that two out of three poets
write on the internet
while getting inebriated
and three of every four
people who heart a poem do
not read it
and having a dream
of making a living writing poetry
the odds are worse than
winning the lottery.

when that woman who struck your eye
one day pirouettes
around the lettuce to the red ripe tomatoes
several spectators their carts
separate your
purchase  from your desire
a big woman loading potatoes
and carrots her steel cage overflowing with chickens
*** pies and saggy ****\donuts and little debbies chocolate
sugar pills
and then the two year old in her mother's shadow
wary of the tall signs declaring bargain
harbors amid the frenzy
of all the selections offered freely
fears to loose the hem of the plaid skirt
her mother threw on carelessly showing her
pale thighs
thinking of
a dinner she prepared
for a tall guy handsome and young
a lifetime ago (she thinks where
is he now)
as crisp as new
as the asparugus arranged in rows
before she got married
and your desire
a new aisle has gone
to the flour sacks and sugar yeast powdery
wares aisle number three
and your imagination flows from the staples you came to
make the hunger again refrain from
idling your days nights your everything
to her ankles how they are so feminine
and how cat like quick her long red nails
flick the gravy in a packet to the bottom
of her basket she
concentrates on only one task
which pancake mix to buy
and your ego flips and sizzles like that sacrificial first
crepe the dogs fight over
your mind a mess you follow now
unconcious
your cart wobbling
always seem to get the noisiest one
unbalanced one wheel wobbling
back and forth
unsure of itself
as she lingers near
the cake mixes hoping she takes the strawberry one
and cream cheese frosting in a can
pretend you do that you are interested perusing studying
the shake and bake varieties BBQ and Classic ******* the boxes
one  eye on her choicest picks
while all the time preoccupied with
calves  and the back of her knee  her green cape
her eyes her red nails long fingers
the way she shops
like a goddess near her
tenderness a gourmet's dream
the choicest cut of market new
still the people nod and push through
most not heeding you
on a supermarket quest a game to win
puzzle stacks of cereal on special
arranged like pyramids
almost mid-aisle
careful you return to
reality and just miss toppling the Raisin Bran
monument
she has turned the corner
aisle four now
her with the calfs and that hollow  
back of a leg behind her petite knee
a sash
gay green in perfect contrast
draped over her bare shoulders
to her auburn hair
her legs longer
and more agile and god
you have bad thoughts
imagining
wait you say, thinking to your sotted self
this cart is empty it may be obvious my aims
so you gather two bags of instant grits
one box of starch you will throw out
and salt enough to last you to eternity
faster now walk push the loud wobbly out of balance cart
the box of starch bouncing among the torn grits pouring
now a path Hansel and Gretel would be proud of
you turn the corner your heart sank when she had
gotten out of sight
and faster now your urge is known trying to think of an
opening line
what brings you here   hell no
are you a Sagitarius  *** you fumble
again she is in your sight and her neck as she looks up to select
paper towels from the top shelf
is like a bird one of those egrets long svelte white
her chin a perfect cliff
and she has this way
you can only dream of
then
**** she spies you looks sly smiling
think of something to say idiot
fast take that bottom lip out from between your teeth
look confident give her back some of that I don't care
attitude be debonair
which you suddenly ponder is hard to do in here
in aisle four when
her green eyes are burning holes
like lasers in your cheeks your nose
wipe the wetness off your lips
you look into your cart
spying the half empty grits and the trail you left behind
but now is not the time to stutter or worry or defer
it's now or never
and you trip
over your two left feet
and push as you fall down
your cart
takes flight
annoying wheel calling
into her side
as you die
she laughs and says in angel's purr
I saw you there when I came in
I wondered were you ever going to catch up
and suddenly the speaker loud screamed in a dark
omniscient voice clean up on aisle four
on your knees now looking up
the embarrasment a price tag flashing
red  
as any apple cheeks
all that came out your mouth was
so sorry Madam
so you bellied up
a chance you manly took
took her hand and gently kissed it
thinking how by god
have I been blessed
and the story did not end there
you both had grits for dinner
and strawberry cake with cream cheese icing
and you can find your way back to aisle four
to reminisce every time you need to smile
just follow that trail of grits

come
          sunrise or
                           shame
come the coldest
            days
                          balloons do not float
on dead breezes or smiles
             
nor is honey sweeter without a sting
            
never does freedom come
           without slavery once          rose buds attached to thorns
                              ***** 
blooms of love always end

                             nature
is that plain.

