Forgive and Forget November 27, 2018

Here's a funny thing about this poem. I've been reading poems by this woman on Facebook and sometimes I write a critique, you know, an analysis of the structure, the rhyme, the overall use of imagery in the poem. Sometimes I merely respond to the poem with a poem of my own that is inspire by the her poem I just read. Anyway, she wrote a one line poem: Can you forgive . . .  and that sparked the poem below so I posted it as a comment to her poem and . . . next thing I know I got this rampaging message  . . .  why would you say those nasty things to me . . . why are making this personal . . . and so on. So, I told her wasn't doing any of those meanspirited things she accused me of, that I was writing a poem in response to her poem. Anyway, I dropped her as a friend and blocked her from ever contacting me again. Anyway, here's the poem.

Forgive and Forget

I forgive the sun for not shinning as brightly

as once it did when I was so, so very much younger.

I forgive the moon for not remembering my name

on those dark nights when I needed her most.

Yes, I forgive the weather for the rain that delivered me

into the hospital with a temp. of one hundred and three

degrees. But it's easy to forgive nature for the wrong

she does to me because she doesn't consciously

do harm to me, to anyone, anything. But you? Your

transgressions against my wellbeing are deliberate, decisive

actions. You know what you do when you do it. That

makes it harder for me to forgive and eventually forget.

Woodie 11-27-18

Cow Dreams November 15, 2018

Cow Dreams

All the elder men

were pulled from their beds
and forced into cattle cars.
The cars didn't mind.
They were already awake.
The cows didn't mind.
They were too kind besides

They were still in the fields

dreaming the dreams
of horrible, horrible things . . .
like jumping over the moon
and breaking a hoof
when they hit Earth again . . .
or gangs of drunken teenagers
sneaking up from behind
and tipping them over . . . 
The dreams of cows
are far more terrifying than
the ugliest nightmare that
the old man could conjure
up as he fell back
into his normal sleep pattern.
Woodie 11-15-18

Time Keeper November 21, 2018

Poems lost, poems found. Always a surprise when I come across one that still speaks to me, to the writer who wrote it. 

The Time Keeper

I placed what’s left of today

into a nondescript paper bag.

No one on the crowded streets

noticed me gulping down

a bootleg moonlight.

All they knew for sure as I

staggered down the sidewalk,

“He must be damn thirsty,

sucking away on that nasty

old bag as if it was his mother's . . .!”

I've washed my hands of today,

wiped them off onto my dirty blue jeans.

Hard shiny, finger spots appear

on the indigo fabric of my 501s,

creating a rainbow of gray-scum

on both thighs.

No Time left to do much else,

though Time doesn't really exist.

It’s just another fairytale, a myth

conjured up by an insane scientist

with too much String Theory curling

up inside his hairless head.

“Out, out damn knots.”

"I'd rather be dead,”

my father had often said,

"than red on the head."

My mother had fiery red hair

that stretched all the way

to the small of her back.

She passed the gene along to me.

But my age refuses to admit

that once I was a “carrot top.”

I'm not sure why they called me that,

all those drunken friends of my dad's.

Each and every one of them would greet

me with a bourbon stained "Hey,

Carrot Top? How've you been!"

whenever I entered the barroom. 

Each would say it with such

poetic authenticity that I'm sure . . .

Damn, Time . . . again.  

Memory, the Time Keeper.

Nothing matters more to the universe

than the cold, hard facts of memory

resurrected in the dark, right before

I tumble off, away, way down

into that watery grave of dreams.

“The watery grave of a dream.”

Woodie o1-21-17

(rewrites o8-o7-17, 11-2o-18)

Hyde & Hype November 19, 2018

Hyde & Hype

I've taken a pill to put me to sleep,

my blue eyes haven't taken the hint.

A moon stares at me. The sun too

far away to laugh at the joke.

Elm trees get it, the sidewalks

choose to ignore my sleeplessness

they're too busy plotting my demise.

A conspiracy of concrete.

Moreover, I feel rainy in my heart,

a steady drip of wet and glassy.

I feel darkness, cold and clammy,

finding its way through

the many veins that carry

the red river throughout my system.

I hear it, my life,

drowning, one drop at a time,

slithering around the clots

of uneven rust that has

labored for years to kill me.

