thingamajigs

Call it crude
if you insist
to designate
that whose design
and functionality
seems rudimentary,
basic shelter
remains enough
for those requiring
little more than
distance from destruction.
Wallowing as we do,
from time to time,
the space becomes so small
between,
our feet become our shoes
and it was as if this was
plentiful,
the question of survival
posed as neither
safe nor sound.
Not saying
there were other ways,
and more than enough
to fill blanks
with trinkets.


Painting by: Anonimous french master previously attributed to Trophime Bigot. See official website. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Dem bellies full

When the fridge is empty,
I crave paper money.
When my pockets are stuffed
with receipts and detritus
there is nothing more to buy
into.

Love does not accept
money as tender,
yet it seems to alter
chemistry
dissolving this exchange.

As compelling as it is
to appropriate,
as we must, everything
has a place,
the toil never ends.

Pockets of air
take care of filling empty
voids and holes
and we are all full of it-

Language to gnaw,
gristle and by the way-
none of the above
ever satisfied the thirst
for our own consumption.

I will find a way
to take smaller bites,
preferring less
seasoning
or taste in love.


Painting by: Pyotr Ivanovich Subbotin-Permyak. Down the river (1918).

Cat got my nose

I lost another
poem last night.
It wasn't more than
a fetus
or a couple of lines
strung loosely together.

It never had a chance,
much less a second thought,
until now when
I was sure
it would be there
when I was-
ready for it.

I could assume
it was never important
and would not amount
to anything
significant.

Yet, a feeling lingers,
like scent
from another-
                      who was here?

Germination

So they go on, doing the deeds,
rolling the ball they tossed
as if it were not obvious
they were following
where their eyes aimed.

Like an animal behind a tree,
they think I don't see,
and I am partly to blame
for this charade,
a willing blindness,
suspension of attention,
inescapably-

there is a stench,
as overturned dirt
insists on being known
thereby making its presence
the heaviest air in the room.

And like the elephant Ganesha,
she leans in, the earth tilts,
her trunk drops
an apple at my feet.

It is my choice
to open mouth
desirous of a tree,
or keep the seeds inside...





Photo credit by safaritravelplus [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

nightmarish

I have come to believe
All poets
must be subjected
to living with an infestation
of cockroaches.

An introduction
or deep reading of Dante
and Dracula has much to teach
about finding ones way
through the dark.

I play my hand
on the Book of Change
with my three lucky pennies;
one, because of Honest Abe,
2, because they contain copper
and lastly, mostly,
they are worth no cash value.

There is a Canto
that smolders into charcoal,
I am drawn to
the source.

The house is bigger,
emptier.
I guess the walls speak
now only in echoes 

and embers.

Some of us will make it out

alive.

Painting by Petrus van Schendel [Public domain].

interesting times

Would we know we have a problem
Despite what we are told
All is well
on its way,
Hell,
like the Universe
no place like
Home

when neighbors disappeared
and people en masse
abandoned former posts,
in hordes
Left
the right
to the pursuit of a
Life without fear
thy neighbor
of footsteps
of spies
and their subjects
and secrets and probing
We would notice,
wouldn't we?

When every person you see
is rich and powerful
who can afford not
to be infamous?

The poor
neighborhood turned over
and emptied
of change
never was
anymore

on any map
you see
there lies
Borders
between inside and out
them and us,
that and this
is not
Real
life...




Photo credit by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain]. 
Photo description via Wikimedia:"An old jalopy outside an abandoned stone building in the "ghost town," some of which is still occupied and some of which consists of ruins of the Chisos quicksilver-mining company which operated from 1905 into the early 1940s, and the residences of those who worked there. Terlingua, Texas" 

Wishsome

A little bird said:
Change your energy
    (in the situation)

She repeated Hope
in different ways
    indifferent to the tears.

Hold on-Al Anon,

you don't have to do
anything Now.

But it Happens
to be
anyway, the note
I only hear Hope.

Painting by Abraham Busschop, c. 1708 in [Public domain].