K Poems November 2012

"These contests are all political as is publishing poetry in general. It wouldn't matter how many poets lauded my work, Blackburn, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, I wouldn't dishonor my membership in PEN by entering a poetry contest. I was never political enough to become a "great poet." Most truly great poets are rewarded once they're dead, and no longer a threat to the poetry establishment. Such a stupid business."--Jayne Lyn Stahl

I could make pickles a meal.

I’m hanging out with my turtle, and my three dogs, on the carport. I love carports; you can sit outside, and watch the rain like you are part of it, but not get wet, or you can sit shielded from the sun, but still are able to enjoy its warmth, and light.

“Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts … good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.”

--Michelle Obama

A not so wonderful memory

We have had good times together.

We have had lousy times together.

I will always remember you

as being full of shit.

I should get over it.

Out of sight, out of mind

works for me.

I m sure that you understand

I am sneezing prolifically, this morning

a function of the cold that is butting up

against the window that overlooks my desk.

I have a space heater on behind me,

but though it is kicking out some nice heat,

I think that it is also aggravating my sneeze situation.

I really don’t need to be explaining this to you.

Creed

I like to bother no one

and I like to not be bothered.

I know he’s a dick.

I don’t care to look at, or listen to

things that are an extension of

an ego maniac’s ego. I’m speaking

of no one in particular, here. Ok,

that’s a lie, but I will not reveal to you

who the evil culprit is. Hero worship him

all you want. I know he’s a dick.

Patrick Thorne commented on your status.

Patrick wrote: "Mikel...shut up and get a job"

--Nov. 11, 2012

"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own."

--Salvatore Quasimodo (Thanks to LeeAnne Leslie).

I have all the elements of being a guitar player down,

 except for being able to play the instrument!

Mikel K

October 20, 2012

The day after The Election, at the insistence of a friend, I stopped listening to the song, “Imagine,” by John Lennon, and turned on Glenn Beck. Beck was blaming God for something. I assumed that he was talking about the outcome of The Election. I try to only listen to Beck when I am cleaning out the toilets, here at the abode, which I really don’t do all that often. He just apologized for picking the wrong election outcome. I’m pretty sure that he said that he knew nothing about politics. So why did he run his mouth against Obama so often, and so loudly, and aggressively, right up to Election Day? I may never clean our toilets, again.

Never Had

Before I was married

I was divorced in my head.

Never had a chance for Love.

To feed the frog

I keep forgetting to see

if the crickets are still alive

in the kitchen

above the canned goods.

In thirty years I will be 85 and the trees will be grown

Out front, five new trees are taking root.

Three of them came from the woods behind us

and two came from the big, big hardware store.

I want to write a poem

that will solve all the world’s ills

and pay all my bills.

I want to write a poem

that will make me feel better

when I am feeling down, and out

and if you read it and it makes you

feel better, then that is an extra benefit

that I will be happy about.

Are we all free spirits?

My frog mostly hides in his dirt

he has yet to come out and say hello

unless I stick my hand in the dirt

and pull him out. I say “my” frog, because

I bought him, but does one living thing

ever really own another living thing?

The reports of your treatment are not always good

They gave you a purple heart

for losing your limbs. Your fate

now lies within the whims of the VA

We are often alone in our color

strolling down the store aisles

waiting in traffic.

I hope you have love

It is Saturday morning. We make love. She makes coffee. I drop a couple of live crickets into my frog’s box, turn on my turtle’s light, feed the dogs, and feed the cats. We ‘re trying to beat The Gas Company, so we have the heat turned down enough, in the house, that I need to use a space heater in my office. The heat feels good. The day feels good. I am glad to be here. I am glad to be alive. I have heard it said that, as you age, you become more at peace with the world, less angry. This is a good thing. I can feel it happening to me. Love is a good thing. I hope you have love.

But I Am Happy

I don’t own a car

I don’t own a house

there is less than

a hundred dollars

in my account.

