HWilliams

Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
                         beat to song, gust to mast
                             sound of travel, its own song.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.
Door to frame
     button to lock
            ignition to key
                   motor noise, engine block.
Radio, radiator, radius, ulna
     cylinders under hood
            cylinders filled with soda
                   serpentine belt squeaks, fix it you should.
The car is no Chevelle,
     but Chevelle's in my speakers
            keep pace with traffic well
                   "learn to choose to breathe."
Stuck behind brake lights
     as soon as headway is made.
            Sigh as loud as music plays
                   click volume arrow upright.
Anger builds when traffic fills.
     Stomp throttle or else you'll throttle someone.
            Throw insults like a mime in summer,
                   lip service they might see in mirrors.
Can't point at points A or B
     trace stress to line that traces in between
            Between the 2 spaces where my car parks
                                      mile markers, tail-gaiters, nail biters.
Foot to sidewalk, cement to shoe
     step to song beats or give beats to silence.
            Step with feet tired from too much tread,
                   guess I'll walk on hands instead.
Foot to sidestep pitfalls or potholes,
     skip steps get applause for pratfalls.
            Step to pulse and make hearts skip beats.
                   Take bow, step outside, sidewalk to feet.

I want nothing and all
I want throatchase and falls.
I want spiteful endears,
And ricochet tears.

I want colliders with nothing to lose.


I want crashes indebts,
And bombadier pets.
I want cleft incoherence,
And bookies for parents.

I want you to know how to choose.


I want pratfalls regarded,
And paradigms parted.
I want sickly verbatim,
And writings circadian.

       I want you,
            I want you,

I want you.

A reckoning, was the waste of loving you;
Whose heart was otherwhere, who's eyes
Could never resist a new, stunning view.
My solitary hovering as innocuous as a bee,
Stalking the mortal garden, come sun or shower;
As predictable as rain, as forgettable as a flower-
My comedic pratfalls less memorable,
Than her cries of elation:
Her eggs more precious than mine.

A passel of rascals;
The cause of the hassle,
Guilty of the catcalls,
Would normally have pratfalls.
Never suffer from blackballing;
Their ethics are appalling
But greed is calling the shots.
In the end what have we got?

We have a den of thieves
Rolling up their sleeves
To count the loot they stole
Fulfilling their roles of criminals;
Not the least subliminal,
But right out front to be seen
And pictured on magazine covers
With their blow-dried lovers.

Hair and ******* by Mattel
They perpetrate their hell
On all but their rich buddies
And fool the fuddy-duddies
With their rancid ballyhoo.
Yes, they rob some rich too,
But some never knew it;
Rich, not smart, they blew it.

Every generation, this nation
Sires a new batch of vermin
And we have to determine
If this is the new litter or a loner
But instead the fools get a *****
Over some new crook or other
That can afford jet planes to fly
But claims he is a regular guy.

Once the country is a toilet
They’ll keep trying to spoil it
By boiling the bones of the dead
And murdering us in our beds
Because they don’t need us
Except when they want to beat us.
They can just pay each other.
But the country won’t recover.

So many poems birthed at dawn
or just before
when the trickster gods
are passed out and cannot
plot pratfalls for mere mortals.
Turmoil eases up a bit,
but anything can come next.
You might lose the courage
to eat breakfast or find yourself
trying to type on liquid paper.
You could be struck by
nostalgia for hula hoops or
begin to feel your teeth dissolve.
You want to make a poem that
coils, rises up and strikes
the heart like an angry snake,
but it is easy to get sidetracked.
After all, you are only bones
in a sack spitting out words
that vainly seek forever and
the present so successfully
hides the future. But it's early,
go down into the quantum
quarry of language,
pick up a few likely chunks,
haul them back and let the world
select the words. Be patient as
a telephone waiting to ring.
Dare to ****  a peach. Let the
words gather unto themselves
like clouds until each new page,
scarred by those glyphs,
becomes the living promise
of the day just begun, like
a butterfly gliding over clover.
No task. Only the being of.

