RHETORICAL QUESTION

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

And so I ask myself

why THESE people

knowing it's a rhetorical question

there never being enough time

to subject the whims and wiles

of fate to psychoanalysis

Yet even the most callous

among us surveying this devastation

would surely give pause to reflect

Why THESE people?

These humble people

these salt of the earth people

raising families

making ends meet

one way or t'other

filling the churches to capacity

on Sunday mornings

And every year

it's the same deadly fury

touching down from the sky

like the fingers of God

so beautiful in its own horrific way

And yet

survivors

not cursing the dawn

just feeling thankful

to be alive

their faith undiminished

unshaken

in the terrible awe-filled light

of morning

Yes they could leave

but their roots grow deep

in the earth and the soil

the seeds of their destiny

sown at an early age

Not like me

the kid who grew up among them

who heard the siren songs calling

on distant radio stations

deep into the night

the kid who was always going to leave

who nonetheless

never forgot

where he came from

So maybe you can understand

when I bow my head

and ask why THESE people?

These stoic people

these turn the other cheek people

these do with me what you will O' Lord people

Already contemplating the rebuilding work ahead

Just another of life's puzzles

I guess

the jigsaw pieces scattered

like the haphazard wreckage of their lives

ANOTHER DAY

Ambrosius Bosschaert

"Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge"

courtesy: lacma.org

Poetry Potluck

June 5, 2011

One Shot Wednesday

Delia awakes in a dream

in which a flower vase

teetering on a lofty ledge

uses every ounce of free will

to either cling to what is known

or take the plunge--

the roses in the vase more alive

than the people below who shuffle along

in a dream

of a dream

of life

In the street

a naked sumo wrestler

drives by in a tiny golf cart

and pinches the bottoms

of unsuspecting shoppers--

too smug to acknowledgethat they have felt something--

while two midgets

unbeknownst to each other

walk on stilts concealed beneath their clothes

blending in with the crowd

When the midgets meet

each smirks into the face of the other

automatically assuming the other

to be someone with nothing to hide

While high upon the ledge

the wind

like the voice of God

whispers to the flowers in the vase

that teeters on the brink

From nearby windows the random sounds

of conversation are heard:

End of the world ain't no excuse not

to take out the garbage, ya lazy bum...

And then:

Did you see that woman Arnold slept with?

Any port in a storm, I guess..

And then:

I'll show you the end of YOUR world--

see my fist?

And then:

Yeah, but that was only after Maria said

GIT OFFA ME, YOU BIG TUB O' GOO!

And then:

All these years we worshiped Lance

and now it comes out he's just another cheater...

And then:

Did you see Britney's butt on TV?

damn thing is HUGE!

And then:

Ah STILL don't believe that's the real birth certificate...

And then

having heard enough

the vase that teeters on the edge

relinquishes its lofty perch

to descend into a world where people

walk along in a dream

of a dream

of life...

about to experience a momentary awakening

THIEF OF MOMENTS

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

June 7, 2011

Beware the Thief Of Moments

for although I am near you

in a casual way

you will not suspect

that I have come to rob you

of your secrets

just to hold a piece of your essence

next to my heart

Shagging what you toss to the wind

as you stroll through the park with your lover

the random bits of conversation

you feed each other

like morsels from a picnic lunch

become my sustenance

tormented by this inexplicable need

I must devour your words

so that I may live

Did you ever hear about

the ice cream wars in Montana?

The guys who ride around in trucks

peddling frozen delights

while the music blares from their speakers

the competition is so fierce

they try to horn in on each other's territory

sometimes one chases the other down the street

trying to shoot his tires out

while the children watch

and the music plays merrily on

I lifted that from a couple guys

at the gas pumps

they were filling their tanks

and unwittingly

filling mine as well

A young blonde

no more than seventeen

beautiful

with that girl-next-door look

sitting with her friends at the mall

I walk by and hear her say

I know it was a hazing

but bamboo shoots up my bum?

That was a tiny lunch

but strangely satisfying

In a department store

a woman clings to her shopping cart

for support

something is wrong with her foot

I can't walk on it honey

she says to her husband

I can't walk on it

There is a silence

Then STAND on it

comes his icy reply

This leaves a bitter taste in my mouth

but it is sustenance just the same

I am the Thief Of Moments

and I must devour your words

so that I may live

A moment

once shared

becomes a conspiracy

the accomplices like revolutionaries

plotting in the torch light

of underground chambers

I am the spy in your midst

You will never know of my betrayal

until it appears in a poem somewhere

A moment is such a long time

when it lives forever

POETS UNITED !

HEY KIDS !

There is an interview with me over at the Poets United site!

If you've ever wanted to learn about what makes Timoteo tick, click on the link and check it out.

Many thanks to Sherry Blue Sky for her amazing work on this!