I was just putting a medium sized plastic water pitcher underneath the faucet of the small bathroom sink to capture the water;  waste not want not, and water my dogwood tree, who I have named Dave, when I realized that I was filling the pitcher up with water, instead of just setting the pitcher under the faucet to catch water. How silly, I thought, here I am trying to save the planet, and really, I am helping destroy it.

I wonder how many things are like that in life? We might bitch about the water that we are wasting in that sink, and the money that we are spending on it, when said drip might save us from freezing pipes on a night when we needed to, but might have forgotten, to let a faucet drip. In the long run, we have saved a lot of money. The funny thing is that we will never know just what the faucet did for us by dripping.

I became the conclusion

I came to the conclusion

that there would be no conclusion

to you, and me.

I could go longer with this

but it would be like messing up

a good dish with too much salt,

and pepper.

I bid you adieu.

I hope these words were good for you.

Not every poem is for everyone

Some lines in some poems

are for you know who.

Looking at my baby

“This is my baby, right here,” said the young mother

with two small boys looking at what I considered to be

my baby, a very large turtle I had named Clarence.

It is funny to think how many of us who visit this pet shop

think of one, or another, of the animals as our own.

I’ve never lived with a bird

I’ve lived with my mother

and father and brother in a house

in the burbs.

I’ve lived with women in sin as some say.

I’ve lived with dogs, cats, turtles, fish, and a frog,

but I’ve never lived with a  bird.

I’ve lived with diabetes, with being a drunk

who hasn’t had a drink in a long while,

with dandruff, bad breath, and broke.

But I’ve never lived with a bird.

Fart egg soup

It is amazing

the wide variety

of words

that you can put

into a poem.

Don’t pay money for this picture show

The frog doesn’t do anything

except flip out his long tongue

to catch criquets that I put in his box.

Confession of a broke cheap skate

Love has figured out that we have to buy new dirt for the frog’s bed, maybe as often as once a week. This fucking frog is going to start costing me money. He needs to get a job. Is anybody hiring a frog?

Dissection of a frog

He’s always dirty.

He doesn’t like to play.

He pissed on your hand.

The Sell Monsanto Corn

Every once in awhile

I find myself at a Wal-Mart

and I feel like a traitor

a pig who only cares about himself.

I leave with products

that look good at the cash register

but fall apart soon.

I got a deal on some black gym shorts

three bucks I paid

they had no pockets

and soon were pock marked with holes.

A small piece of shit

I have walked past this thing on the floor of the extra bathroom for two, or three days. Until just now, I thought that it was a dirty ole leave, but on my last visit to this facility, I got the feeling that it was a small piece of shit.

The keeper of the receipts

I should have every receipt.

I am the designated receipt receptor

in our family.

Usually, it is a receipt that has a high priced

item on it that comes up missing, and I sit

in pain thinking of the $19.98 I could have had.

(Wanting chocolate. Needing chocolate.)

Oh well. I will just keep practicing being the keeper

of the receipts.

Tater

I help keep the criquets alive

by putting a small peeled potato

in the container with them.

They crawl on the tater.

They stand on the tater.

Soon, I will dump them into the box

wherein my frog resides

and he will kill them.

He will never recover

There have been pebbles

in my brain, and razor blades.

for several days. Someone

I know was shot to death,

on Monday. It is Wednesday

and I still haven’t recovered.

The frog has been sprayed down

and the water in his bowl has been replaced

with clean water that has been treated

with drops that claim to make tap water safe.

You kind of wonder if the tap water is not safe

enough for a frog how is it for us humans.

I am not the fat man

who I just saw in the picture

that my love recently took of me.

In Ireland

You can get drunk as hell

but you can’t get an abortion.

I’ve never had a relationship

with a bird, and the bird who

I have been getting to know

bit me as I put him back onto

the cage that he lives on

at the pet store. He doesn’t like

women, I have been told. Perhaps

my long hair fooled him.

