Tools

we’ve all been goat-shrubbed

bearded with salt, brothers in gray

eventually the night will be enough 

to delight our empty bowls

after all, what’s left

for four common subjects 

who will one by one step off

this green pedestal

from which we peered

into each other’s years

dad’s yard fading to beige

what did those tools do anyway

who will hide his keys

the snub-nosed .38, now

who was whose keeper

Friday Writing: Poets and Storytellers United

September Clocks In

ants go side-by-side, ark style 
across the sink, called in
 
by the autumnal deluge 

of their little ant genesis

a nomadic gulch 

twig-shadowed and dank 

carries the fluff

of the last goose

the hayrides of tobacco, mugs

and blankets trot across the bridge

the football boys are 

pushing fire and stolen

cabinet liquor, the ritual

of binge-watching a leaf 

nature and cinnamon rhyme 

like dawn and apparitions

the fundamental work of powerline 

squirrels is the last real industry 

until winter hijacks 

our mortal ears

(Friday Writings #196: Hello Fall!)

Excite Your Palate with Meat Mania

when the flavor of the highways

and beelines gets too much

and the salt of wandering lines

crusts over your tongue

beg a little pepper off the sun

a sufficient bubble 
will break forth great rains

and sin will ice your veins
leaving you hungry
for a palate of two 

by two and glittering
giblets by the scoop

a common heat spells out the cuts
of pigeon grit and sidewalk guts

and when you stand on dry ground
face the heavens and throw up

your resounding grace 
for a scraped gray plate
and bowl bursting with
everflowing returns

of a meat soaked meat 
and eyes scraping
barren fields
for daily wheat

 (Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 9, 2025)

Y0UU HAAVE BEEEN PAlID 1OOO.OO DlREECT T0 Y0UUR ACC0UUNTT

your bread so abundant you must

dangle it like a price tag to the kingdom

but I’m not buying it, my hands

rest palm down, for so long

receiving was always a whisper 

of last night’s moon

I’m past that, promote whatever 

funding hums, it’s your paper 

balance your gift

in the wind, we know 

your payout is a glare

so forgive me if

my silence is thick, stacked

with side eye, ain’t nobody

ever gave me nothing, keep it

that way, your transaction

idles, nothing comes

from nothing and nothing

will come of it nohow

that is how

my bread rolls

down my street

unpaved on account

of nobody

(Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 8, 2025)

__________________________________________________________

Thinking of resurrecting my Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam project where I use my email's spam inbox as a writing prompt, using words from the email in the poem and the subject line as the title. We'll see how it goes.

Reformation

sand cascades from the cathedral
a shard of green glass taxes 
the thumb, flesh has no parallel

so close to the ocean, possibly save
the seaweed pods that pop so crunchy 

charred fences return 
to float off, these are hard days  
for soft structures

the circle surrounding the steeple
fills slavishly with foam
one must laugh theologically
watching wafting water

pull the work and treasure 
out beyond outstretched arm 

this collapse, this laborious loss
is in harmony with buoyant souls

re-forming to skim 
over the weight 
again, and again the

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for Poets and Storytellers United: joy in chaos

The Nose

silent about face, it alone 
can cause humming hair

to stand, back when hair

fought scale and fin

when summer drenched

sweat, the body beat

the rain to the punch

reptilian, hissing

straight to the brain

as if it were the surviving crone

snoring cantos of our names

without use of spine or nervous 

system, this means maggots 

bathed in putrid meat

the predators draw near

this probe can grab smoke

or decay, remove it, sure

leave discernment to the crow 

in verse of feathered caw

unhallucinatable, it knows 

the olfactory assumptions 

once a caravan, once a sum

savior while eyes struggled 

for awareness in deep caves

there, tadpole, the sea 

and scent of salty cream

so thick you taste it

--------------------------------

dVerse: The optician's words (I think I used them all, or at least variations of :)

A Good Return

among the forward, our fervor holds
serpent human and orchid 
go set against each other

so wonderful then, a companion 

to lounge beneath strange trees 

roots like tongues tangled 

where words falter, what is blood 

when we have branches

a fig, a frond, inside jokes

knowing nods for gentle ribs

when fire blooms into the sky 

magma crust and vine

we will chuckle in verse

cling to petals, unmoved

daring each other to go first

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Writer's Digest Wednesday Prompt: Friends