Just no ways to bridge the miles
That span the distances
Tween that first step
And the last, darling

Trail the back forty where
Shouts disappear into
Nothingness or go far up
The hills echoing
Into mornings into
Stories

Storied tales the brave tell
Like proverbs said
On prophets tongues
Or made up
Fairies breaths
Resound

On every path that led
To there from here
Or roundabout
Through brush
And weeds the wind
Does.
Bring.

A certain taste, a tongue
One touch of flesh
A night among
The purest
And the fair.

How then becomes this
Long away longing call
On winters dying gasp
Along a sliver of
A chill

This only fate, my dear,
My sweet, this but a faintest
Breeze, that calls my
Ear to render tender
Whispers
Of the leaves.

complex
         a different contest
the baddest ***
combination of unique
       syllables
flexing
              neurons in the mirror
passing out
   while holding my breath waiting
this is internet
              reality
I spasm into the vastness
             of tweets
of plusses
       hearts I never see
I spasm
  go nuts
but my complexion
          
clears up.

like broken mirrors
reflect
changes
diffused with
spectrums blue
in contact where
the object sits
contact relationships
of localized color
cannot be blue
if the light
illuminating it
is
true....

One day, I believe it was a Saturday
before the eve of Mother's day or Father's day I have
forgotten, let's say it was ten years ago,
the sun rose brighter than any day had
on any day I had woken still drunk.
The skies were blue as a bruise from a punch
on the jaw and stark as, shockingly pure , almost .
I awoke remembering a bit of the chaos of last night.
I sort of recalled getting my lights punched out by
Eduardo, Didn't realize he was a black belt,
but I beat the hell out of his fists.
I recall trying to swap girls or something,
young and dumb as a sombrero thrown in the air
on new year's , I was, no purpose, but to see if
they had those feelings too.
And all hell broke loose.
My girl got mad, Eduardo got mad.
His girl smiled at me.
I kind of grabbed her and kissed her
pasionately, she returned it.
Then Eduardo punched her and my sweet
Felicia cold cocked me.
Then he  hit me and Felicia pulled his girl's hair.
It was bad. But good, you only live once ,
I said to Juanita as we limped home.
Woke up next to her, she and I both had black eyes
and hangovers. That Cuervos is crazy ,
dude!

I lapse again into a comma,
   drift periodically.
I quote"
   and exclamate me!

The fluidity
with which you speak of leaving
the allowance i feel for feeling
i am at once disbelieving and disavowed
I beg,
but did I mean for your return
I sit alone
and see complex perplexity...
I know it must be love.

a favorite song , that would be like choosing a favorite
child . Or a favorite cloud, or blade of grass, or puppy.
My favorite ice cream , one day is chocolate, the next
strawberry, the next plain vanilla.
My favorite painting depends on my mood.
"The Scream" spoke to me last week when my bills were due.
Van Gogh's "Irises" speaks to my lonely day.
In a protesting mood, sick of the world's atrocities I study
Picasso's "Guernica". My favorite day
was today , at times, then long past or in the future,
depending.  When a woman smiles at me,
no matter if I have loved her , or touched her she is my
favorite, and is my favorite smell and taste and kiss.
My next breath will be the only thing that stays constant.
My ability to change, is my favorite trait.

might we all have a touch
of glaucoma, selectively walled in
occluded by mental myopias
where there sight  is
half a day of suns,
night is blindness, never twenty four seven corrected
or twenty four right? Twenty tween's
fear and reality?cataracts
always coloring it as black or white
no depthness not colored right?
When tears fall, and people
run into burning buildings,
when innocent stars are blacked out
might we just,
let them go?

(I have been waiting for the train to come).
sitting in the terminal ... heard no whistle blow
but my expectations and reservations
are that the train is (going away)
and again...
I'm not on, now....
I look back and see empty (tracks disappearing)
a steamed train chugs away.
I sit on the wrong track again
I guess (I will stay)
my reservation always
a terminal destination.....
(sitting waiting).

make millions?
it is rarely felt.
generosity.
so I give it you
freely.
I feel rich.