Dear Mikel Poet,

Thank you for submitting to the 2012 Richard Snyder Publication Prize. The task of selecting a winner from 498 entries, the most we’ve ever received, was formidable. Yours was not picked. Your poetry sucks. Thanks for the entry fee, sucker. If you'd like to buy a copy of the book, go to our website.

The Poetry Press

She had a raven follow her

to work, on occasion

and I told her that I got

the same happy feeling

that she was talking about

when my cat used to follow

me and the dogs around the block.

He was my friend

There are no clues

that I can find

about his killing

on the internet;

just the same old

stories describing

the killing of an as

of yet unidentified

victim.

If it’s forever

If it’s forever

then no argument matters.

My heart comes

with a Ziploc freezer bag

and, if you would, when

you are done with it

not throw it on the floor

and stomp on it, but put

it in the bag and put the bag

in the freezer.

Song is, often, my inspiration

yet I can’t sing. I guess I don’t

have to be a star to look at the moon.

Yesterday's Soup

I just found some meat in the vegetable soup.

 Wait, I am having canned soup, today, a beef

 and potato thing that is fairly tasty. But for a

moment I spaced out, and thought that I was

 eating yesterday's soup today.

I only deserve top notch

but I’m wallowing down here

at the bottom where I’ve always been.

Wallowing?

Wallow’s just a word.

Why wallow in a word?

Bandit bit me three times, as I sat him back on his cage, today. The Parrot, and I, had been getting along real well until that point. I, am now, debating wheter I will hold Bandit in my hands, and let him walk up my arms, and hang out behind my head the next time I visit The Pet Store.

Dust it off

Some days, it makes great sense

to let only books sit on the book shelves

that adorn my room. Other days

it makes perfect sense to put back

the stuff that I took off of those shelves

before I dusted them for the first time

in centuries.

Untitled (Doggy in the window).

How much is that doggy in the window,

the one that they broke into my house and stole?

I prefer to be in places

where people have a smile

on their face, and they say hello

and then get on about their business.

I wonder what they see?

One of my cats knocked my alarm clock radio to the floor, off of my night stand, for the second time, last night, in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping. I just left the clock on the floor. I could see the time from my bed, and I figured that, maybe, three times I would be out, and the clock would be broken the next time one of the cats decided to take over. It’s an old clock, but I still like it. It is one of those Sony Dream Machines. It has cd player in it that still works. I am not going to let my cats fuck up my dream machine. The cats like to take over the table because it is next to a window. You should see them go crazy, fighting over that open window. Cats love to sit by the window, and stare out at the world

Freedom

You’ll have it paid off by the time the next one is due,

and then you will start all over paying them, for life, for

something that they say you own.

Are you ok with more taxes?

Would you like less air to breath,

more polluted waters? How about

fish full of mercury, cows and chickens

full of hormones? How do you make a

hormone? You kick her in the stomach

or you don’t pay her.

It only matters to me

Waiting in their plastic container

to be food for my frog

not all the crickets make it.

We have cut up a small potato

and put it in the box with them.

This seems to make most of the crickets happy

but many of them still die before they are eaten.

Freedom

You’ll have it paid off by the time the next one is due,

and then you will start all over paying them, for life, for

something that they say you own.

Untitled (Doggy in the window).

How much is that doggy in the window,

the one that they broke into my house and stole?

If it’s forever

If it’s forever

then no argument matters.

Are crickets are stupid?

Or are they predestined

to walk in front of

the tongue of a frog?

A false story about a bird

My parrot just said

 if you don't feed me,

 quick, I'm going to

 bite you on the head.

What our purpose was

All of most everything was gone by the time we got there

but we didn’t care. We had not gone there because of the stuff that we could have taken, or consumed. We had a higher purpose than hitting the free buffet, quaffing a few free drinks, and then hitting the town. What it was, I wasn’t quite certain, but I was going to ride it out, and figure it out, figure just why we were going there, what our purpose was.

