And

I haven’t words
Let alone verses,
Lost inside these memories
And all those unshouted curses
Over undelivered king cake
And distant disdaining lovers.
It’s terribly alone and cold,
Kibitzing with the cat under covers.
All I want to do
Is laugh, dance, and sing:
Without tissues
Or stirring issues
That don’t mean a thing.
I haven’t time
Nor seconds to spare
To at last convince you
That I just might really care:
Over unfulfilled promises,
My remonstrating old lover.
Might we picnic again
In Audubon Park’s clover?
All I need do
Is having married you instead:
Without pale issues
Needing nearby tissues
Next to the unmade bed.
I lack the K, S, and A’s
Let alone the brains
To make good this sad lyric
Who’s refrain sorely strains
Over past years and lies—
A poor shattered kite
That no longer flies,
As I savor the dreams
Of the joy twixt your crossed thighs.
All I want to do
Is laugh, dance, and sing:
Without issues
Reaching for tissues
Badabop Badabing.

Advertisement

Musty Heart

I shouldn’t have opened the door
(I decided I couldn’t take it anymore)
Shouldn’t have flung open my heart
(She said she would just come once more).
Left again, leaving me all ripped apart.
Not knowing the reason: a scrabbling on the roof?
I just had to go and see this storm’s proof,
Now gelled into rent and hidden autumnal leaves
Akin to slighted tricks up magicians’ sleeves.
No time like now, like the present, some day or this hour–
The gravity of the empty not knowing drags with such majestic power.

I shouldn’t have opened this, my old man’s prison door,
But creatures such as we must go out and must explore.

Storm Warning

So it was in an old era of insufficient chocolate
And there wasn’t a whole lotta love going on too
I remember she had packed her oh so pretty face
Which left with her name through International Departures Gate Two

But it was really really raining, coming down real hard
Tropical Storm June was plying her blowing trade about town
The lights all went out when all the lines all went down
As luck would have it the red candle sputtered, caught, and glowed
And there’s lotsa lots of fish in the sea, or so I’m told

So we gotta get us a Whitman’s Sampler
And perhaps a new forever love, for true
Blonde, brunette, or gray, even a gambler
But she’s gotta know as I’ve not the least clue

Next morn the tree killers buzzed through the hood
Cutting away the branches, clutter trees, and opened up my road
Twas a new Time for more insurance claims stories, a la mode
But I shredded all that old paper, I’m retired ya know
And the cat needs his vet shots and now I really gotta go

It’s a rough finding you’ve only two M&Ms
And which would be the wrong color, just to be sure
In this odd time of insufficient love and chocolate
Perhaps in a wrapped Arc d’Triompe we can find a cure

A Moderate To Severe Case

Sixty-something singing something right out of Sadsongs,
Dreams of lithesome ladies fulfilling emerald dresses,
Going yodel for yodel with any Plant, Tyler, or McCartney,
The neighbors blink away their latest weekend distresses.
Another rocker has met his maker,
And one’s SLAP tear twists merrily away,
Eyes tear and then sight clears—
Time to remember, to forget, and dream it all away.
Longing for a Life when it was simple all in black and white,
But that’s all gone now, and my maker nearing closer in sight.
Suffering from a moderate to severe case of stupid,
Looking for love, I slammed the door in the face of Cupid.
And the sun shades down like suns often do;
While losing the grip for the thought of you;
Where’s that road poorly-traveled to happiness?
Can’t get there from here, I guess.

Safe And Sound

Such a woman, such as she
Loves another, left me a mystery
I met her first
But seems he met her best
I managed in roadie grunge
He twas gorgeous in the wedding vest
An Acadien Kaplan beauty
Wreathed in Spanish moss
Too many miles across the river
Sad to say but twas a grand loss
They’re still in wedded bliss, blest be
I’ve tarried beyond on other wry ground
But that’s how it all seems to pass, you see—
She’s happy Safe and I’m still lost in Sound

