There is an elephant in my head and a big one is he
he stamps his feet trampling my dreams into nothing but debris.
There is an elephant in my head, he is too strong you see
he leaves me no peace, no sleep, stomping on everything I can be.
There is an elephant in my head and I want to set him free
because deep down inside I know undoubtedly that elephant is me.

on the phone with her sister,
a 9:00am, a Saturday, weekend ritual,
and I hear say "even..."
and I wait,
knowing she can't
remember my name,

so I help her out,
filling the blanks,
and say out loud

the guy in bed next to me,

but that makes it worse,
cause now she is
laughing so hard,
tears are rolling,
she can't talk at all.

me, I'm writing this
down and
done.

not much of a poem,
agreed,
but a moment,
a slice of the day,
forever captured,
and someday,
when she stumbles on this,
when I am no longer scribbling,
here's hoping she starts
laughing all over again,
like you are now.

The hull is full of skeletons but I cannot prove a thing,
so instead I'll heave around the lines and softly start to sing.
Perhaps they'll send me to the brig
or have me dance a gallows jig.
but either way, I'm here to stay
until my body fades away.

So fellow sailors start to chant, I want t hear your voices.
They mean more to me than you will ever know.



*I'll be gone for a while but I'll be back...

The Riddle

One of you has seen my face.
One of you knows where I live.
Stuff. Important stuff,
like the locale of
my hidey-holes.

My email and my
cell disclosed
soon to be
on sale on eBay
for a trifling sum.

So now I must
disburse to parts
more remote,
reappear in a
nouveau identity.

Just a necessary precaution.

Moreover, methinks
you have grown
tired of my waning voice,
waxing ineloquently,
opining too frequently.

feel like a
thick wooly straw
welcome mat,
edges unravelling,
grown raggedy,
roundabout the edges,
or like a
paperback book,
tho well thumbed,
nonetheless,
consigned to the
bye-bye
discard box.

riddle me,
me be the riddle,
when I scribe
under a new
Nom de Plume.

will you recognize,
my signature
hid amidst the
restless words that
still need a home?

are my poems
worthy of a
second glance,
do you predispose
your attentions on
your favorites only,
the newbies squeaking
ignored and unattended,
whose ranks I have
now rejoined?

did you ever meet
a poem
you did not like?
did you ever greet
a poet
with palms
outwardly raised,
saying, no mas,
had enough,
no time for you
and your
clouded clarifications?

need you.
need you to judge me,
without the saddlebags of
predisposition and imposition.

if you need me
just give me a
loud holler
in my sleepy hollow.

tho sadly my
country road,
has listening posts
on the telephone wires,
I will know, when.
you call,
your voice,
I will come,
if you ask,
always.

I'll be riddling
in plain sight,
if you have the taste
for and of me,
you will find me
soon enough.

HOWEVER,
in emergencies
all you need dial,
my digital signature,
911 and
ask for the
Poetry Hotline.

Patience

never saw a baby that didn't
eventually
learn how to walk,
how to talk.

but I have seen, still do,
children who became adults,
but not grownups,
still ******* their thumbs.

don't blame the parents.
don't blame the child.
don't blame the idiotcreators,
pseudo-educators.

blame me.
always take the easiest course
when assigning blame.

Yet cherish them
tho oft they err,
have we not all,
stumbled and
extended hand
beseeching help?

let us learn
for they,
my blood
one and all,
and I call them
by one name,
each and every,
Mine.


------------------------
Hint: if you are thinking of taking your parents along for your ride, read this. Better yet, give it to them.

"And she taught me that my children
are not truly mine.
They don’t belong to me;
they’ve simply been entrusted to me.
They are a gift life gave to me,
but one that I must
one day give back to life.
They must grow up
and go away and
that is as it should be."
Charles M. Blow

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.