The ex
chief of
police from
forty
years ago
just sat
down in
a booth
with his
wife across
the crowded
restaurant.
Back then
I called
him a
Nazi
when he
tried to
bust me
for pissing
on my
own back
tire after
the
bars closed.
Now we
wave across
crowded restaurants
& call
each other
by our
first names.
Filed under poems & short jabs
Your pallet of reason gets smashed into mud by a rampaging elephant whose rage is inexplicable to even his fellow elephants; something snapped in his memory-drenched brain, something hooked up with something it never had before and gave him a new slant on things that made life as an elephant insufferable. Insufferable and inescapable, and that’s the stuff rage is made of, be it in elephants, chipmunks, bumble bees or people.
So there you are, pinned against a rain-forest tree as big around as a car as the elephant goes thundering by, a large snake sliding by at your feet and an exploding canopy of fist-sized monkeys in the branches overhead, still clutching the brush drenched in reason’s pigments, and where do you go from here? Do you pack it up and catch the next boat out of Africa, or do you cross the line into a world of jabbering monkeys,pythons and raging bull elephants? Do you rip off your clothes and snap your brush in two, smear your body in mud, dance in tight nimble circles, cackling like a demented witch so that the jungle comes to a slow standstill and then begins revolving around the masterpiece that you’ve become?
As if at this point you still had a choice.
Filed under shards
Here’s a message from god. A glimpse behind the curtain. A guided tour through the seven veils. An eye opener, a spine tingler.
This can’t go on forever. The ink runs dry, the paper turns brittle and bursts into flame.
***
This morning three laughing girls at a coffee-house drive-thru set my heart dancing and launched me into the day.
Twenty minutes ago and thirteen hours later there was only one girl left at the window, and she’d been there all day, while I’d just woken up from a nap full of bad dreams.
The dance was gone from our eyes.
I put the van in gear and drove off.
Filed under shards
It’s good out here
in the back yard–
a purple cottage,
a gray garage,
a red and yellow
front house,
meandering cats &
two picnic tables.
Things could have
turned out worse.
I’ve got a wheelbarrow,
a rake & a
brown picket fence,
a can of
roll-your-own
tobacco a
pot of coffee.
This that &
the other thing
need fixing, but
I’m in coast mode.
I did everything
just right to
wind up here,
& with a
little luck I’ll
slide into death
effortlessly,
followed closely by
the whole human race.
Filed under poems & short jabs
What’s scary
isn’t when
people who
walk around
with their
multi-tasking
cell phone
plugged into
one ear
& their
i-pod with
2,640
songs on it
plugged into
the other,
what’s scary
is when
these people
tell me
I’m putting
them on
overload
by sending
them a
Shard a
day.
Filed under poems & short jabs
Too many operations, betrayals, rejections, major disappointments, and anger uncoils like a cobra. The dark monster’s back, the mad Hun who never sleeps.
You make the mistake of telling people about the voices leaving and get hit with a burst of “good riddance” and “what a shame” and a few mild suggestions on what to do now.
Anger consumes it all.
The only thing that might work is a small child reaching up and gently grabbing anger’s gnarled and throbbing finger, bringing tears to its cyclopian eye.
Filed under shards