A Gulf Storm Warning

We know nothing much good happens after the midnight hour,
So I hold little hope for these late writ lines.
Knocking about my Alexandria, at last, cleaned bower,
Remembering a lost love this old heart forever pines.
Storm warnings now up all along the Gulf coast—
Flash floods looming to wash away the humid mire.
I believe still it’s you that I miss hardest and most.
Reunite? Tis ever beyond that which I could hope to aspire.
Dribs and drabs of longing sated in your Facebook posts,
Whether mountain stream or shells along a sandy beach.
How is it we manage to pass young memories to graying ghosts,
And that one true love flies off to be forever beyond reach?
Dishes all washed up and time to take scant wishes to bed;
Today’s crossword awaits there to challenge clue by clue.
Though instead of the Los Angeles Times, I rather be with you instead,
And on the nightstand next to us were your newest daisies blue.
This storm will pass, and Summer blue skies will again find the coast,
Though it is ever you that I will miss the hardest and the most.

Hours Pass So Slow In The Day

The hours pass so slow in the day
Then decades are gone in a flame
Y’all, hold your lovers a little longer
While you can still remember their name
Forever lasts before end of the day
Then forty years have gone just like that
Y’all, hold your lovers a little tighter
Before you die and get laid out down flat
Our lives read out in poems half writ
With or without a dear someone with which to care
Y’all, hold your lovers a whole lot closer
Make sure it’s with you the time they want to share
The hours pass so slow in the day
Then decades are gone in a flame
Y’all, hold your lovers a little longer
While they still care to remember your name

Do You Mean Me?

Are those soft words meant for me?
Is it now safe to settle into tranquility?
Icy rains ahead on roads fog-wrapped
Fleeing a love wherein I was once trapped.
Twelfth Night revelers muster at the Carrollton barn
Their annual trek to recover their childhood yarn:

Hey, throw me something mister!
Hey, don’t look that way at my sister!
Meet me at The Avenue and Seventh
Of course! Bring your cousin Kenneth!
Doubloons, cups, beads, catch the daylight;
Oh baby, kiss me good; sweetie, hug me tight.

And so Hump Day with ashes full arrives
And recriminations cut with dull knives—
I only kissed her once on a day care forgot.
We’re done, that’s it, you’d rather not—
Why is life in the thirties so stupid?
Aren’t we adults, who killed Cupid?

Why do we think ourselves
Into such boxes of darkness,
Into that snare of wrong turns;
To put down hard roots
Into a newer unloved land;
Grasping, weak and missing—
Another lost kite string over the hedge;
Another lost thing we swore to keep;
Living a clueless life over the edge
As now I lay me down to sleep?

Are those soft words meant for me?
Is it now safe to settle into tranquility?
Diseases and ruin now arrive to drag us back home.
My armor was never silver but warehouse chrome.
O, to die in Ashland, intox’ed by her clackety-clack.
Just to home return, but you can never ever go back.

Heatwave

Thank God, the Sun finally fell,
And my grass is all hay, as far as I can tell.
And, she has remarried, well done, well-played;
While I return to my room and its old bed, unmade.

How to escape these grayer ill-jointed days
As we reap the errors of our less-traveled stupid ways—
Find a job, see the doctors, count to ten.
You are right, you’ll never touch her again.

Mercury pauses up past one hundred and two;
Horrible news arrived from the Audubon Zoo;
A jaguar slipped her man-made enclosure;
Happily-ever-after looks very far from sure.

This Heatwave is here for another fortnight.
Wear your sunscreen, hold onto fantasies tight.
Pay the right bills, sell the rest of the stock.
O to have mystick time like from Ashland’s clock.

Weather well, all ye Christians, thru this Austin heatwave.
Gather fresh chrysanthemums for this Land of the Brave.

Author Of Quaint Cuteness

So he found his way into the next street bar—
So too many sunsets he’d watched on his own.
He spied an open seat next to suspicion;
He sat: the leatherette surrendered with a groan.
He’d read that other’s fine published work—
Smaller now, he slow-ordered a few subsequent reds;
An author of quaint cuteness in a virtual realm in rhyme;
The rest of his well-bought confidence littered in shreds.
Darkly he found finally his Feng shui front door;
Next time he promised himself to leave on the light.
What’s that cold tightness crawling up his arm?
Her glam memory long ago dimmed from all sight.
Jack meowed hard, his breakfast was kinda late—
The neighbor poured the proper measured morsels into the bowl.
Calls were made, tears will come later, most real, certainly—
The author of quaint cuteness in his virtual realm of howl.