It's True That...

My written words are apt to spell out the
Less possitive aspects of my brain. Divorce

And pessimisms. Doubts and less than
Stellar childhood memories. Dreams

Of giant apes and spiders and ghosts
Seem to haunt the black well of my pen.

In everyday life I tend to be more or less
A cheerful person - quick to tell a joke

Or hug on my kids. I love the warm sun
And White Castles. Isn't that enough

To warrant me a happy guy? Perhaps...
Maybe...possibly...could it...might it just be

Poetry is my way to vent the poisons?
If so, why do I write so many poems of love?

Maybe I'm just graphically bi-polar.

Tourist

Where to? Where to?
Where to in this wonderful land?
Drag me through your hills. Your valleys.
Draw me into your beautiful eyes.
I won't mind-

Which way? Which way?
Which way to your meadowy vistas?
Cart my curiosity across your countryside.
Cradle my love in your open arms.
I won't mind-

What now? What now?
I've been this way twice over.
My devotion driven on like a tourist
Returning to his favorite love.
I don't mind-

What now? What now?
I've been this way thrice over.
Your every curve mapped with kisses.
Each kiss an old experience made to feel new.
And I don't mind.

Like Warm Gum

Does it matter how far someone falls,
Be it from grace or someplace
Closer to Earth?

Such as from the top of three concrete steps where,
At the bottom, you landed after I gave
The tricycle we shared a 'little'
Push with my foot.

Four pulled teeth and a quarter century later there's
Still an unspoken appology stuck
Somewehere under my shoe
Like warm gum.

Scuff Marks

Some days you just get so low
That it's only when you look up
Do you realize your feet are
Dragging along the ground.

Withdrawn

The quiet ones
are the ones I truly love,
saying nothing outside their
own thoughts, silently
revealing
themselves to no one
except to those who don't
need to ask. For them
silence is an action
that speaks volumes when
even whispers and breathing
are much too strident.
Even now
I can half hear their hushed
troupe of thoughts gather
like snowy drifts
in all corners of consciousness.

Dead Ants in the Basement

Sweep. Sweep up all those ants.
One zillion specks strong.
Deader than a door nail
Daddy wants them all swept and gone.

Down. Down into the basement
On daddy's firm orders.
No quibbling about it
Cause daddy never gives us quarter.

Sweep! Sweep! I grab the broom
While Russ grabs the pan.
Daddy grabs the trash bag
While mama grabs Mellisa's little hand.

Down! Down! Our feet step in sync.
First daddy.
Then mama.
Then sis.
Then brother.
Then I.
The irony not lost on me
That we march down the steps like ants in a line.

Tired Mud

Wetlands. Half dried from a
Modest winter waiting for springs
Promise of rain yet unfulfilled.

A rise of earth between
Two shallows offer clues
Of last years activities.
Tire tracks. Deep. Rutted.

Doze off in a slow and sleepy
Missouri curve.

Discontinuous

It's been six years now
since the divorce,
the children under your wing
like two eggs in a nest
(yet grounded in a tree).

My daughter.
My son.
My God! I miss them much.

Somedays so much
I find myself in full curse of the universe
or belittling my sock drawer
but only my voice comes back,
reasurringly

if not sympathetically so.

Visual Aid

As time passes it's remember-by-date,
as gathered moments fall to fate
of dust upon the mental shelf,
I know that now is never too late
to humbly ask for a photograph's help.

Love

Somewhere between
The city's first breath
-My arm across
Your breasts-

The morning fog
Shuns it's misty
Veil. That's when you
Kissed me.

We Make Due

I remember it was John Lennon's voice
Lingering in the darkened bedroom,

Looming over me like an audible mist,
Accompanied only by the hum

Drum rhythm of an osculating
Fan in the far corner churning stale

Air into a stinging breeze of late night
Emptiness -insomnia's blank stare.

Where my needs and desires are laid,
Bedsheets and thoughts of you are all I wear.