A Poem a Day Keeps the Zoloft Away

Don’t put expectations on a tree stump

I was riding my bicycle up a hill

when I saw a stump that was

carved in the shape of an owl,

but when I got closer I

realized it was just an old gnarled stump,

I was disappointed momentarily

that it wasn’t a gateway to some

fairy land,

where creatures long thought extinct live

and prosper

little tricksters and there sisters

flit about playing mischief on passing

travelers such as myself,

but that’s the way life is

you see something from far away

differently once you get it.

There is no magic,

just what we see.

#14

The Outskirts of the Ozarks

The water tasted

of sulfur

and any tobacco you

found was drier

than the desert

but I loved that town

for its simplicity

and its sunsets.

The women weren’t

much for sleeping around

but they did love to

dance under

Christmas lights spread on lattice

work under stars and

over hard packed dirt.

Men would exchange their partner

for a jug of shine behind

the sheds.

#13

I’m gonna play banjo with my shirt off all day! Cause it’s Sunday Funday!

Beds fill up with empty hearts

I took a girl home from the

bar,

who was newly engaged

to some guy that wasn’t me.

The sex was all

half-hearted sighs

and cries for more

from a land where

her father’s approval

is lost

so she seeks it with her legs splayed.

I can’t cum,

she doesn’t want what I want,

she just wants me to think

that I’m in love with her.

All the words are as

empty as

the condom I peel off

with a dry snap.

Electra must have

been quite the

bitch.

#12

Expectations

Fantasies last a long time

for long lonely nights

and end in sudden

bursts that

disappoint.

#11

Where I Want to Go

A Travel Agent called me one day,

trying to sell a package,

I said:

“I want to go to a place you can’t give me,

a place where young sun browned

southern boys

would run through half chopped

forests with scrapes on their

knees

is second hand jeans

cut to shorts,

where we would smoke

menthol cigarettes from

green paper packages

pilfered from unbeknownst parents,

then take the lighter and heat its metal

spout for tattoos of foolish youth

on our arms,

where fun was paid for

with imagination

and arguments were settled with bruises,

we drank beer bought by old

black men with a week’s worth of allowance

and drank it warm in undeveloped cul-de-sacs,

we rode our bikes all day

with no destination

just joy and sunshine and the torrents

of uncapped fire hydrants,

can you take me there?”

#10

BrotherLovers

Bo joined the war because

his lover did

they fought together

and lied down together

and had beautiful moments

of post traumatic stress together,

but he died before

Bo could tell him

that he wanted to fuck his brains out

then lay in warm, sweaty muscular embraces

till sleep came.

So Bo ate a bullet

without anyone ever knowing

so people just called him a friend

rather than a fagget.

#9 

Some Souls Sing Off Key

Sailors go down with their

ships

because they have nowhere else to

go

and maidens bleed for bad

men

for lack of wisdom and

know

brothers will fight with tooth and

nail

sisters will fight for pride and

tale

none of these are true

but rhymes deceive

read something worthwhile.

Paid for by the Committee of Descriptivist Writers

#8

Lay down with my savior

The poor man

who couldn’t read

ran from jail with a Bible

and an extra shirt

so he could have a pillow

on his travels.

He woke

and spoke tongues

of freedom

to all he saw

but they clapped him

in irons anyway

and hung him on Sunday

cause holy and crazy

looks like one-in-the-same.

#7

The Modern World

Take a pill,

cure an ill,

get cut down the middle

live a little,

live a little longer to avoid

the inevitable death,

accrue a little more anxiety,

three or four more stretch marks,

get another father’s day golf

shirt to add to the collection,

make more time so you can

loose more of it to the man,

maybe we’ll live to witness

another war that we can’t join

or stop just witness and bystand in awe

and horror,

anything is better than dying,

even watching people die.

We get sick

we make it better

we get sick

we make it worse.

#6