need to write
something
to soothe
my soul...

write now of
skies, the perfect blue
of the smell of salt
tantalising on the zephyr breeze

write to ease
a heart so tired
so mired
in daily crud
so stuck in this viscose mud

need a day
far away
from the
maddening

a day in the green
and verdant places
see no other faces
hear the stream
make it's way
from source
to sea

need a day
to follow path
to pond's
to be tickled
and embraced
by young palm fronds
to watch nature thrive
need this badly
to survive

need a day
to recover me.

Leave me high
Leave me gasping for breath
In your absence
Leave me pacing the room
And falling to the floor.
Leave me in solitude
That I know so deeply
As to call it my friend
Leave me standing
Or sitting
In the dark
Or filtering sun through my lashes.
Leave me to feel
My own heart
Beating through
A thin shift shirt.
Leave me in my mind

Whose words these are I think I know.
He's on another website, though;
He will not see me shopping here
To snitch his words for me to show.

My readership must think it queer;
I post ten thousand poems a year.
Between the copies, pastes and likes
I've barely time to chug a beer.

They give their addled heads a shake
And ask if there is some mistake.
The others call me out, a creep.
Who cares? They're just a bunch of flakes.

Their poems are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have villanelles to sneak,
And lines to own before I sleep,
And lines to own before I sleep.

Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.

Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.

Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.

All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.

My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.

I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.

I crack the brickle bone and then carve back
through muscle taut with cell memory,
past tendons that could never teach us love.

We were bone on bone all the way.

I slice past ridges where my fingertips once danced,
filet the contours of youthful sighs, where repeated
good-byes were a chance to begin again.

This carcass is rotting, and the back and forth sawing
from a knife that's grown too dull for its mauling
has left my hands itching from the putrid remains.

Stand by, watch the blood congeal on the ground.

I guess you can never cleanly cleave the meat that's been
hanging so long in your backyard.
Just let it drop:
the roast,
the ****.

See how the bones settle into the soil.
Who knows what might grow there?

why a poet?
because a poet
hears the words
which sing the
purest harmonies
because a poet
paints their portraits
in pastels
of phrases
because a poet
dances their agonies
into leaps of faith
and pirouettes
of passion
because a poet
sees
the beauty
in the commonplace
and captures
the moment
in a snapshot
of ink and white
because a bloodless world
cuts itself
a thousand times

and the poet bleeds

My problems reduced
to lengthened days, shortened breath,
what to feed grandkids.