86 the Humble Pie 

Pass the coffee and cigarettes
Look at the sun and moon taking turns
Popping up out of nowhere
Popping us up wildly, over and over...

The Titanic Life 

I was leaving town feeling
shook up and scared I admit it 
I needed to comfort something or somebody
to comfort myself ...  

So, I looked at the chickens.
They wouldn't be able to go with 
across 5 states and (looking up at me) 
they knew it.
But they were going now to a ranch 
higher up the mountains 
with many more animals, and I told them man!
I'd miss them but what a better, friendly and 
chicken-inclusive place they were going to!
Then, with their usual feed I threw in 
extra Cheerios. Still, they pecked depressively.  
Of course, next ...
I had to put them in their separate 
boxes for travel, with all the Bonnie & Clyde
air holes; I saw Black Betty put her tiny eye
to the air hole and look out at me,
shook up and scared. 

I touched her through the air hole
she blinked back; see you somewhere later, someday. 

Naturally, the dogs were watching all of this
(as the chickens were driven gently away 
in the back of a truck by the gentle 
Alberto and Theresa, waving)and
when I made eye contact with them 
they ran under the bed covers. 
Don't sell US that false comfort! 
they said, shaking underneath the blankets. 

No, you cuties, you ARE going with!
If I'm gonna cry over those chickens you
know I can't say goodbye to you! Then - 
stillness, I couldn't see their faces 
deep in the bed 
but their tails wagged from the sheets, 
and then they were stampeding
all eating again. 

In the morning a dent in my car elbowed me 
in the ribs that someone had hit my car 
in the night, but there was a note. 
The guy said he'd fix it, sorry, please
call him. I called him and by Friday
he had fixed it; I never met the man, 
we were all notes and voices, 
but I told him in our last phone call
that he was a good man, all full to the top 
with integrity; there was a pause on his end
and he thanked me for that.  

Then, I left town. 

Driving past the Vegas neon several hours later 
(dogs fast asleep in the back; all their fur
red and yellow and pink and blue under the lights)
heading East, I thought
being kind is what we better do, 
and I better do it.

After all, this is the Titanic Life
we're all steadily sinking
chickens, dogs and us;  
all going down to the ice eventually, 
so what am I waiting for? 

(And who knows what's under that ice? 
Pardon this, but it may be cool!)

Tires turn East 

me and memories we
drive - grandiose man, hurt boy 
Top Hat and Teddy Bear. 

(written in Utah under the influence of cruise control) 

Power Poetry, unPedantic 

Two women, cup washers at Starbucks

discuss the patriarchy and the progress of

equal rights; they talk about Washington D.C. 

and Hollywood.  

“Cup washers? Is that what he said?”

“Who’s writing this poem? Leave him alone!”

“But there’s no cup washing at Starbucks.”

“What did I tell you?”

Blanche has blue hair

this week

Mabel has red hair 

forever; out of a bottle,

the color called: Frivolous Fawn. 

But this conversation is not

frivolous. The OPEN/CLOSED sign 

on the front door is twisted

CLOSED facing out, but will twist 

around in 15 minutes. So, quickly

they get to the point.

“I’ll say this for Hollywood,” Blanche revs up, 

“more social change is coming from there than 

that lame damn Washington!”

“I agree,” Mabel purrs her engine alongside Blanche, 

“I couldn’t believe they had that Ellen

woman in charge of the Oscars last night. A woman,

and a gay one, too!”

“Yeah!” Blanche’s voice takes off from a high branch, 

“and how many more centuries before that might happen 

in Washington?” 

“Those Washington fuckers!” yells Mabel, 

her voice bouncing across the room and off the OPEN 

side of the sign; the manager of Starbucks 

looks at Mabel, then at his watch.

“Hey, that’s a little rough, easy Mabel,” calms Blanche. 

“Well look: why are we even talking about all this 

with only 13 minutes until we open?” asks Mabel.

“Because this poet, out there in his car with his laptop 

waiting for us to open, wants a poem about it, 

but anecdotal style, not direct and obvious, 

and certainly not unpoetically rough like you just were.”

“So we’re his anecdote, are we?” 

“Yes, and we have to give this back to him now, 

for his casual, lifelike, non-pedantic delicacy.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, and there - another man - ok! 

Are they in charge of everything?”

“Shhh, Mabel ... let him work.” 

The two women leave off with their cup washing, they 

become reflective and interior, each inside their own thoughts, 

and a coffee-colored light casts a pallor over the coffee parlor, 
and ... 

“Ok Mabel, never mind, let’s take it back ... now, 

what were you saying about those Washington fuckers?”

Change is more exciting 
than cheap thrills 

Writing that down, he turned off the porno
the Facebook, the phone and 
the President of the United States.

It became still in the house,
like an art gallery at midnight.

Politics & Religion Drones On and On

I am 9 years old picking okra with my Grandmother 
she shows me how
I hear dumdumdum there’s something thin in the sky 
flying 
sounds like DUMDUMDUM 

oh! it’s night there’s fire and smoke 
my Grandmother screams stops she is in pieces 
all over the field her head 
still smiling up at me 
by my foot.

Ma eternity 

Everyone was standing there. 
The doctor, some nurses, a mother -
and her son, in bed. 

It was almost time to go; the papers had been signed. 
The son looked all around the artless room 
and toward the window 
trying to take it all, or something in.   

The nurse he had liked the most, the charge nurse, 
about the age of his mother but her hair dyed 
the color of halloween candy corn, 
touched his hand, and asked: 

“How do you feel?” Her eyes touched his, like always. 
“I feel like I’m about to miss something,” he said. 
“You always have, why not now?” said his mother, laughing.

Then he watched the ceiling begin to shrivel.