“The whimsy of early middle age.”
What I learn, is what I gain,
because I see years ahead,
and years all gone.
In casual victories,
I tighten my reigns
on my life’s core
so it shall last-
on the rough roads ahead
and the unbalanced waves.
Sojourning upward,
the only direction for freedom
the welcoming stations around,
and sharpened careers found.
No more surplus seconds.
Time to set sail once
and set sail far and fair,
before storms can shake the sky.
Nickelback Nightmare
“A poem written from the viewpoint of a beach ball at a Nickelback concert.”
I see no sand or lazy jellies
No sticky smiles by the sandcastles.
I smell no salt or laughing splashes.
I am a beach ball out of my element
lost in a doomed concert, this nickelback nightmare.
from above, I see humanity rambling
notes scrambling, the chorus confused.
I am chained to a frenzy churning.
Their appetite like snakes insipid,
my cries sinking under wrestling waves
of sweaty crowding, bumbling fist bumps.
Now musical afterthoughts pelt me
down to the pits of human sweat.
It must be only a dream, for the dreams always end
on the bustling beach, my sandy domain.
My life distant as the dolphins
instead, these humans hold me
in this smelly lair of hair and pain.
Forever no beach to float me.
“Death”
Death is coming,
and it will come with teeth,
that gnaw and crash
until the maggots want you more
than the gravestone giver.
“Write a poem about being courageous/heroic and giving your all in the face of certain death.”
Heart blasting
like a furnace too full.
My blood is red fuel,
that will ignite or chill
-but I will make it burn.
Fiery pain in me, around me.
I do this for my loving wife,
and spur my trigger finger
to spit fire and pain.
There is no place farther than home,
when you die.
I taste my own hot blood.
I remember my home.
Now, jackals crowd me,
and they die faster.
Staccato splatterings.
Their jagged justice
that shreds the weak
will not take the heat from my blood
as long as I have one drop
to spit in their cowardly faces.
Not enough.
They do not have enough,
to take me down to dirt,
where they took the others.
My wounds are now my enemy,
but my fear has been replaced
by my smeared flesh.
But I shall fight again,
so I may raise my eyes
to those who survived
to those who are safe.
“A poem about violas.”
They speak with bows
without arrows to churn peace,
stirred strings striking marrow.
Finding musical trails.
with harmless harmonies,
violas walk through music.
In the air we lift our hands to help them,
like an ancient spell forever spun.
“Write about a young man going on a cross-country bike trip across America.”
It feels strange at night,
when I feel a wooden stool
or sunken couch,
instead of my bike on pavement.
Every hour I sleep- is a vacation,
from the dream I live on macadam.
When I wake to drain
the sun from my eyes
and pedal on for more.
When I finish rolling
like a cloud through the sky,
then I will be glad,
for every bump in the road long gone.
“A poem about the guy who designs blowout preventers.”
I often hold the key
to opening the brink.
All despair
for the deepest seas
and the darkest terror
I shall share.
The locks I made – hold,
until the oil takes it,
and bring the black to blue
and pain and sickness.
The keys I make,
rule the world,
but if the pressure builds,
and the gates open
then- we shall hope for blue
to fight the crudest black.
“I am a massage therapist. I hurt my finger a month ago, I finally got it looked at today, and although it is not broken, I did something to a ligament that is going to take a long time for it to heal. Write me a happy poem please.”
Some days are harder than the last,
especially when we feel more and more
than the days when pain was fast
and not so tameless.
Luckily, my pain does not move
from me to patients,
but while they groan with thanks,
I may gurgle with white pain
which I subdue with sweat
and a liberal amount of music.
“An almost-forgotten love, and a new start with a cherished girl?”
Some trees lose their way
deep underground
in the meaningless dirt.
Searching for water,
until one tendril touches,
and the water once lost
rushes through roots.
Exuberant wood racing,
and the tree can breathe.
The water fills another heart.
“I have a pet snail named Stanley. I found him in a bag of broccoli rabe at my local supermarket.
Seems he hitched a ride all the way to the east coast from California. Please write a poem about him.”
From his palace of broccoli,
his master set him free.
His poor sojourn slumped far,
but his master set him free.
Stanley never felt the miles,
but his master counted them,
and the snail had gone too far.