  ~mce

Failure
In the
9th degree

You peddle me
Everything
Lo' you tell me
That what you wanted
Was a love that you said
You would give me
For free

Then the toad
Clad in His
Heroine glands
Requested you send Him His
Absinthe neck tied and
Bland

You said
Rimbaud
And I laughed
At your Punk
Pratfalls

What an absolute
Way to tell that you've
Nothing to say and
The only way to say it
Is through what you've
Only got to say that you've
Seen

Seen

Oh' experience

What a crocodile of
Old ways

The Franzen door model through the
Way to the Chicago postal service &
Pushing through the seeds of
Terrorism Dramatics

The death through
The lost letters of
No one

Because money
PUSHES PUSHES PUSHES

THROUGH THE SOULS OF MAN

and no one
seems
to
give
a god heaping
****

yet the
prizes

are given out

and the bodies
continue
to

rot

so hip hay
hooray

to the one

with the

animal

socks

So say you
Are the one
They were
Talking about

The one
They were all
Hearing about

The most
Entertaining of
The bunch of the
Crunch

Well when
The crutch that
Is your purpose

Their reason
For their
Purses

Runs dry and
Then their
Eyes become
Dull and weary

Looking for
Another place
To place
Their curses

They will
Toss you aside

With no
Bitterness

Or
Nastiness

With only
A smile and
A sad thanks

That your time
With them was
Short lived and

"Maybe again!"

Perhaps

Again

Till the

Next

Season

When you’re not newly or madly in love
When no new thrill has come your way
When the sunset is hidden by the smog
And the draught has killed all the flowers

What do you write about

When you’ve suffered no great disappointment
When you’ve won no award or any prize
When you haven’t gambled on love and lost
And the mountains you’ve climbed are just hills

What do you write about

When inspecting your navel is boring
When you can’t really tell how you feel
When you can’t see the humor in pratfalls
And nothing exciting has happened

What do you write about

When everyone you know remains healthy
When the trees in the woods are just trees
When the butterflies don’t visit your garden
And the hummingbird feeder’s abandoned

What do you write about

When you reach for the stars but can’t touch them
When you hear the song but can’t sing it
When you stare at your blackboard and it’s empty
And you’ve run out of ink for your pen

What on Earth do you write about.
ljm

All of my formal training, all of the years
Of study and sacrifice to hone my craft,
Failures and frustrations that brought me to tears…
I think of how I scoffed at sell-outs, and laughed
At the mere suggestion that I too would chase
The almighty dollar and forsake my art.
Ah, but now…it is painful to view my face
In the mirror, seeing one who plays the part
Of the simple buffoon, the mere one-note clown
Sent to warm up the rubes for the main event,
Performing rude pratfalls to bring the house down,
Animated reminders of my descent.
And now, my vocation a mere joke, bereft
Of merit or value, I exit, stage left

Love is that heartbeat that quickens to a roar and then slows to a comfortable, affordable compromise.
Hate is burning white and pure with vengeful conceit and the will to smash something to smithereens.

Religion is the need to belong, the desire to ignore mortality, the comfort in community and its restrictions.
Atheism is that cold sweat in the night, the reclusive hideout, the dark vision of humanity cruising toward its end.

Noise is what we crave as proof of our existence. Music, chatter, drilling, birds,  the couple screaming next door.
Silence has no echo. It makes us feel small. We turn inward and feed on ourselves. A remedy or a curse.

Freedom is a welcome mirage, a nod to our participation in an already stacked deck of cards. But we persist.
Suppression from within or without is the human condition writ large. Players on the stage, if I may be so bold.

Life comes cheap, handed to us without our permission. Moving from one goalpost to the next, suffering and exalted.
Death is a conception beyond our perception. It is an unsparing one-way trip without a backward glance or a goodbye.

Good and bad. Black and white. Who’s to say? It’s a poet’s decision.
Take the trip, pratfalls and all. Passion is the driver for all ordained passengers.