What Time Have You

So here I am at seven o’clock
Umm, that’s not the real time
Its where in my maze I’m lost at
Is really 9:20am to fix the rime
Lost inside this place
Of my own making
So I am amazing
Ain’t anybody here faking
Two glasses gone
A merlot for moi
What’ll you have—
Muscadine for toi?
Truelove went to Maine
Chances favor the Bentley
But we‘ll go home alone
Just saying truth, incidentally
No answers from my imprudent text
Who knows what’s coming next,
Chances swarm and the mind reels,
I wonder is that how kismet feels.
Around the bend and around the corner
Such nights as these I could be a goner
But the parade comes thither and anon
Beads, doubloons, and lingering glances and I’m so gone
Over my head for the goddess up ahead
Only to return solo to my Lysol-kissed unmade bed
Cat gets his insulin in the morning
Nine units to keep him alive
You think live isn’t fair
Well, I can’t disagree Clive
So here I am at nine o’clock
Umm, that’s not the real time
It’s just where in my maze I’m lost at
Is really midnight to fix the rime

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Theoretical Storms

Theoretical rains
And supposed storms
I know it’s crazy
What odds and a thought forms
When you’re old and lazy
And now it’s just all slowness and pains
And they’ve stopped reading your porms

Lightening displays
And rumbles cross the street
I say watch it
Listen for the sax down beat
You know you’re gonna catch it
But Young Turks loom over newer days
And they’ve taken over your old seat

Suspended sunshine
The streets return a cleaner dry
Come on, let’s go
It’s time to take another try
Lace it up and hit the do’
Kill off two miles and don’t whine
If your goal is to really fly

I Need To Think

So I find myself on the far side
Of a failed happily-ever-after—
What happened to all the joy?
Where’s all that guilt-free laughter?

And to all my ever-lovely ones
Who so luckily got quite away:
I wish them all an undying love
From the other who stayed the next day.

But my slice of Confederate heaven
Has grass that could be soon be green;
Once the lingering Summer falls aside
I’ll then look deep between

The choices to that youth resigned,
Incautious, and stupid languidly met—
Always took out the trash and paid the bills,
Dreaming of distant hills and beaches yet:

Words make sad toil to fully tell
Why are we here today?
Lucky, we’re still allowed
To have any part or say—

From A joyous Hard Day’s Night
To The mature Razor’s Edge:
A generation sees in full bright,
But lost is the line for our kedge.

Alone With The Jagged Cold

I don’t quite think it was the jagged insult of the cold while stepping out from the shower;
It couldn’t have been the yawning cold empty space beside me on a still unmade bed;
Perhaps it was that the single cup of instant coffee was just okay enough with real soymilk;
Certainly not the unresponded to question of what possibly could I have said to you instead.
More than I surely love you.
More than we can go so far.
More than dreams seek the possible.
More than let’s get out of this damn bar.
I don’t know but the cat claw calls for more food for his old porcelain bowl;
I don’t understand but the heater needs a filter shift out with the coming cold;
I can’t see the change that the sunsets promise for those unparoled tomorrows;
But I could have added that the place beside my heart is all yours, truth be told.
Unless the future scares you.
Unless you can’t chance chance.
Unless my words wither at your feet.
Unless all those maybes can only translate into can’ts.
And, down the tracks and beyond the call to prayer and the next bead-toss parade
I go on with my so lonely but hopeful heart, though I’m not quite sure I got it made.

Some Time Out Of Town

Would you like a drink?
Could you hold my hand?
Love for ever more?
No sweets, nothing quite so grand.
Let’s just find the dawn
And split up the day.
Should love bother to show
We’ll allow it to take its sway.
Don’t want no skinny love.
Don’t want no promises for the wind.
Just some time in your company;
Just share the space with someone kind.
Would you care to dance?
Mind the rutted grass and all—
The dust is enough to kill.
Can you feel the accordion’s call?
Back to the room:
After you, of course.
Let’s go find somewhere to eat,
I’m hungry like that horse.
Patates acadien, gumbo eleve
A chardonnay, esprit de coeurs
The feast casts a chance:
May I follow thru your door?

