(no subject)
Memories with a Shitty Soundtrack
“Roll with it baby…” old tired speakers boom
As thread bare black rubber rolls
Over pale grey pock marked asphalt
Driving me all the way back to ‘89
Sitting in my dad’s van, it was a ford
Like Bigfoot, the truck that displayed prominently
On my stained t-shirt.
A face of glee framed by a clumsy shrub
Of tar-black curly hair that falls
On gleaming brown eyes,
Each bearing a reflection
Of a stubby, grubby, grasping hand
Burrowing deep in a bag of Grippo’s
Slowly sealing my ghastly fat kid fate
.....I miss blissful ignorance
Sonnet For Eva T. Harp
Was it pale pink rose, the casket,
Or new baby boy blanket blue?
My memory fails me, I suppose,
It doesn’t matter. I mask it,
The round tears that fall like dew
Off the fading red winter rose.
‘Last Supper’ carved handles adorn sides
That house a shell of a being
As it dwells, settled and cold, within
Earthen clay bed that lay beside
Her love, departed, never seen
By my eyes alive, in his skin,
Just in dusty old photographs
That I studied in grandma’s lap
Washed in the Blood
Standing
Like a dog on hind legs
Lapping in bounding anticipation
Of a treat
I looked out at the crowd
Of well clad people in rows
Of pews with scarlet
Cushions occupying
The empty spaces
I waited for the transformation
Like lightning, a good kind
Though, is what he said
That it would be.
A genesis, a cleansing,
An awakening.
I remained fixed
Looking, and waiting,
And hoping, praying
To feel it.
But, all I felt was wet.
afraid, uncomfortable
embarrassed
Shivering with a foreign hand
On my back attached to a man
In a robe talking about how clean
How refreshed, how reborn
I had become.
Reginald Bear at Nibroc
(In the style of W.D. Snodgrass' Love Lamp)
There’s your teddybear, buckled in my car,
Held tight, through long nights, for solace
And comfort you could never find
On my shoulder, holding me in your arms
Like some child’s plush and furry toys
Or as the tinted glass of memory makes
Painful indiscretions into things less
Horrible, changed in its powerful nostalgia.
How strange the little bear must seem
To passers by - the couples, say, the vendors
Or to some small child, enthralled
Grappling a stick with a pink cloud of candy
Stuck precariously to his fingers?
From the corner of my eye I’m shown
Just a boy struggling with his sticky treat
Fingers, stained with pink, dipped in his mouth.
Scuttling through the light, a bit
Amused, delighted in the innocence, I turn
A knob to drown out my thoughts,
To bask in the beauty of the moment.
The music and spinning ferris wheel; thinking
Of the boy - still there standing
By an old carnival game. While I remember
The vacant stares, your empty eyes.
Soul Tripping at Zephyr Park
Bright sun rays disappear much too early
I think, staring at the dark sky, weary.
A black cool September expanse spotted
With dots of sparkling brilliance. Knotted
In cyclical dance with blazing white moon
Casting lukewarm beams on a singing loon
That paddles away in star lit waters,
That lay before the bitter park squatters
Wrinkled dirt brown faces ravaged with age
One looks at me with eyes of an old sage
A beacon of wisdom amid decay,
His stare pierced me. I had to look away
I realized we were basically the same,
We both came here seeking a kind of escape
I craned my neck skyward. I found solace
Amid the cosmos, starlit bounding bliss
My atrophied grey soul escapes, and swims
Through the thick blanket of midnight air, skims
The Sea of Serenity, rounds Virgo,
Orbits Sirius captured by its glow
Before tumbling fast, like a meteor
Hurtling down to barren Earth floor
Refreshed with the universe’s blood
Swept away in bounding celestial flood.
Christmas ’88 at the Laurel County Jail
You’re my Georgia Hale,
And I your Charlie Chaplin
Meandering in tandem through the snow,
The pounding pitter-patter of our tiny feet
On frozen, iced, dirty concrete
Is harmonized with ho-ho-ho’s
And a crackly old carol cassette
On its last leg somewhere in the distance
Officers coming to and fro,
Glance at us and smile like December jack-o-lanterns,
As I give chase through a concrete labyrinth
Spotted with pine cones and cigarette butts.
Catching up to you as we sling-shot
‘Round the trash can, I kidnap your scarf
And hold it hostage with a ransom on its head.
A demand of a kiss, with a guarantee of safety
Begging, pleading, giving you three year old
Puppy Dog eyes, you melt for me
Like the icicles dripping on the heads
Of the egg-nog drunks on the other side
Press your rosy scarlet face to mine,
Our chapped lips meeting in joy,
Subsiding into a chorus of giggles
Basking in the light of an electric Santa.
King George II, Quieting the Dissidents at His Estate
Standing at a podium in the sun
Our hapless leader spews out still more lies.
While brown children stare down barrels of guns
And mothers of new martyrs sound out cries
To Allah on knees set in scorching sands.
(They don’t get Fox News, they don’t know it’s fine)
Nineteen year old kids sent to foreign lands,
Brainwashed to fall into the nationalist line.
Pawns doing the bidding of corporations,
Their henchmen sitting on Capital Hill
Choosing whether to destroy nations,
Grouping them into two types: Good and Evil.
“I have to go on with my life” he says
In response to a grieving mother’s cries.
An American grieving mother, that is.