Ringo, my frog, spent most of yesterday visible in his home container. I changed his dirt, and I think that it took him awhile to get used to the new dirt. This morning, Ringo, is, once again, submerged in dirt, as is his norm. I hope that you have a good day, Ringo. I am going to spray you down, change out your water bowl, and feed you 3 crickets in a little bit.

I like Thanksgiving. Aside for whatever evil the white man hoisted upon the native American, for me, it is a time to gather with family, and eat. I am blessed to have good people around me, and I love to eat!

She married Dean

because she knew that he would be a successful preacher, and that would make her a rich woman, who could do near nothing wrong in the eyes of The Lord, or, at least, in the eyes of the people putting money in their baskets on Sunday.

She would be number one in her sphere. No one could come near her without her permission. She would live in front of people, but nowhere near people. Your tv screen would be as close as you would get to her.

Decentralize thought

Minimize things bought.

 Evolution is revolving doors

 at the grocery store.

Down The Aisle

Down the aisle

 had to be something

 that would make him happy.

Not the reason

Hamas got children.

Israelis got children.

USA got children.

Iran got children.

Every war got children.

Adults aren’t going to stop fighting

because of the kids.

Almost Famous

Almost there, but I never got started.

 Tried to shit, but only farted.

No one can waste your life baby

you’re only good to them

if they can make money off of you.

You can be cynical.

You can be an optimist.

In the end, what you choose

will mostly run off on you.

Where are you Mala

have they saved you

from a funeral? Are

they keeping you out

of site? The men who

shot you, have said

that they will shoot you, again.

Where are you Mala

have they saved you

from a funeral? Are

they keeping you out

of site? The men who

shot you, have said

that they will shoot you, again.

In Me

Maybe it’s time.

Take my hand.

Give me the knife.

Natalie Merchant

stirs weird words.

What am I thankful for?

I’m thankful for that bird in the refrigerator, that is waiting for Joan to cook it, tomorrow. Joan says that it is the best kind of bird that you can buy, that it is the one that her mother used to cook. Joan knows her shit in that kitchen!

I’m thankful to be getting together with children, grandchildren, and friends tomorrow to feast. When you read the news o boy, and see how fucked much of the world is, you have to be thankful for the kind of breaking bread, and turkey bone that we are able to do.

Still you might get wet

We don’t know it, but we are on our way

to another very rainy day. There’s nothing

we can do about it. Might as well shout,

“Anybody got an extra umbrella?”

What are you thinking?

Now I’m your better half

and you’re trying to stop me

from drinking

with my meal,

while watching television

around the children,

at work,

while driving,

while doing just about everything

but sleeping.

What’s his name?

All his life he held a knife close

waiting for the terror that he was sure

was going to begin before he died.

But the terror never came, though,

in his head, we cannot say that was

the same .

Laying lying

You are laying with me, tonight.

You were laying with him, last night.

Lime light as long as you have it

you can be wherever you want to be.

You don’t need him. You don’t need me.

You can run to the shadows. You can

stand in the sunlight.

I got the blues

after having sex

with her

in her red apartment.

It's nice having someone who reads a book, until I

 come to bed. She likes for the lights to go out on

 both of us at the same time.

Giving thanks the day before Thanksgiving

I am thankful for the woman in the kitchen

cutting onions, and celery,  into little pieces

and crumbling the cornbread that she baked

last night, into a bowl, with the onions and celery

to make into her Thanksgiving stuffing.

I am thankful for my children, and grandchildren

who I will break bread with tomorrow.

I am thankful for my good health,

my lack of wealth will not lessen my lust for life.

I am thankful for the songs that I am listening to.

Music is such a gift. Gifts are a plenty if I just look

for them. I plan to look for them, today, and every day.

I just got yelled at for leaving the oven door open

while getting a phone to take a picture of the pan of stuffing that she has in there. Seems the stuffing is like cake: it can fall. “Any bread type thing,” I think I heard her holler.