You know,
such a keyword
like (like)
a photobomb I plus-one
but forgot to re-tweet
cause I got Merked
but,
YOLO
It be Swaggy
that I Reach
Cray-Cray.
Wordy be *****!

they don't believe it was love
in the laundry room
when all us
washer dryer slackers sit
awaiting loads of clean clothes
discuss love lives and romances
most of us hungover
red eyed bright noses
boast of fevered conquests
with movie star quality *******
taking a big pocket filled with
quarters
in our pants pocket and
still bragging?

ten wings on five
black birds
sitting together
on the mulberry tree
set flight
all at once
startled
just one set of wings
the ones
on the woodpecker
his *******
stayed
pecking
as
the stealthy yellow
and white striped cat
clawed her way up the bark
closing distance
he just kept at it
some insect
peckpeckpeck
or the wood itself
and the cat her claws
driven into the bark almost
at the same intensity
rose almost to the limb
that held the peckerheaded
intenseness
of the stalked in
his one-sighted business,
as the cat,
on the limb below ,
close close as breath quickened
back arched
hunched
woody flew off.
***** willowed, scented the
limb the ****
crack of the *******
and
licked her paw.
No loss.
There is always
tomorrow.

misty haze awake the stars behind eyelids closed
asleep, you and I sleep...
and you and I are deep.

developing contrapuntal visions as you ride the wake
anon sounds deep sleep successively
around as entries echo repeat
astounding voice guide and ethereal choice
in three separate sections note

we awaken
the short main theme
the exposition is complete
and now we are as one.

A minute before noon on June 28th, Saturn and Neptune,
left their positions flew away
into heaven:
    They decided to elope and leaped into a Universe
of vastness solving, ellipsis, loneliness.
       There came more revolving as they spun and crept
into the vacuum's dancing together,
   playing the solar system, only remembering their duties and vows to each other.
Laughing and leaping gravity they spin the solar system ,
            unbalanced, flowing swishing and watching
the stars, the nebulae glowing for them.

somewhere between Nashville and the bayou,
the question, and the answer , are painted
on mile markers
along I-20
deep in once Cherokee country...

goldfish bowls I swim
           catfish whiskers I become
salmon eggs I spawned
             with bilious cloud
upon a bed of red roses
             in a ***
on my coffee table
            under a painting
by Evanescence
              over a whisper
under a fog
               through a plant
of ferns there was erased
             by Led Zeppelin
the lost
                onceness.

I quit. Cause the
                 dreams remain.

Red, distant rose
over the sleepy
miles kissed
emotionally proposed
pure endless telling
blossoms reflecting
someday, Christmas
will come and
my present you will tear
with fingertips ripping
my precious promises
open.

comes many times before the ultimate
******
proceeding that last gasp tiny spasms
are spent
working towards the best and brightest
we lift
our pajamas many times and let life in.
Memory
may recall that last second
but
will never tell. That moment will forever be
most private.

The fizz rises, the fizz falls
     pain harkens, fever calls;
along the forehead, and down
shivering arms awaiting the round
  fizz rising and falling.
Froth settles on the top,
     but the cough, the cough remains;
the fizz, soft now yellow,
     not yet, is
bringing any relief.

you are like diamond colored
I look in your vision things
eyes
I guess they are
but to me are
aquamarine windows
touches of eternity
sparkles of life's fire
the way I see your you
in them
not like any other girl
they sparkle are alive
are my life now
my dreams I see them in
I talk to them while
driving
i see them on every bare wall
on trees
on billboards
on television
in my wafting cigarette smoke
in the shiny beer can surfaces
in my plate
clean
I see your eyes on every
sunrise
they gleam
sparkle
shine
forever

Oh, how I do love you!
   a better spirit I will never know
her name,  her name is desire!
   spending all her day and nights
in my mind, tying my tongue in knots
    numb from toe to finger
when I picture her
    humbles me on a corner selling wooden
pencils, I see when cast her light upon me.
     Oh, how fair can fair be,
how much beauty can the day portray?

     No, none more than her fair eyes
turning once to gaze at me, here,
    a slight upturn to the corner
of her perfect lips. At me!
     If you love away, love me,
once , smile at me again, even from afar ,
desire, desire.

just lit out of my pocket are
philosophies like a cigarette puff
on its essence I get swimmy headed,
on Frost's or *******'s,
or Whitman's, ways
and trip away giddy,
a varied revelation inspired by
what they so knew so well,
100's of years ago.
I will light
another.

lit the dark of one lone
shone from some prosaic shine
turned on the sun
hung every star
brought near far
clothed the bare naked
thawed their cold
forgave the wrongs
praised the heroes
solved the mysteries
answered the question
asked the answers
colored the dawn
fought all battles
died with kin
lived in sin
fear never ever
the darkest nights
died on pyres
cloistered in slavery
alone in forests
saw in eyes
died in ecstasy
brought forth beauty
painted ugly
claimed a right
to be named
poetry.