If I do fall asleep tonight,

I will not dream, not of you,

not of her, not of red hair

dancing on your shoulder

whenever you forced me

to awkwardly "get down."

Some men dance with arms

flailing at the air, some men

merely swing back and forth

like slender trees caught in a breeze.

And some men incase their feelings

in knotted fists stuffed inside pockets.

There's magic in that . . . 

no one knows what I'm hiding.

Woodie o2-18-18

Almost Cut My Hair November 15, 2018

One poem that keeps popping up . . . and I feel compelled to post it. P.S. IF you want to read the poem off the picture, you can "click" on the image and it will enlarge. {smile}

*Almost Cut My Hair

. . . my long hair bothers me . . .

a dirty red symbol of rebellion and—

dare I say it—youth.

Worn-out now, thinned to string now,

slowly evolving, dissolving into a winter,

a winter it will never recover from.

The spring no longer sings to me.

What’s left of it, my hair,

spends far too much time this morning

tickling my nose, and my ears and high diving

off the top of my head into my coffee cup . . .

I must be getting old, or older, or something.

Last thing to go?

The childish addiction for coolness.

These days I favor comfort over fashion,

sweat pants feel more at home

around my expanding waste than blue jeans.

Beards are out, too messy a thing,

a goatee remains but merely as a cover-up

for the saggy skin below my chin . . . chins.

No cause to march for anymore,

to fight and scream for . . . anymore.

Black Lives Matter! White Lives Matter!

It’s all just vacant noise to me ‘cause

matter just doesn’t matter anymore.

The news . . . weary, dreary tabloid vomit

mouthed by trained canaries,

melting one into another . . . short clips

of weeping widows and angry fathers

and store-bought politicians

banging impotent fists against the podium . . .

for as long as the cameras continue to stare at them.

Everyone raging these days, everyone shouts

so loud that the world has gone deaf.

Fingers wagging in the stranger’s face

like a babysitter scolding an unruly dog,

“Bad, doggie! Don’t drag your ass

across the carpet . . . Bad, BAD, doggie!”

Kent State

not even a bloody memory anymore.

The stains wiped clean . . . time . . .

such a diligent, thorough housekeeper.

Where’s Janis, and Jimmy, and David C,

faint echoes now whimpering

from iPods and CDs

or whatever the hell

they call those other damn things.

My past . . . vague glimpses of acid trips

and drunkenness and cigarettes

and girls with flowers in their eyes . . .

Made it through another war

not much different than the wars to come.

I’ll keep my hair long for as long

as it cares to stick around.

Maybe some years from now

I’ll notice it . . . 

“tickling my nose, my ears

and high diving off the top of my head

into my coffee cup . . .”

And I’ll wonder why I never got it cut.

Woodie o9-o6-15 (rewrites 11-15-18)

*Song Almost Cut My Hair 

written by David Crosby

Morning Ditch November 14, 2018

This is new, written in October and worked on for these last couple nights. It's weird how the life "adventures" from way back there in the past pop up into the consciousness and are relived in a bit of insane poetry. Here's one.

Morning Ditch

Where will the morning find you?
Face down perhaps in the naked lap
of a girl whose name you can’t remember?
On your back more than likely
staring into the sun that just arrived,
just in time to revive you

drag you out of a deadly dream, deliver

your breathing corps into the wet reality
of a muddy, grass ditch
right behind the service station
where your car was being fixed.

“Girls, wanna see a dead body?”

The gas-station attendant spoke

with the accent of
an Oklahoma rain drop.

Your ears woke up first

to that snowy sound

giggling girls make.

“Hi,” you smiled at them,

you laughed as they screamed
and ran away when the dead
body opened its bloody mouth.

Woodie 1o-18-18 (rewrites 11-13-18)

Dragon Day November 12, 2018

So, I'm looking through some older files and I find this little dragon poem. Be totally honest, I was looking for another dragon poem when I found this one, and as is usual I really didn't recognize it as being one of mine . . . but it is.

Dragon Day

Waiting on the edge of it

in a cage, in a rage

creating the fire

that will devour him.

His feet, his thoughts

floating like ash, up

towards the ceiling.

A murmur, like a river,

a disturbed sound

bouncing off the wall.

At peace, a ghost wailing.

Woodie o5-o8-2o16, 11-11-18