Give thanks that you can show love

Ringo, my frog, doesn’t care about love

but I love him, anyway. Without me he

wouldn’t survive in his little plastic box.

I provide the dirt. I provide the moss. I

spray him down every day with a watery

mist, and provide the water that fills his

little bowl, and every third day, I feed him

three, or four, crickets. Though he doesn’t

love me, I thank him for being in my life,

for allowing me to show love.

I like days off

I feel warm. The frog is fed, misted, and cricketed. The dogs have been lead to the woods to do what they do, and fed; the cats have been fed. The Turtle eats on Wednesday, and  Sunday. It is now time to write a couple of poems, and then take the rest of the day off.

If this isn’t insanity then nothing is insane

They build rockets to launch on others

and they build a missile defense system

hoping it will stop rockets from landing on them.

Double Indemnity

There is a fly in my office.

I am trying to figure out

how to get that fly into

my frog’s container

still flying. My frog will

have fun with him

and I will no longer be

bothered by him. Kill.

In the spirit of a caged rattle snake

I’m not sure how much more I can take

throw a mouse in on me

every once in a while, will you?

Our House

She likes to check the mail, as do I.

She likes to cut the lawn, which is good,

because I don’t.

She loves to cook. I love to eat.

We both raked the yard, this afternoon.

She likes to make me my coffee.

I love coffee, and I love that she loves

to make it for me.

Neither of us much cares about driving.

It is so crazy out there.

She loves her dog.

I love my dogs.

Her dog has become my dog,

and my dogs have become her dogs.

The cats have remained independent

though we both feed them.

She likes my frog, and my turtle.

Explosion

I read the news, now, mostly because

I want to know when they are going to

blow the world up. I want to be able

to call my kids and warn them, and then

warn everyone I love, and beyond. And

I want to make provision for my pets.

Pissed off cat tale

It turned out that the cat couldn’t stand getting pot blown in his face.

He went out, and got a gun; came back, and killed his master for doing such.

What a suck way to live

They’ve got their rockets

in their pockets; not content

to leave them, they lob them

onto somebody else’s home.

We have no choice in anything

I can’t believe how you can get stuck in one place,

and how that place feels better to you than the place

that you wanted to be would have.

Sometimes we are on our own cloud.

Smiling. Waving. Doing fine. And then

someone jumps up on our cloud with

us. Is there a formula to, a process by

which you find the one that can ride

your cloud with you making it their cloud too?

Sticking your dick

where it’s unwanted

won’t get you

what you think.

Infinitely Unconstitutional

no end to it. I mean we all

are fucked.

Bank Robber Revisited

I’m going to the bank

and I’m going to take what’s mine

You better get out of my way

I ain’t standing in line.

Eternal Practice

I write when you are reading me.

I write when you don’t.

A world without Black Flag and Fear

Love didn’t know who Black Flag, and Fear, are, or were, when we met, and she still hasn’t bought one of their cd’s, or downloaded some of their work onto her computer from the internet. And I don’t think that she ever will. I say this after going through all her cd’s over the past couple of days. Hate Zepplin:  she only had one, praise the Lord. Ricky Martin, anybody? I jest. Love has a lot of good music. We have much music in common. I’m moving on. Have a nice day.

I am glad that you are gone

I’m happier with certain people out of my life: my father, my mother, some friends who I once felt inseparable from. Just because someone is a family member, or a

friend, doesn’t mean that they act in your best interest. Sometimes, they act against your interests. Sometimes they are downright mean to you. They are bad for you.

Stay as far away from them as you possibly can. Word.

Something Else

It does not look like I am going to

fix this problem, at this time,  so I

am going to move onto something

else.

Farting into the parting sea

increased my ambiguity.

Some mornings suck

Some mornings suck

but not this one.

It is the start of a beautiful day.

Mammaries

I took a walk down memory lane, this morning

and it sucked to remember how bad it once sucked.