hope
maniacal expressionism now
this day this age I guess
but I
hope dream live or die
on HUGE thoughts

the world does
into color, green
vegetables,
brown bark
golden fields,
red sunsets,
white snow,
black nights,
brown dirt covering
me.
There are,
through colors many
realities.
small birds,
fiercest Tigers,
is my mind a reflection?

by an old poet
migrate north
to between the ears
from years ago
when all I felt was between my legs

memory makes
a false verve
thinking still hot I can
and remembering
sweet flavors
when all was felt was passion begging.

in the song
cool of the breeze
in the words of a painting
in the sky
of a dawn

until
my sight sings
tree branches dance
being mind
and spirit

where in
all that beats my soul
rocks back and forth
as the world
spins

takes me
a minute to catch breaths
to run loose
join in the
dance

I remain
just a small
piece of torn
fabric

tattered
old, insignificant

boy passes ghost-like through a curtain of weeping willow.
In rainbow-stained apparel, birds are singing a cappella.
Suddenly I sense it, in the birds and in the child:
The world is a poem growing wild.

A dewdrop on a blade of grass soon slips from where it clung
Like a perfect word that gathers on the tip of a poet's tongue.
And men are merely characters to love and be defiled.
God is a poem growing wild.

i stand
alone
until when
I am healed and not broken
like a mountain on the horizon
crested by the beauty of the moon.
I wish to shine in mists of golden
hues shed upon me whole
others stand alone
watching
the moon on my
shoulder
wish they were,
here.

I didn't see ******* until I was too old for school
I graduated myself GED when I was twelve
went out to pasture early I was so cool
educated on the streets got literat-ed liberated delved
dabbled collaborated mixing drooling at
all the gangster easy money,  got rich,
had a bizness a box chevy with changing paint
twenties a banging ***** -
ain't never did what was good for me- ain't
feeling ****** now, cause I caught a nine mil', natch'

To all on Hello poetry, I wish to see, once again, what may be created, by the visions of many. Help create a poem. If you wish to add lines to this poem, which I will start with one line, comment and put your addition in parentheses. Let us grow a majesty!


Community Poem

For every man has visions
And holds greatness within his heart
For the world would rather imprison,
The dreams a visionary imparts
than to envision his visions
and feel his pain filled dreams
He loves to sing his poems, pleasing
his visions, knowing they are lyrical.
A fantasy it seems but
awake he dreams, weaving
you and me in his vision divine.
Seamless a dreamless world,
no rhythm, reason or rhyme.
Let fly the dreams unfurled
to changing winds through time.

'til the sun rose beautiful,
        I said,
God, take me.

Then, like at 4:30 this
        sweet
redhead, smiled at me.

Until our eyes, mine and hers,
           met
at like 4:30 I said , God,
           take me.

You realize I wasn't serious, eh?
             I  said,
that euphemistically, hey?

Now that the sun rose red ,
            my luck,
turned for the better, Sir!

I admit blasphemy. I admit
       I might
have been hasty, in my request.

i realize i am in the beginning stages
of oldtimers' disease
when I have to **** every half hour
and the toilet bowl is mysteriously empty,
every time?
I have checked out the flush valve-check;
the fill valve, too-check;
the handle
the seat,
the bolts on the floor-no problem;
when in a burst of enlightenment
I remembered....
I have not filled Missy's ( my gorgeous well balanced love of my life Labrador)'s
water bowl in two days.

If you have ever written a poem you realize
i wrote this title before developing a poem
I had no theme or outline pre prepared
no grand vision just this
ditty running in and out my head
it sort of worried me until
I just had to chronicle her
type her out and email her
share her everywhere
so happy people the we'll
say well adjusted happy people
or just my partner in nether world
feels indebted enough
to plus
or ignore or propose
I give up poetry
for ever.
Anyhow any ways
the smile cannot
be erased from my face
the jiggle in my belly
goes on and on forever

Days some endless
Go on towards that infinity
Approach happiness love
Joy
Become circled memories
In a love letter
Or a poem read  years forever
After alone

what don't you love, of
the piece of my heart you took?

vagrant in black corners creep
complaining with darkest meaning
remembering the border  of commonness
or forgetting

she spins does life
the web we get so caught up in
wove into corners and kept for another day

complex as dark yes
no a minute to think
the spinnerets go on weaving

complex webs

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken *****, and tom- cats, and all of them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most any thing and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightforward as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.


Mark Twain

started with a few beers I drank next door
at Micky's place , her telling me about her sick kid
and how her dialysis went today. She updated me
on the minutes from the last meeting of
the Clayhatchee Man Haters Club.