Allons Aller

Seeing you are a Goddess
It’s not that hard to see
You’ll be breaking hearts
Eternally

Lovely in Yellow
Dazzling all who care to glance
Mongrels like me
Never get half a chance

Oh, but I can two-step
And Zydeco better’n most
Do you take your poached eggs
With or without whole wheat toast?

Allons aller a Lafayette
And cut up that old Girard lawn.
Chances linger gossamer,
And spit, they’re gone!

But I reach above my station;
I’ve learnt the pattern of the tiled floor;
But Life careens ahead
Leave behind Less, go for All the More

My Stop

Sally Somewhat Lovely wondered why all the fuss
She had just been standing there awaiting the bus,
When Bob Horridman stumble stumbled across the street;
Bobby wan’t much to look at, but Sally, he wanted to meet.
Exchanged hellos and embarrassed burps and such,
The two wannaloves stood close but they didn’t touch;
Then Bob stepped off the curb to gather his thoughts
And a Chrysler mowed him down and connected the final dots—
Because inanimate objects always win over flesh and blood.
It dawned a rainy day, the sun came out, but ended with a thud.
Later on the Crosstown bus Sally Somewhat Lovely didn’t cry
She tried to remember his face, didn’t, couldn’t understand why;
She had just been waiting for her end-of-day bus ride home,
Now sitting seared with the image of flashing cloth, blood and chrome.
She looked out to see the leaves were all gone from the oak tree top,
Then the familiar called and she stood to say, “Okay, Driver, this is my stop.”

Hope and Future and Chance

The pain of his past rested on the front of his eyes,
Memory tempted then mocked and let loose in droplets.
Where now can pale usefulness express its wont?
How will tomorrow find reason inside old couplets?

Full-time folly found rest upon the other slack shoulder,
And swirling, the promise and the lie presented opportunely;
Yet a path coursed beyond the copse, bidding one to follow;
New memory scorned to breach history, to grow jejunely.

An old minstrel parsed a chord, and improved;
The song of song that choirs failed yet chimed aloud;
While pan wrens sauntered and soared ever above,
Dodging the eagles, falling, sprinting to eclipse yon cloud.

Tears will dry with hope and future and chance rekindled;
Goats may prance upon thatched roofs, high and mighty,
But the parson-chaplain rises early to great the new day,
And pale usefulness finds expression, keen and rightly.

Uh/Say Goodnight

Uh
Yes he was dressed
As usual, distressed
As you’d know
A phone unrung
And plans uphung
As you’d know
The nick was stippled
As the ground rippled
Nowhere to go
Back in the house
Quiet as a mouse
Nowhere to go
Paid some bills
Dollar sign thrills
Is that the phone?
Run to the door
But there’s more
Is that the phone?
No one there
A buzz in the air
Say goodnight
Back to bed
Down lay the lonely head
Say goodnight
The cat meowed
As is allowed
He opened the door
But there she stood
Drenched in her parka hood
As you’d know
It began with a glance
You have to take a chance
As you’d know
Say goodnight

Diddybop Tag

Diddybob down the sidewalk.
Haven’t got a clue;
Tootsie Roll Pop or broccoli;
How’re things with you?
Sun is warm today.
What can you afford?
Beatles on the stereo,
Crafting words to the blackboard.
Got the second job.
Haven’t got a clue
What were those words?
Lagniappe, turkey, and glue.
Itty bitty kitty paw prints
Tracking off in the snow.
Feeling pretty good today.
Well whattayaknow:
Faith lingers at the edge,
Rush to chance a storm’s breath,
Foreign eyes play and snuggle,
Harrass despair to revel with the essence underneath.