Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
  Jul 2015 Pete Badertscher
Mike Hauser
I'll take it as it comes
But only if it's more than once
After all isn't it only natural
To never have enough

Like a martyr with bleeding feet
Looking for trouble over and over
(Hell bent on virgins and feasting)
...never have enough

You can take it to the limit
Have more downs than ups
No matter how you skin it
You never have enough

Stuff your pockets full of life
Like pebbles and shells, cram it all in
Let them call you a hoarder
You will never have enough...
Pete Badertscher Jun 2015
Come listen to.
Come listen by.
Come listen, come listen

The sun dapples in adjectives
in a language without words.
The movement of the leaf
like the dance of the honey bee.
Through a turmulent stream of hellos
they talk to each other.
Can you hear them my darling?
Come listen to.
Come listen by.
Come listen, come listen.

Not many can, anymore.
If ever they could (which I doubt).
Ancestors of flat grey we paint
with colorful commentary,
but it's too much to hold.
It's too much to believe.
Their ears-- closed as their scions.
Come listen to.
Come listen by.
Come listen, come listen.

You can train yourself--
your ears, your eyes.
to catch the whispers of
nightlace and dayfire.
Like the small entices of
old friends-- long lost.  
Forever there.
The Chopin of the rain,
the Dead Kennedys of  
eyes in the night.
Just listen to.
Just listen by
Just listen, just listen.
some men got a woman.
some men got a man.
me, I just got a guitar.
lord, how I love my one man band.

shalimar's my guitar.
shalimar, she's my strings.
when I get to crying,
that's when shalimar starts to sing.
©  Passius Ashe   1999, 2015
A fluff of feathers
Black and white,
Hide the scrawny scavenger
Whose "Rick, Rick, Rick!"
Identify some place of death,
This careful bandit's visiting.

He leaves outright robbery
To his cousin jay,
And flits,
One disaster to the next,
To see how he may capitalize.

Dead carrion, his usual fodder...
Yet one subzero winter day
I saw a magpie perched
Upon a shivering cow
Belly deep in snow, and
Chilled in minus 30 air,
Peck-scratching through a healing scab
And pulling living flesh away.
Nature in extremes is a cold-hearted witch. A memory from cattle-ranching days 30 years ago....
Planting excitement upon us,
My daughter asks how to thin the beets.

"When the plants are three inches tall,
Pick the weaker ones and pull them up,"
I say. "You'll take out two thirds of the young  plants
So the rest can grow."

I see a troubled look upon her face,
And realize what I find in myself....

The teacher's quandary:
Picking whom to keep,
Whom to cull...
We put our love into them all.

Watching for first and tender shoots,
Celebrating as the fledgling leaves appear,
Not thinking of a time ahead,
Dreaded time to thin....

Teachers are reluctant to cull,
Building emotional connection,
Providing loving direction,
Promising success to all....

Then come the standardized tests,
The  team selections,
The popularity contests,
The invitations to slumber parties,
The division of elites,
The rising of divas,
The rostering of first teams...

The separation of pariahs begins,
The promise we made to early learners ends,
Superiors, exultant, drown out the tears
Of those left standing by the fence,
Excluded from the chances to advance.

Standing in the seedling beds,
Spring breezes rustling tender leaves,
I turn to Kate....
"It's never easy....
But if we don't  thin the beets,
The beets will not develop
Beneath the leaves."

These damnable analogies arise
Infrequently these days,
And I am standing in the dirt,
Black soil upon on my hands,
Wondering about survival of the weak,
The treatment of humans and young plants,
Pondering humane ways to honor every student
In which I am investing...
Wishing I could see the end of high stakes testing....
Conversation with Katelyn, the newest teacher in the Bouchard line.

db
Pete Badertscher May 2015
Heart attack man lies, fallen
Splayed out like the Vitruvian da Vinci .
The sidewalk his bed of lilies,
while a woman cries over him.
Another man, in a wife beater, kneels down
and starts compressions.
His face turning blue, the same color blue
as his neck tattoos.
The tattoos disappearing-- causing traffic to stop.
One cop car stops, blocking the intersection.
Lights in eye aching flashes
alert others to the danger.
They flash, "don't look here death is prowling"
in an Aldis lamp language only the subconscious reads.
The man in the wife beater beats compressions on the mans chest
while a Nurse pulls over and another cop shows up with a defibrillator.
His blue face looks like mine, I see the resemblance as I drive past the scene.
He's nearly my age and I figure there is enough help.  
Just drive on past like its another day.
I try not to tell myself, as I pass the blue faced ghost with the neck tattoos
just standing in shock,
"Whatever you do, do not make eye contact."
This was a true event.  I wish I knew if the man lived. ...I hope so.
Next page