They actually have T-shirts and little pins,
and I asked if possibly I could be named
the Most Hated Man-of -the-Month.
No, she said, we all love you, she answered.
Well, **** what do I have to do to be honored, then
I said.

Felt small, for, I do love being honored.
Then, I hugged her, as she always insists I do
before leaving, and went  home straight to my fridge. Wrestled with the twelve pack
I just bought earlier, and six beers fell to the floor.

I put them in a bag and visited my best friend Shannon
and his adorable wife, Nancy, right across the street. I enjoy them, a card Shannon is, he works construction, as I do. And I guess I semi-intentionally did not tell him the beer I offered him had fallen, with a thud to the floor. I gave his wife one too but tapped the top before.
I got (us workers only understand practical jokes)
a big laugh as he opened his and it foamed up through all over.

So out of beer, I and my shadow, walked barefoot acroos the
street to Alice's Convenience store to add a backup stash to my three
beers left. On the way back across Hwy 92 asphalt I heard clickety clack as my shadow was right there, a Black lab, who was left for her alone by some ******* and she turned up on my doorstep hungry.

Amazing how little it takes to make true love. A little food, a pet on
a head, a dry place to lay a head occasionally, amazing how a shadows
long nails clickety-clack on the asphalt. My shadow loves me , is there as soon as I get home her tail wagging.
She ran in my apartment as I put two Olde English in the fridge to cool
in case I needed them later, jumped right onto the couch and rested her head on my pillow.

I opened up my browser, did a little checking on my sites and notices.
Then Big head, I call him that, he is about a year old with the head of a soccer ball came through the open door. Looked over the food dishes took a nibble or two, then jumped up next to my shadow and pushed his head against the black lab, purring.

Big head just started hanging here a week ago. Where he came from , I don't know. But he is welcome, the looks of my two stray female, not spayed yet cats, Panda and Babay, attest to that.

Eventually I will drink a couple more beers , write something, almost like this, and try to find a spot to lie down, if all my shadows let me.

my happiness, tonight
is never ended.

spirits look out for me
    a community of ghosts
and fairy crack mothers
  with sores and broken teeth
they mostly
    create a sky brighter
a vision more beautiful
  than i can describe
they conspire to shelter my *******
against all the stupid acts I do
   getting drunk on Olde English 800
until 3 am when I gots to work at 7
  or hitting the pipe with my last twenty
planning on a payday that doesn't come
   then I find paper blowing free on the side
of a highway as I walk
picking up aluminum,
   sprites and good witches and goddesses
see I am actually good,
   just a little faded
innocently deranged
  ****** up.

what letters we write
so easily
mr meaning
my feeling
my trust

words friendly
mean
obtuse morose obscure
confound

they echo smells
touch
promote sell the
next big thing
paint scenes.

Words obstinate
obscene
immature still
describe something.

The world revolves
in languages but words
are universally
renowned.

They call all of us
near, if on the tongue
of Shakespeare
raise hairs
on necks

from here to everywhere
if writers write
the quatrains quite
quiet, secure
hear
all that
a
word
is.

Did you see the dog dig
the bones he hides, he did?
Under the Wisteria shadow mysteriously
he knows....the dog does!
recalls remembers by scents.

capture wings of butterflies
sunsets roses, moons and stars,
resolve around elegant tapestry
woven white doilies.
Rearrange
the synaptic fireworks ,
compose Beethoven's next symphony
study Freud's last dream.
Echo, echo....
make the new love
an urgent poem,
play it from imagination
'til realization.
echo......
into eternity.......

Calm and pleasant,
drifts on
the misty glow,
of our
hands holding
rocking
chairs squeaking a melody
together.

It was a long day ago
singling each other out,
when we sought, together,
this crimson sunset,
this inner
calm, this pleasant
plan.

Hand in hand,
believing in our
determination to be here this day,
this night together,
so long ago. Remember,
with me, as
we sit in these
old squeaking rockers
in night glows.

sans regret full of hope
then sleep reigns peaceful and deep
I close eyes thinking of
those things we as a human
might dream of
be it real
be it sane
be it but
a dream.
For without
our imagination our
seeing things
that are not
and positing our faith
above our reasoning
life would dully be
a hell on here ,
I get not all of our dreams
come true, so far
very few, but,
I take the optimists  
view,
that without
dreaming
life would be useless,
so I close my eyes
with a fair thought of someone
I hope to know,
and one of the lady
that glows always
when my eyes are closed ,
my lady dream imaginative beautiful
like sunsets and
the best stars glow.