Additional K Poems November 2012
A change of menu for the dogs
I have gotten in the habit of feeding my dogs rice, along
with their dry dog food. I don’t know where I read that rice is good for them,
but Joan just read, on the internet, that rice helps to dry their skin out, and
we have been have a large problem with animals scratching all through the
night, (gas heat?)almost to the point where I have considered kicking them out
of the bedroom, that they normally share with us, at night. So instead of rice,
this morning, the dogs are getting thawed out frozen vegetables, and a cap of
salmon oil, hidden in a small wad of peanut butter with half their usual cup of
dry food.
Morisson, and Penni, have eaten all their new food. Dylan is
pushing broccoli and other green things to the side of his bowl. We just split
Dylan’s leftover green things with Penni, and Mo. Everybody seems happy. Wish
us luck with their fixing their scratchin’!!
………………………………………..
A fourteen dollar breakfast
The hotel that charged us $45 to park our car
in their garage; valet none the less, also, wanted
us to pay $14 for someone to bring a two egg breakfast
to our room. Service they call it!
…………………………………………..
After the show is over
Does a dog that just won first prize
know that it was the winner? Does
his master treat him any different
after the show is over?
……………………………………………..
And Think
There is something on my mind,
and I find it satisfying
when, mostly, I like to sit alone.
…………………………………………………
Are you a corn bread eating mother fucker?
Joan is in the kitchen, right now, baking four corn breads
in an iron skillet. One, we will eat as cornbread, and three, will be made into
stuffing. I love stuffing. Corn bread I ain’t all that crazy about, cept for
sometimes when there is a lot of butter about.
“It’s like peeling a rock,” Mikel, and “I’ve lost my groove.
Joan is peeling a rutabaga, as she says this. “I feel like I am peeling a
rock.” I offer to peel some. She turns me down. Whew. I hate peeling, and that
rutabaga mother fucker looks hard as hell to strip down.
…………………………………………………
Death is pretty final
I’m volatile like a cricket
should be moments before
being eaten by a frog.
But the frog gives the cricket
no warning. The cricket never sees
the frog’s tongue coming
like my friend never saw the man
walk up behind him and shot him to death.
Sometimes, there is room for depression
that no pill can cure.
………………………………….
Fuck.
I just spent over an hour trying to enlarge the icons on
this laptop, to no avail. How very frustrating. Simple computer things often
baffle me. If left to my thinking, we would still be striking sticks together
to make fire.
This computer is supposed to be dead. It is, at least, seven
years old, is machine gun bullet like ridden with bits and pieces from meals
that I have had, over the years, sitting in front of this computer, and
cranking out poems, and journal entrees. The five is missing. The computer
hasn’t let me get on the internet in a couple of years.
There are a lot of memories on this computer, most of which
have been transferred to a new, faster model. I thought that this machine was
dead, but I never gave up on it, never put it by the side of the road for it to
be found by a new home, a home that would hopefully give it life.
Computer repairs are not on the books for a man eking it out
somewhere down below minimum wage. Those computer guys, and gals, are
expensive. A blessing was bestowed upon me, though, yesterday when the man at
the computer store fixed my computer for me for free.
It is so weird, and fun, to have this computer back in my
existence.
I am thankful to the man, and to the machine; more to the
man at this minute, as the computer is only letting me play one song over and
over: “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More,” by The Allman Brothers. Hey, maybe the
machine is trying to tell the man something?
November 3, 2012
…………………………………….
Did the butterfly fart in the marshmallows
at the m and m exhibition, yesterday?
…………………………………….
Visitation
Drunk
again
in a
jail cell
screaming out
from behind
the bars
at God.
God,
why
have you
put me here,
once again?
Is there a lesson
that I must learn
I wonder
as I put my head
on a puddle of
my own puke
and use it as a pillow
to sleep on until
it it time to wake up
and face The Judge.
……………………………………
Everything I Own Doesn’t Have To Be New
I cleaned my shop vac, this morning.
The thing stunk. I had been using it
to vacuum water that I spilled on the carpet,
in my office/bedroom and had left the vac
in the room without dumping the water
There was tons of animal hair in it, too, and dust. Man
there was a ton of dust.
I didn’t go achoo, but I was glad when the job was over, and
I could go on with the rest of my life.
…………………………………………
I am powerless
I am powerless.
I am powerless.
I am powerless.
Someone killed
my friend.
……………………………………..
I hate waiting for the bagel to toast
In the toaster nothing to do but sit
There and listen no way to help it along
or to cheat a little bit. Hell, the world
could fall apart, but all I need is my bagel, buster.
…………………………………………
I’m a white person living
in an increasingly less
white people world.
……………………………………………..
It’s me, again
I’m on the road
I’ve got nowhere to go
but these places in my mind.
………………………………………………
It should be easy to write a poem
and sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t.
………………………………………………
No thought of ever holding a rake
I, sometimes, wonder
where the leaves come from
and where they will go.
……………………………………………….
Our Hearts Will Beat Together Forever
Head on her chest
I just told Love that I will cry
the day that I can’t hear her heart beat,
She looked up at me and said,
“Well, maybe, that day will never come.”
