EVERYBODY got ‘em a cell phone
pissant with not a nickel to pay his rent got him one
i ain’t got one or the quarter to use this pay phone
sittin’ there behind me waitin' for me to feed it
and hear that jingle like some slot machine that always pays out
temptin’ me like some shiny new toy
but i got two pennies and i ain’t even rubbin' them together
back then, back when nobody had no cell phone
i filed pennies down on the street to make them the size of dimes
when one of them dimes could by me a marshmallow pie
from a vendin’ machine at the bowlin’ alley
that ain’t there no more
but some cell phone store is
but that don’t matter
i don’t want no cell phone
i would like me one of them marshmallow pies
and an extra quarter to give this hungry phone
yesterday, some lady give me three quarters
and i give two of them to Jose to call his mama and sister
he gave me two smiles
i kept that other quarter to make a call
but couldn’t think of no number
or no soul
want to hear my voice
so i give that quarter to a little boy
who was all alone
and didn’t have no cell phone

We're not really poets
We're liars pretending to capture moments
We're trapping butterflies in nets,
fireflies in mason jars capped with lids, fish in styrofoam coolers layered between cool ice melting .
Its eyes are bulging as it's gasping, inhaling toxicity that we call air.
The will to power beckoning through its form, flopping around the ice cubes exchanging energy,
creating heat
Lukewarm drops slip down creating a puddle not large enough to survive
I reach out across to my brother for a high five.
Our palms slap and I laugh as the light from the sun shimmers across the water.

You must miss me
  must miss the kiss of me
The break had to make You ache
MISTAKE

I can write now what will still be
years after You've forgotten about me

in the myriad of mirrors in my mind
  Yur diamonds shall be the sole soul shine
every bit as real and raw and radiant as the first moment
they raced and rained and raised their reign within clint

reflections refuse to fade
each an inflection of Yur voice
  a forever of Yur face
   a reminder there ain't never been noe choice

every pissant poignant poet
weaving emotion images with their words
all the cunning linguist lyricists
singing lies and lines they think you've never heard
didn't actually feel any ******* thing
knew not one iota beyond nothing
of life
of love
of living in love

pathetic paintless portraits
(tattoos on a corpse)
empty echoes of nothing notes
(dealt by the deaf and the dead)

but I bet it's not their fault
they probably never felt a real fall
a feather float race up the rapids
with the fluffy grace of rabid rabbits

Not so for this man who be me
my feather has done dancin' shakin' in anti-gravity
I have sung sacred songs as angels swum along
our feather mountain biking heaven-strong

Of course our river was an awesome flow
(a hot-tub raft in moonlit snow)
And Our Poems were always best in show guitar glow
cuz I had You to Noe

yet the Mostest WOW was not enough somehow
the Bestest LOVE of this Life is not alive now

here I am again
a millennium worse than i've ever been
fetal black rose petals
dead dull dried
all their thorns' tears cried

no light left in my once bright blue eyes
dead and drowned and dried out
  cried out
  ashen grey
  nothing evermore to say

Silence
Deafening and
Destructive
The water begins to pour
The pitcher tips over
And down
There is a puddle on the floor
He looks at my offering with fury
Why does he turn rain into hurricanes?
Pissant.
He needs to learn how to swim.

~Christa E. Cannon

it's all
up in my head
all  these disparate threads

all these under the bedclothes
secrets
all these don't mean to be
but am what i am moments

all stuffed away in stacked suitcases
braced by not sure what you ,mean faces
all those sacred and scared places
within this wearied, wary and weirdly  warped soul

all the tattered scraps, the you are here, maps
the body slaps, the landings without *****
the god i need a nap snaps
all stacked racked and filed under
memories:
vivid, hazy, pleasant,pissant, piquant,
crazy, tearful, fearful, beerfull
and happy, sad glad mad,
**** why did i follow that there fad
bad...badass
fragile as glass
pain in the proverbial...
ask no questions ....
tell no lies
time flies....

all there bats in the belfry
cats in there pj's
no where, mayhaps be free
listening to internal dj's

dancing til dizzy
drinking slightly fizzy
alcohol.... misty tizzies,
getting bizzies...

all there, in a mixed up soup
smiling faces, put through paces
thoughtful moments, all the components
to make a life....to make a life
it's all up in my head.........
                                                roosting

So some little sawed-off *******
Gets himself a big boy gun.
He’s got a plan to make people pay
For every slander aimed at him.

He takes a walk on a crowded street
Looking for a likely victim;
The harried mother, the overdressed man:
Who will have his bullets.

How about the couple in that car,
Fun to shoot through a window.
None of these quite fill the bill;
This is the wrong location.

The only spot is back at work
They don’t know he’s angry.
He smiled when treated like a dork
And they deserve his vengeance.

He enters through the double doors
Walks past the guard while smiling
Strolls into the head-man’s lair
And shoots him at least fourteen times.

He saves the last shot for himself
But this time he miscounts
And security men now pounce on him
And hold him til police arrive.

Hauled onto a cop car’s seat
He has but one regret
Not that he didn’t **** himself
But that he didn’t **** more others.
          ljm