Pay dirt
Pay phones
Pay the sitter for her time in hell
with the twins
You'll never earn enough
to call long distance
Unless you move to Italy
and live the dream
of making heart-shaped pizzas

(Just for fun, let’s play a game: put pen to paper or fingers to keyboards and spill out a poem, every line the first thing that pops into your head. Be as passive as possible, keep editing to a minimum and let’s see what surrealist stuff we come up with. Comment if you participate so I can read yours.)

Here is your
fog warning
you’ve lost your lenses
can’t quite make sense when
the power is out
is the feeling you feel
real
or temporary
nonsense neurons and
chemicals, burned up
by blood-heat
meaningless
out of focus or
broken, bulging
in the kaleidoscope,
your only telescope
for sighting land.
If clarity is the
end goal I think
my arrow is flying
well off target
better adjust
my anchor point,
search for
solid ground
or maybe just
a noose to hang onto
one exquisite
corpse looking for
a mausoleum,
something sturdy
stone or metal,
earth-binding.
Sorry, Universe,
I’m not quite
ready for any more
time in the heavens.

Its eighteen months since her delivery
Now she is penning odes ostensibly
Crayons in both hands: she is standing tall
What Dada says? "No writing on the wall."

With great care baby writes her graffiti
Not much untouched by her audacity
He tries to compromise with a new book
but baby says, "Daa Daa"; with a stern look

He has to admit the walls are hers now
Filled with scribbles and a chromatic cow
Its her version of Van Gogh's Starry Night
without the stars; a novice oversight

She's more surreal than Salvador Dali
The writing's on my wall: Pure Graffiti

when i've reached a proper altitude,
all will be as it should
and when i've reached that final peak
i will then be understood

silence hangs upon the valley
like a cloak of grey despair
nothing comes, nothing goes
never is there fruit to bear

so i leave my place of living,
i run across the county line
somehow i'll make it to the mountain,
no guarantee i'll come back alive

if i do then nothing changes
if i don't no one will cry
and when i've reached that final peak
i’ll finally be seen as I.