2019 January 01, 2019

Wow. First poem of a new year. I have actually two of them. I wrote this one starting around 11:00pm and thought it was weird enough to be the first poem of the year. So, hope you all had a Happy New Year's evening.

2019

Five and a half hours from now

the world will change, becoming

one year older than it is right now,

rat cheer in this brief but palatable

bat of a god’s-eye moment.

Drinking there’ll be and wild-foot

dancing on a hardwood sprung floor.

In the old days, the Old West days,

they covered the barroom floor

with a thin layer of fine sawdust.
It protected the floors from blood stains

obtained during drunken fist fights,

random stabbings, the occasional

quickdraw. Of course, all the above

could happen in any Oklahoma bar

tonight, even worse could happen tonight!

I’d like to propose a New Year’s resolution

for all of us. Let’s make next year, 2019,

let’s make this year that is now upon us,

let’s make it a murder free year.

Okay, maybe I’m asking too much from

the “civilized” country that believes all

grievances and wrong doings can be settled

fairly and justly by a shootout in a parking lot,

or movie theatre, or a grade school building

filled with a bunch of snot-nosed kids.

So, let’s just make this easy on everybody.

How about just tonight, tonight and tomorrow,

leave the gun at home. Just for one night and 

a day. Just one day let’s try no to kill each other.

Happy New Year!

Woodie o1-o1-19

I December 02, 2018

A very old picture with a new poem. I gotta get back in writing shape for the new year  Make me one of those resolution to write every day, write at least 1-3 poems a day. And get ready to publish that damn book that I keep telling myself I am going to get published.

I

I took the time to analyze

the tiny, empty hollow

right below my right eye.

A stoic spot, not a lot

going on there, not

much but a few light

wrinkles weaving their way

across the vast land mass

of my ever-aging flesh, which

laughingly calls itself my face.

Woodie 12-o2-18

Night Comes 3:41 am November 30, 2018

You know, I only have one more month before we are in 2o19! That means I need to write new poetry for a whole New Year. Hope I'm up for it. P.S. Remember, if you can't read the poetry on the art piece, click the pic and it will get larger.

Night Comes 3:41 am

I can feel time passing through me.

My bones argue, shake their fists

at the injustice, the pain time lays

on them. Even my skin won’t accept

the wrinkles, the natural scaring of time’s

stiletto blade as its years cut through

the blood vessels of what was once 

a youthful face.  My consciousness

is reasonable, though. The mind chooses

to be philosophical about it all. But late

at night when I’m falling away inside

a dream, my soul cries out, the unfairness

of time’s hold on the body, the heart.

Unfair that we, we human things

should shrink and slowly fade away

back to the grave from which we sprang.

Woodie 11-1o-17 (rewrites11-29-18)

Reflections November 29, 2018

I've got this collection of ideas, phrases, half written poems that it just put aside to work on later. There's no time stamp on when the originals were written down. Some may go back as far as 4-5 years ago. It's kind of fun to revisit these bits and pieces and work on making each one a "complete" poem.

Reflections

Beyond sight, beyond the fragile veil

where thought haunts consciousness.

That's where my Self lives, forever

perplexed by its own existence.

One day a child, the next an old man

who can barely remember his own name.

Asphalt roads, the wooded trail

where autumn leaves go to die

at the hands of solemn crows.

The memories gather 'round

an empty grave so dark, so black

the bottom can't be seen.

That's where I live most days, these days.

Staring at the reflection

hovering in the window glass,

trying desperately to remember

what the hell I look like.

Woodie 11-28-18

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)