"joanie" poems
How it is fickle, leaving one alone to wander
the halls of the skull with the fluorescents
softly flickering. It rests on the head
like a bird nest, woven of twigs and tinsel
and awkward as soon as one stops to look.
That pile of fallen leaves drifting from
the brain to the fingertip burned on the stove,
to the grooves in that man's voice
as he coos to his dog, blowing into the leaves
of books with moonlit opossums
and Chevrolets easing down the roads
of one's bones. And now it plucks a single
tulip from the pixelated blizzard: yet
*itself is a swarm, a pulse with no
indigenous form, the brain's lunar halo.*
Our compacted galaxy, its constellations
trembling like flies caught in a spider web,
until we die, and then the flies
buzz away—while another accidental
coherence counts to three to pass the time
or notes the berries on the bittersweet vine
strewn in the spruces, red pebbles dropped
in the brain's gray pool. How it folds itself
like a map to fit in a pocket, how it unfolds
a fraying map from the pocket of the day.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 6:02 AM UTC
florence nightingale,
she is a nurse; joanie stubbs
is a **********
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 2:17 AM UTC
Nothing is going to protect us from the human condition
We can have fortune and fame
Be on the top of our game
We can be a rocker
in Lost Wages
We can be a woman with a small child
Trying to do welfare to work
We can dance the tango with a Friday night ****
We can be busted for another dui
We can be the head of the corporation
We can even be Paul McCartney
Michael Jordan
Kennedy may be our name
But nothing is going to protect us
from the human condition
I've gambled and won
I've gambled and lost
Millionaire wives die of cancer
Joanie's Johnnie gets SARS
Steve Jobs takes the last dive.
A truck driver falls asleep
A thirty seconds delay winds up catastrophe
So sorry!
Nothing protects us from the human condition
There are mine fields all around us,
most we don't even see
We can be in Mosul
We can be in Aleppo
We can be in Somalia
We can be in Mozambique
One ember, a conflagration
One breath of air, a hurricane
One drop of rain, water everywhere
Twisted Bill Cosby
his son
murdered while changing a tire
Your name can be Whitney Houston
mother and daughter
have died
Ronald Reagan's dementia
he didn't remember a thing
The list of the names
it never really ends
all that fame power and fortune
All of the pain loss and suffering
of me and you
Bad moods ain't seen nothing yet
There is no protection from the human condition
You can set me up another one
I'm drinking to
"how it goes "
I hide out
I come out
I'm probably like you
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
except
find slices of delight when able
There is no protection from the human condition.
Dec 8, 2016
Dec 8, 2016 at 10:19 PM UTC
Dora! People with big noses are beautiful!
Anyway, Dora of the Noble Nose
as a single rose
as a solitary diamond
so brilliantly in love with Gilbert!
Married
and years later...
She kept the paper folded
in her jewelry drawer...
the paper from the hospital
that said...
she was pregnant!
With you!
in her jewelry drawer!
Joan, My friend
It was you
she kept as folded treasure
till her death at 82
I read your Kaddish, Dora
I watch the shovels fly
as stones collect like children of the prayers
upon your grave
Thank God, Joanie!
You have no heir
At grief’s end
there’s no one left...
to die of love’s enfolding
leaving everything
to...
Joanie Treasure!
Joanie Only!
To my friend, her mother, and father
May 28, 2017
May 28, 2017 at 10:55 AM UTC
Scary Larry,
The Margarita Fairy
Could drink anything,
As long as it wasn’t dairy.
Bollocky Pollack
Hung up his smock
Covered with paint
Put it on the auction block.
Seven eight nine
Friends of mine
Are really just fine
Without toeing a line.
Five six seven
It is rather like heaven
To be gladly given
A life worth living.
And Yeaster Bunny
Thinking he was funny
Baked bread dildoes
That sold for bags of money.
Scott Tissue
Said “We’re gonna miss you.
Your bread will sell quicker
If don’t make it an issue.”
Seven eight nine
Friends of mine
Are really just fine
Without toeing a line.
Five six seven
It is rather like heaven
To be gladly given
A life worth living.
Phony Joanie
Wishes for alimony
But refuses to divorce
Her husband Tony.
Decided she plans
To keep him instead.
Good for ready money
Though he's lousy in bed.
Seven eight nine
Friends of mine
Are really just fine
Without toeing a line.
Five six seven
It is rather like heaven
To be gladly given
A life worth living.
**** Poncho,
Everybody seems to
Dig his Mayan body
If only for a day or two.
Then he's off to play
With somebody new
Maybe some other day
He'll make it back to you.
Seven eight nine
Friends of mine
Are really just fine
Without toeing a line.
Five six seven
It is rather like heaven
To be gladly given
A life worth living.
Aug 23, 2016
Aug 23, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
Scary Larry,
The Margarita Fairy
Could drink anything,
As long as it wasn’t dairy.
Bollocky Pollack
Put up his smock
Covered with paint
On the auction block.
Seven eight nine
Friends of mine
Are really just fine
Without toeing a line.
Five six seven
It is rather like heaven
To be gladly given
A life worth living.
And Yeaster Bunny
Thinking he was funny
Baked bread dildoes
That sold for bags of money.
Scott Tissue
Said “We’re gonna miss you.
Your bread will sell quicker
If don’t make *** an issue.”
Two three four
What are friends for
If you don’t accept them
Then throw them out the door?
Besides variety
Is much more fun
Than always being alone
With number one
Phony Joanie
Wishes for alimony
But refuses to divorce
Her husband Tony.
Skinny Lenny
First cousin of Kenny
Lives with nobody
But sleeps with many.
May 13, 2016
May 13, 2016 at 9:47 PM UTC
Erin Moran has died at the age of fifty-six.
She was special and a credit to all chicks.
She was adorable when she starred as Joanie Cunningham.
When a person dies that young, it's always hard to understand.
I learned about her death on Facebook and it made me feel bad.
When we learned of her passing, it was tragic and so very sad.
She had a wonderful figure and good looks.
When we watched her on Happy Days, we were hooked.
She died too young and her death has devastated her fans.
Sadly, we have to say goodbye to the talented Erin Moran.
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 8:05 AM UTC
His old guitar is where he left it,
Still strung and tuned as on that day.
I remember he would play for hours.
Rock and roll he loved to play.
He never got to hold his grandson
or sit with him in his rocking chair
He's not a name that most remember
but fans of Joanie Jett still care.
For all you who love rock and roll
He wrote your anthem, he penned your prayer
I'll play a cover on my Fender
as the old man rocks up heaven's stair.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 4:28 PM UTC