Age: A Country Poem

It's funny how this agin' changes men
We see the world inseparable from us
Until we realize that it is;
Liife goes on when we drop dead;
Only real change bein' markers, few flowers
And some tears shed for a minute;
Most of us won't be remembered
Most of them for nothing good.

Why I Don’t Wear Green on St. Patrick’s Day

I can’t wear green while
trees are wearing death,
or sport a bowler hat,
four-leaf clover in my teeth
as if I understand a people
I have never seen through more
than leprechaun theatrics,
jigs and Jameson Irish Whiskey
drunken for an Irish breakfast,
toasted to a Catholic saint
in make believe. History’s,
a bloodless dance when seen
through a parade. If only
bullets pinched instead
of tore. But blood spills red
and stains the green.

Ditties From Ditty

Just Fixing the Furnace, Dear...

dog fur tumbleweeds;
eerie dankness in
what was a basement
now, a cave with pictures
drawn against the wall;
each cardboard box a coffin
for something. Perhaps I might
identify the bodies of old ornaments,
an heirloom meant to be passed on
but passed away.

Election Gnome

The Chiclet Scourge

I picked up a nickel from the gutter.  It looked new, worth half a Chiclet.  I understood why someone better off may have doubted its value.  Why would an upper-middle class management type want to chew on fractions of a Chiclet?  There was no reason for it.  So I took it.  I didn’t ask around for an owner or notify the police.  It may have been wrong but I was desperate.  You see, I needed the small amount of change.  I was an addict and a dealer… of Chiclets.  But there’s nothing wrong with that.  Harder drugs are expensive and the crowd’s rough.  I sell mostly to suburban kids, get them hooked young.  By the time they’re my age they can’t live without the rush.  Sick times calls for sick business.

Still.  It hurts to see the young with peppermint around their lips, thirsting for a jonesin.  I told myself I’d get out of the life a million times.  Maybe start a clinic for square-gum addiction.  I’d have to kick my habit first though.  Fat chance of that.  I’m taking on fourteen twists a day!  We call them twists on the street.  It’s how you get Chiclets out of the machines at grocery stores.

Sometimes I crush them up, snort through a straw.  You get the sugar way faster even if the taste isn’t there.  A few clients shoot straight in their bloodstream.  I haven’t sunk that low.  So don’t think I’ve hit rock bottom.  There’s a long way to fall.  But, also, a hell of a long way to climb.  I’d sure like to get there, maybe see the sky for once.  It feels like there’s gum on my shoes, though, every time I try. 

What’s that?  You need to go?  Think you could give me a ride to the airport?  Fine, go on then!  Hey, you, I’ve got something you need to try!  Kid, KID!  Over here!

Off Meter Nostalgia

Can't see sunshine through the rain
as breath fogs up the glass.
why has life become so plain?
a dream too real to pass?

Mama took my Kodachrome away,
made me think all the world's a cloudy day.

I'd splash in puddles, throw the ball
But instead I work and write trite things:
"Imagine being small
With wings!"

Where have you gone  Joe Dimaggio?
Our nation turns its cataracts to you?

Press me while I wither,
stay a fossil from my time;
can't tell whether
it's sublime.