ALONG FOR THE RIDE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

This ship is sinking fast

women and Chaldeans

into the lifeboats!

Lucky for me 
the Evil Jungle Princess

is along for the ride
oozing poetry

from every pore

mischievously cryptic

grin inducing
a morbid fixation

(like Jackson Browne)

with lawyers in love

the wayward 

esoteric word

dropping out of the blue

and landing where you'd least expect 

like a North Korean missile 

gone wonky into the sea  

Look it up, peasants!

I can hear her say

Turning pit bosses
from pit bulls
into puppy dogs
the Princess floats 
through the crowd

Roulette as a spectator sport
is infinitely more economical
the house advantage 
reduced to zilch 
the grizzled veterans 
laying it on the line
grimace and groan
as The Princess calls out
psychically selected numbers
from the sidelines 
too early in the game for money
where your mouth is but not for
wild thing...I think you MOVE me!

And yes he's likely crazy

we agreed
but it makes for some intriguing times

as everything he throws up

as a distraction

merely results in another

call to action 

though I've tried to stay

above the fray

in my detached and graceful way

for if Nietzche is right

and we live the exact same life

over and over

then I'm for grinnin'

toastin'
and singin'

let that wheel spin round
just one more time!

A FITTING END

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

I wasn't born into sin.
I created that for myself
and had a damn good time at it,
thank you.

Oh, you'll be happy to learn
that here--the Las Vegas
of the solar system
(if not the galaxy)-- 
what happens on earth
stays on earth.

So 'ave at it boys and girls--
everything's permitted.
How do I know?
Because it exists!

HA!

And to think at one time
I wanted to be a squid farmer.
So maybe I missed my calling
but in my present role of
guru/ philosopher and Certified
Bra Fitter, I can serve the world
on dual levels.

A fragment in time
becomes a fragment
in your poem.
String enough fragments together
and voila!
The question being should there be
a unifying thread?

Is there a unifying thread
that runs through your shirt?
(That's some nice threads, man!)


Einstein looked and looked
for a unified theory of the universe.
He never found it.

So my advice to you is to
go out there and be the best
squid farmer you can be.
And leave these larger questions 
of life to us professionals.

And I do hope you'll come
 in for a fitting soon.

NO THOUGHT WENT INTO THE MAKING OF THIS POEM

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I have been able to successfully
live in the moment for up to

30 seconds at a time
you just push every thought

out of your mind
it becomes blank like

the page I'm writing this on
before I fill it up

you become keenly aware of
sounds at that point

the sounds you normally block out
with your monkey mind

going a mile a second
push it past the half-minute 

mark and congrats...
you are a zen master!

thoughts are insidious
even when you don't think

you are thinking
you are thinking about

not thinking 
and all manner of things 

like a poem you are thinking of writing
about not thinking

and I tried so not to think while writing this 
and I do think it shows

HUMONGOUS BURNT SIENNA TURD

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--dVerse Poets Pub

How sadly festive is the geriatric pensione!
Does the pensione make you shiver?
Does it?

I saw the seaside sentinels
Of my generation fall.
How I mourned the old hotel.
How I mourned our breezy apartment
Overlooking the shoreline slum.
It makes me shiver now.

The pensione smells 
On account of old farts
Blasting off farts.

The cafe is a pig trough.
Down down down 
Into the bowels they waddle
The chubby, the oily, the endomorphic.

I saw the flavor of my island destroyed.
Are you upset by how 
greasy the food is now
and how it all tastes like McShitburger?
Does it tear you apart to see
the once proud resort
pulled under by a tsunami of salami?

A humongous
Burnt sienna turd?

The winds blew through
But they didn't erase the memories.
So blow out the candles
Another year has passed.
The die is cast.

The pensione awaits.