SENRYU STEW # 4

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

actress photographed

without makeup--

right cross to the jaw

miniskirts so short

these days--

midgets get their kicks

watchin' those old movies

drinkin' some beers...

Can Film Festival

MOST MEN IN AMERICA

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

Outside my window

the raven calls

to follow him again

as in that kingdom far away

in a time when hoods

of muslin saved our sight

from the the diamond in his eye

that blazed like a thousand suns

And wasn't it you

who told me that love

is like a banana

you've got to peel

away the facade

And wasn't it you I saw

seething inside your skin

at the Metropolitan Opera

grunting like a pig

when the fat lady sang

hooting from the balcony

like a Portuguese pimp

a break with tradition to be sure

running amuck till they pinned you down

inside the ladies room

tempest in a pisspot

And isn't that

Miz Chauncey Lee Lamour

sitting right over there

sucking on her

mint julep

trading tales

of the good ol' days

when men were men

and women were horses

and GIDDYUP OL' PAINT

was the prelude to a kiss

her entourage

of the rouged and the wrinkled

hanging on her every word

well aware that

most men in America

in this year of the locust

in this decade of the plague

would rather be sniffing

through the long abandoned

ruins of an old haunt

than to give up the ghost

to your baby-faced whore

And now my old friend the raven

has moved to Baltimore

where he works as a squeegie man

on certain odd numbered holidays

and plays the guitar

with Eric Clapton

and sometimes Charlie Byrd

while all the sweet young things chant

GO CAT GO!

GO CAT GO!

But well you know

that the whole world's a stage

that you're going through

just to get to someplace else

and though they stomp and shout

for another encore

quoth the raven: AINT NO MORE !

It was a lively time

says Miz Chauncey Lee Lamour

well aware that most men in America

take their pants off one leg at a time

all grist for a story of some kind

and you know dahling

you really should write it

LAZY AFTERNOON

The century plants in the yard look like they're dead. They've surprised me before, though, kicking back to life after a couple of good rains. This whole desert city is going to look pretty dead before long too, as we hunker down into air conditioned isolation for the long summer siege. (We spend too much of our lives encased in concrete, and it makes us hard.)

The breeze is blowing in through the window, billowing the curtain into a kind of open parachute. The wind chimes ring off a couple of notes and fall silent again. It's a lazy afternoon.

It's nice to sit here and not think about things like Afghanistan, or the fist-pumping crowd outside the gates of the White House, celebrating someone's brutal death. I don't care which side you're on, repeating the bloody cycle of an-eye-for-an-eye down through the ages doesn't appear to be a strategy that is going to win your enemies over to your side--take the Israelis and the Palestinians for an ongoing example.

I've often wondered what if would be like to NEVER read the newspaper or hear the radio and TV news. You know, life goes on--the day to day part of it that we see first hand--pretty much the same as always. We talk to our friends, wash the car, sit on the toilet (or sit on our friends and talk to the toilet). The rest of it is just mind games. The news is designed to provide us with a daily dose of anxiety--a modern day Scheherazade that keeps us on the edges of our seats, waiting for the next episode.

Now there's this 2012 thing--what delightful suspense! December 21st, 2012 is the date the Mayan calendar apparently predicts that the world will go POOF. Many will hold their breath at the stroke of midnight--just like we did with Y2K. Some will undoubtedly sell all their possessions (what will they need the money for?) and head for the mountain tops, awaiting the rapture. The day will go by, just like every other day, and those folks will head back down--red faced--with just bare floors to sleep on. Meanwhile, those "primitive" tribes in New Guinea ain't gonna miss a beat, cuz they're oblivious to it all anyway.

So by now you may be wondering what's the point of these ramblings--where's he taking me and am I going to like it? Well, what's the real point to life? Where's it taking us and are we gonna like it?

We want desperately to like it--those of us who've decided to "keep the faith" and hang in there for the duration of this go-round. We give it the benefit of the doubt--maybe more than it deserves--because we're caught up in it. Fascinated. Spellbound. Addicted. We want to stay for the play. The journey out--into manifestation--and the journey back to Source. So we keep coming back. I think our spirits know that it's not all going to be a bed of roses when we sign on, before the amnesia sets in, (and in that sense we may all be astonishingly brave) but it's those selected moments of what Maslow called peak experience, I think, that give us the notion that it all might be worth it.

And maybe that's the best we can expect. Isolated moments of frisson when we feel like we could grab Arnold Schwarzenegger by his fat neck and swing him around like he's Mister Rogers; moments when we've got a room at the top of the world and we ain't comin' down; moments that by all rights should last forever--though we know they won't.

But they last just long enough to keep us coming back.

And maybe even moments like this will do. Moments when the wind is just husky enough to tickle the chimes...and I ain't too concerned about nuthin'.

T