficient