You wake out of habit
A tonic of bad dreams and habitual guilt and melancholy
Because what is a poem without it
Believe me you will sleep again
Do not over think this
It doesn’t have to be perfect
Only true
poetry
B is for Big Banana Business Behemoth
B is for Big Banana Business Behemoth
There’s no business
like a Bigly Braggadocious Banana Business
It’s YUGE
It’s Smart
It’s gold plated
One of a kind
Deal
The cell
From inside
Looking out
Reaching through the bars to feel the grass
To see the sun
The wind blowing through the trees
So the world is spinning
The west wind is singing me to sleep
Dreaming
I’m awake
I’m awake
I’m awake
I should be watching the clock
The clock with hands
I never understood what it meant
To me it always meant wait
Until
It meant too late
It always meant should have
Until
It meant could have
I don’t have clock hands
I have shadows
And the sleeping cat
And the wind through the trees
And the dream
A is for Autocratic Apple
A is for Autocratic Apple
Whose name you might recall
A thin skinned leader
Who came to power
On the promise
Of building a great Wall
The art of racing clouds
Lying here, feeling so high
As the clouds go drifting by
I dream my dreams and let them fly
Sending my prayers in flight like the dove
Where the clouds race so high above
Far from me and the strife below
Where we struggle as friend and foe
Far from this journey, where I fear to go
They say,
“Alone we are born, and alone we die”
And from this journey we cannot flee or hide
But we are not alone it seems
So this is why I dream my dreams
Sending prayers both night and day
I pray for wisdom to show me the way
And now with new dreams to soar and fly
I find myself here again, watching the sky
As the clouds go racing by
The waltz
Today
How to write a poem in 12 simple steps
The Definitive Guide
Step 1. Put on “Kind of blue” by Miles Davis
Step 2. Enter a euphoric state induced by an irresponsibly excessive amount of grandiose hyperbole, bongos and Irish coffee.
Step 3. Rant frantically a confused discharge of sensations, emotions, and disallusions until you reach the pinnacle of rhetorical zen.
Step 4. Write the first draft while staring out a window catatonicly for at least 4 hours.
Step 5. Let it rest knowing this is the greatest poem ever written since “Riot.”
Step 6. The next day, re-read your masterpiece and realize it’s terrible. You will never be Gwendolyn Brooks, and everyone will think you are insane.
Step 7. Alcohol! Let the wave of unfulfilled vision wash over you as you contemplate a life as a Munk in Tibet, or lighthouse keeper.
Step 8. Lighten up! The world does not need another Gwendolyn Brooks, she already did it perfectly. The world needs your voice. And if it doesn’t ….. repeat step 7. Oh and by the way everyone already knows you’re insane and your friends and family are OK with it…
Step 9. Write second draft just in time for the open mic at the electric brew.
Step 10. Still picking your poem apart… fall asleep attempting to read Ulysses.
Step 11. Wakeup in the middle of the night and write two new lines before slipping back to that dream where Cloris Leachman is teaching you how to grow vegetarian bacon in an aquarium.
Step 12. Write each line down on a note card so you can read/rewrite, read/rewrite, read/rewrite at least 150x until you are finally able to write the final draft.
And breath.
It is done.
Now
Wasn’t that simple
Just because
It’s the same window
Waiting, watching, in silence
As we all pass by
The Poets Agenda
To hang stars one by one
Sieving rust into glitter
To build dreams from ashes
To look for patterns in brocade and well worn paths of memory
cutting through forests and fields and
swimming through streams of tomorrows
and navigating minefields of detached yesterdays
Through snow and storms
Until one day
I remember everything,
Whispers the sea
And the poet asks,
Tell me
Tell me
When time began
Tell me
Why that smile is impossible to forget
Tell me how to start over
Tell me
Everything
Listening
The sea
And the moon
And the stars
And the lark
And the still small voice
To rage
To love
To hope
To dream
To feel
To defend
To remember
When forgetting would make all the pieces fit
Because they should know
the pieces never really fit
