A Series of Stills
Caught in shaded glowing glares
My tunnel vision soon ensnares
My ears hear muted waves as blares
Of flickering light, retinal wears.
I’ve tried to look away and do
Those things that you know, I’ve tried to,
But I’m caught inside and can’t undo
This stare to there where you look too.
Now socially we gaze and see
This glowing box so frequently
Our stares collide so mystically,
You know it’s love of our TV.
Big Ideas vs. Little Ideas
Big ideas are little ideas that had the chance to grow
Into something more substantial that everyone would know
As nothing like the little ideas that somehow come to be
In front of minds that kill ideas instead of set them free.
Sheep Surgery
I saw a sheep that needed sewing.
So he’d withstand the hugging, beating, throwing
And other things that one speaks of
When referencing a child’s love.
I decided I could sew well enough
So I found my Father’s sewing stuff
And grabbed a needle and some thread,
Came up stairs and brought back the dead.
Garage Sale Superman
Nothing makes Matthias calm like a garage sale superman.
I imagine he’s making him fly as he passes from hand to hand
This tiny blue figure with red undies and boots,
But I doubt that flying’s something that his mind computes.
The toy is dated to be twenty six years old,
But his limbs are just the right shape to hold
In a five-month-old’s hands that find him intriguing enough
After a night of crying that was unceasingly rough.
The wrong toy is like kryptonite
Increasing the will to fight
Any calmness and relaxation,
Whereas the right toy relieves my frustration.
At some point I’ll be looking for a new super toy
To capture the mind of my little boy
Who only sees Clark Kent and then
Starts crying for superman again.
Spring November
How do you grace me
so incredibly
when all I have for you
are sins I can’t give up yet.
I’m set in my ways
which sometimes sway
towards and away
Your will for today.
but in this November Spring
you bring rebirth
worth more than that which is lying,
laying, playing on the ground in the wind.
I’ve found I begin
to be created anew
my old leaves crumble
and mumble
incoherently
till I can’t see
what they meant to me
because I am created in you
anew,
through grace which you relay
on a Spring November day.
I wish I took more elevators so I could fake a sneeze
And then ask you, “Please excuse me and my saliva breeze.”
Meanwhile I’d extend my hand, because that’s what you do
When you welcome someone to the club that people call the flu.
Challenge to bonjourpoetry.com from American Papist
American Papist is going for 3000 fans
I guess I should do the same
But currently, the way it stands
More people know his name.
Bonjourpoetry.com
Is much less popular than Tom.
Two thousand eight hundred and sixty nine
Fans of his and most aren’t mine.
Perhaps I’ll hit two hundred one day
But I’m thankful to be, forty one away.
My Wife’s Hero on Garbage Day
My wife looked at me sleepily and asked about
Whether or not I had taken the garbage out.
Dripping wet, I went with the short answer instead
Of recalling the last 5 minutes replaying in my head.
The garbage truck comes early on the days I’m running late
But if the cans aren’t at the street, I don’t think that they’ll wait.
So my plaid pajama bottoms, undershirt, and sleepy face,
Together gather garbage and strike a hurried pace
I grab the smell I think’s the worst
And tie the bag of diapers first,
Then grab the kitchen can and tie
That bag as well, so long as I
Think that I can make it down the driveway to the street.
Barefoot, I take the bags and walk on down to meet
The garbage man who’s just arrived to take my trash for me
But the bag of diapers breaks and makes me feel un-neighborly
Rather than complain
I smile in vain
And it starts to rain.
And by rain, I mean it started to pour
As each hand grabbed three or four
Expanding spongey wads of diaper mess
But to answer her question, “yes”.
My Children’s Hero on Garbage Day
On a magical day of the week
My children come to take a peak
On the couch pressing the window
Where they watch our garbage go.
For little girls and little boys,
It’s more exciting than their toys.
They’re beckoned by the rumble,
A garbage trucking grumble.
Jumping on the cushions of the couch
Like they won an Oscar the Grouch.
Their excitement verbalizes, “I can’t see,
Where is it?” Leaving my response to be,
“Be patient, the garbage truck will get here.”
Their delight is mixed with a whine of fear
That they might miss the garbage truck,
They’d blink and then be out of luck.
Sure enough the truck rolls into view
The heroes grab a can or two
And hurl contaminants inside
The truck they stand on when they ride.
And that was just the neighbor’s trash
That caused my children’s glee to thrash
In jumping motions looking out
To watch the garbage truck in route.
Now it was our trash’s turn.
The garbage that we made would earn
It’s rightful place in the unclean,
Massive, mystical machine.
My children were already big fans
When our hero one-handed the cans
As if they were filled with vapor.
He tossed the bags like Christmas paper,
And like empty shells from a good guy’s gun
The cans rolled on as witness, he was done.
Off to clear the streets another day,
While my children jumped inside singing “hooray!”
New Shoes
After taking off my perfectly fitting skin
I get the courage to begin
Trying on new leather
And whether
I like it or not
My old shoes are shot
With stigmatic flesh wounds on the bottom,
Two years after I got ‘em.
It’s time for me to replace
The open space
With newer shoes
That are whole,
With a newly created sole.
BonjourPoetry 