………………………………………………….
Quit that scratchin’ dogs
I have gotten in the habit of feeding my dogs rice, along
with their dry dog food. I don’t know where I read that rice is good for them,
but Joan just read, on the internet, that rice helps to dry their skin out, and
we have been have a large problem with animals scratching all through the
night, (gas heat?)almost to the point where I have considered kicking them out
of the bedroom, that they normally share with us, at night.
So instead of rice, this morning, the dogs are getting
thawed out frozen vegetables, and a cap of salmon oil, hidden in a small wad of
peanut butter with half their usual cup of dry food.
Morisson, and Penni, have eaten all their new food. Dylan is
pushing broccoli and other green things to the side of his bowl. We just split
Dylan’s leftover green things with Penni, and Mo. Everybody seems happy. Wish
us luck with fixing their scratchin’!
……………………………………
”If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people
you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning
"Good morning" at total strangers.”
--Maya Angelou
Someone should have given this advice to my father. My
brother, and I, used to marvel at what an angry, depressed, mean, old man my
old man was in the house, and then how he would light up to be the happy Irish
man, the minute he got out the door, and got around other people. My dad had a
lot of issues, and he took them out on us. Oh well, he had a lot of good
points, too. I’m sure that he did the best that he could with what he was
given. My job is to not point a finger at him, anymore, but to not to be that
way myself, and to not pass on the behaviors to my kids. Rip my father. I thank
you for the good things that you gave me, the good things that you taught me. I
apologize for the shitty things that I did to you. I was not the perfect child
that you sought. I’ll be where you are, one day, part of everything, again, and
while I am still here, I want to have a smile on my face, in the house, and
out.
………………………………………….
Rolling quarters
Her paycheck is not direct deposited until this Friday. My
check doesn’t come until a week later. It was time, this morning, to count the
quarters. I had ten dollars and seventy five cents worth of them. I got real
organized. I put all the pennies in an empty mayonnaise jar. All the nickels,
and dimes, I put in a small coin bank that is shaped like a railroad engine. I
thought about giving the train, and what is in it to my oldest grandson for
Christmas. I will think more on it. It seems like a great idea to me to gift
him so with such. I gave him his first book. Now, I will give him his first
savings account. When you don’t have the money, or the interest in, slugging it
out with your fellow country men and women, on Black Friday, you have to be
creative in your giving. Often, I give poems to friends and loved ones. I think
the loved ones might be burned out on getting poems from me. Family does not
treat a writer the same way that a fan of the writing who lives somewhere else
might. To them you are just the same old schmuck that you have always been.
…………………………………………
Somebody somewhere wants you.
You’ve got something they need.
………………………………………….
Tai Chi
He asked me how I was, and the answer that he taught me was,
“Wonderfully Hungry.” He explained what that meant, exactly, but my mind was
moving so fast that it did not catch on to what he said. That is what the next
class is for. This was my first ever Tai Chai class. I dug it, and I will be
back.
I laughed several times, during class, as my instructor
showed me how a few of the moves worked. I realized, immediately, that he could
have broken my wrist, as he pulled from a strong grip that I had put on his
arm. On another move, again gripping his arm firmly, I laughed because, as he
twisted away from me, I was strongly aware that he could have broken my elbow.
……………………………………….
Thanksgiving is full of Love
We're watching The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There
seems, so far, to be less floats on the show, this year. Joan says that she
saw, somewhere, that they were going to use the parade to advertise that New
York City is alive, and kicking, after Sandy's vicious assault, so we are
seeing dances from several Broadway shows, instead of massive floats, straining
at the strings. Joan says that the floats are coming. I hope that your
Thanksgiving is full of Love.
……………………………………….
The Beauty of Our Country
The man on the radio is singing
America The Beautiful. Is there
a flaw to beauty?
………………………………………
The Time Is
I just told Love, over our morning coffee,
that I was going to buy another clock
if they were still on sale, and she said,
“Another clock? Where are you going to put it?
Basically, I have a clock in every room in this house
as I have tried to have a clock in every house
that I live in. I’m not sure where
this need for clocks comes from.
It could stem from getting in trouble
for being late somewhere as a kid,
or it could stem from not wanting
to be anywhere at any particular time.
………………………………………………….
There’s just some things I’ll never be
Like a fire hydrant, or a man In love with
A woman who won’t love him back.
………………………………………………….
What I meant to say
Bagels never cooperate with me
They are always too big for my computer
Did I just say, “computer?”
Isn’t that silly? I meant to say toaster.
………………………………………………….
Working in the yard
I’m starting to think that my Love needs
a twelve step program that would help her
get rid of shoes that have looooong lost
their usability.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO,” she says
I can still use them in the yard, pointing to
a pair that you couldn’t even pawn of on
some homeless person. All I can think
to say is, “Honey, how many pairs of shoes
do you need to work in the yard?”
……………………………………………………..
“Don’t hesitate cuz your love just won’t wait.”
--Peter Frampton
This Peter Frampton lyric speaks volumes to me. I spent
years avoiding love, deriding love, attacking love, saying that it did not
exist, or if it did, it did not exist for me.