As profits soar and more soldiers die.
“Roll with it baby…” old tired speakers boom
As thread bare black rubber rolls
Over pale grey pock marked asphalt
Driving me all the way back to ‘89
Sitting in my dad’s van, it was a ford
Like Bigfoot, the truck that displayed prominently
On my stained t-shirt.
A face of glee framed by a clumsy shrub
Of tar-black curly hair that falls
On gleaming brown eyes,
Each bearing a reflection
Of a stubby, grubby, grasping hand
Burrowing deep in a bag of Grippo’s
Slowly sealing my ghastly fat kid fate
.....I miss blissful ignorance
Sonnet For Eva T. Harp
Was it pale pink rose, the casket,
Or new baby boy blanket blue?
My memory fails me, I suppose,
It doesn’t matter. I mask it,
The round tears that fall like dew
Off the fading red winter rose.
‘Last Supper’ carved handles adorn sides
That house a shell of a being
As it dwells, settled and cold, within
Earthen clay bed that lay beside
Her love, departed, never seen
By my eyes alive, in his skin,
Just in dusty old photographs
That I studied in grandma’s lap
Washed in the Blood
Standing
Like a dog on hind legs
Lapping in bounding anticipation
Of a treat
I looked out at the crowd
Of well clad people in rows
Of pews with scarlet
Cushions occupying
The empty spaces
I waited for the transformation
Like lightning, a good kind
Though, is what he said
That it would be.
A genesis, a cleansing,
An awakening.
I remained fixed
Looking, and waiting,
And hoping, praying
To feel it.
But, all I felt was wet.
afraid, uncomfortable
embarrassed
Shivering with a foreign hand
On my back attached to a man
In a robe talking about how clean
How refreshed, how reborn
I had become.
Reginald Bear at Nibroc
(In the style of W.D. Snodgrass' Love Lamp)
There’s your teddybear, buckled in my car,
Held tight, through long nights, for solace
And comfort you could never find
On my shoulder, holding me in your arms
Like some child’s plush and furry toys
Or as the tinted glass of memory makes
Painful indiscretions into things less
Horrible, changed in its powerful nostalgia.
How strange the little bear must seem
To passers by - the couples, say, the vendors
Or to some small child, enthralled
Grappling a stick with a pink cloud of candy
Stuck precariously to his fingers?
From the corner of my eye I’m shown
Just a boy struggling with his sticky treat
Fingers, stained with pink, dipped in his mouth.
Scuttling through the light, a bit
Amused, delighted in the innocence, I turn
A knob to drown out my thoughts,
To bask in the beauty of the moment.
The music and spinning ferris wheel; thinking
Of the boy - still there standing
By an old carnival game. While I remember
The vacant stares, your empty eyes.
Soul Tripping at Zephyr Park
Bright sun rays disappear much too early
I think, staring at the dark sky, weary.
A black cool September expanse spotted
With dots of sparkling brilliance. Knotted
In cyclical dance with blazing white moon
Casting lukewarm beams on a singing loon
That paddles away in star lit waters,
That lay before the bitter park squatters
Wrinkled dirt brown faces ravaged with age
One looks at me with eyes of an old sage
A beacon of wisdom amid decay,
His stare pierced me. I had to look away
I realized we were basically the same,
We both came here seeking a kind of escape
I craned my neck skyward. I found solace
Amid the cosmos, starlit bounding bliss
My atrophied grey soul escapes, and swims
Through the thick blanket of midnight air, skims
The Sea of Serenity, rounds Virgo,
Orbits Sirius captured by its glow
Before tumbling fast, like a meteor
Hurtling down to barren Earth floor
Refreshed with the universe’s blood
Swept away in bounding celestial flood.
Christmas ’88 at the Laurel County Jail
You’re my Georgia Hale,
And I your Charlie Chaplin
Meandering in tandem through the snow,
The pounding pitter-patter of our tiny feet
On frozen, iced, dirty concrete
Is harmonized with ho-ho-ho’s
And a crackly old carol cassette
On its last leg somewhere in the distance
Officers coming to and fro,
Glance at us and smile like December jack-o-lanterns,
As I give chase through a concrete labyrinth
Spotted with pine cones and cigarette butts.
Catching up to you as we sling-shot
‘Round the trash can, I kidnap your scarf
And hold it hostage with a ransom on its head.
A demand of a kiss, with a guarantee of safety
Begging, pleading, giving you three year old
Puppy Dog eyes, you melt for me
Like the icicles dripping on the heads
Of the egg-nog drunks on the other side
Press your rosy scarlet face to mine,
Our chapped lips meeting in joy,
Subsiding into a chorus of giggles
Basking in the light of an electric Santa.
King George II, Quieting the Dissidents at His Estate
Standing at a podium in the sun
Our hapless leader spews out still more lies.
While brown children stare down barrels of guns
And mothers of new martyrs sound out cries
To Allah on knees set in scorching sands.
(They don’t get Fox News, they don’t know it’s fine)
Nineteen year old kids sent to foreign lands,
Brainwashed to fall into the nationalist line.
Pawns doing the bidding of corporations,
Their henchmen sitting on Capital Hill
Choosing whether to destroy nations,
Grouping them into two types: Good and Evil.
“I have to go on with my life” he says
In response to a grieving mother’s cries.
An American grieving mother, that is.
As profits soar and more soldiers die.