LAST LESSONS OF THE AFTERNOON

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Didn't send anything 
to your journal this time
didn't send anything to
your contest 
(after winning it last year)
give someone else a chance
I said
but the truth is it's just too much
goddamn trouble 
for little reward

Like a lot of things

Like life
mostly

But you're expecting
a poem 
of course you are
that's why you're here...

So let's not disappoint:

Last lessons of the afternoon
your last drive
I said, this misery must end

The rolling English road
bagpipe music
anthem for doomed youth

Buffalo dusk
full moon
what are years?

Look within
the lost man
not waving 
still drowning

I remember the woman
 at the Washington Zoo
wearing flames and dangling wire 
a kiss in space
a taste
tangerine
Xmas trees
the end of love
going
going
gone

All day it rained 

Fuck you 

TIME WARP IN AISLE # 5

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Moving down the aisle at the
SuperDuper market, a song from
1968 comes on the overhead speakers:
Hi everybody, I'm Archie Bell of The Drells
from Houston Texas...
just as if none of this crazy shit
had taken place in the interim and we
are back to the purity of The Beat.

We don't only sing, but we dance
just as good as we want
just as if this 3 ring circus
hadn't come to town to stay,
and we realized too late we'd
given the ringmaster too much
discretion and now he's wading
into the crowd with the whip
once reserved only for the lions.

But this message from on high
that's washing me in the blood
is as primal as a heartbeat
and the old gal with her cart
that's doubling as a walker
is moving her hips in a way
that tells me to look away

I'VE GOT ANTS IN MY PANTS
LET'S DANCE!

And whether all of this bullshit
falls away one day
or we're in for a dystopian future
that'll make 1984 seem like 
a mere prologue, my permanent escape
through the time warp in aisle # 5
is already booked,
knowing that all must pass
'cept for the one and only thing
that will save us in the end...
THE BEAT!!!

CARRY ON

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads-d'Verse Poets Pub

There are places
in my mind
I just won't go to
as having been there once
is enough for a lifetime

I've no need to relive
every misdeed
or stupid mistake

I'll wait to have all that
read back to me
at the gates
of either heaven
or hell

EULOGY

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

There's a mall just down the road
that's dying 
it's a slow demise
as one by one the shops
are closing up shop
(so where ya gonna shop?)
and a walk down those corridors now
encounters just a few curious soles
making contact with the tiles
and yours truly of course
(cuz I feel so at home in lonely places)

You can say what you want about the malls
but for a long time they served as our surrogate
downtown in the days of urban decay when
nobody wanted the real experience 
too scary
and so we strolled along in air-conditioned
comfort and poked our heads into the shops
and always seemed to run into someone 
we knew (whether we wanted to or not)
and the seniors in their Nikes and jogging outfits
puffing along twice as fast as anyone else
and the smells...oh the smells...
of sinful chocolate delights and sticky buns
and the way they went all out with the
decorations at Christmas time and the 
jolly fat man holding court 
(where the hell you gonna find Santa now?)

It's a lot we're losing and we don't even care

So I just think a eulogy is in order
for the death of brick and mortar
as we gaze glassy-eyed into that screen 
and click add to cart 
and wait for the guy in the brown truck 
to ring the bell
or more likely than not
just dump your package by the gate
cuz he's got lots of rounds to make
and you don't need to greet him
anyways 
cuz after all
it's not like 
he's anybody
you'd be happy
to run into 
at the mall 

HERE COMES THE LUNCH

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Lengthy verse (more than 100 lines or so)
bores me to tears. Just make your
point suckah, and admit that you are
a novelist at heart. And haiku, 
while so tasty and perfect for our
ADD world, is the Chinese 
food of poetry. You're ravenous again 
shortly afterward. So I'm going to 
feed you a light lunch to tide you over. 
Let's see...it's about me (isn't it always?)

I'm wasting away in the bar of a 
hotel (you could call it seedy)
when a woman slides 
onto the stool next to me.
Maybe she's a hooker.
Maybe she isn't. But we end up 
getting a room and afterwards 
as we light the proverbial fags 
(I don't smoke but it's necessary 
to the atmosphere of the story)
we begin sharing details of our 
personal lives and lo and behold 
it turns out that she's my long 
lost sister! I look her square 
in the eye and say that I don't
regret a thing. She says well
she does regret one thing 
and I say what's that and 
she says it's that now you're
prolly not going to pay me!

ONE SILLY QUESTION

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--dVerse Poetry Pub

Did U ever think about why
Officer Smith gets a lavish
send off--a showy parade provided
for by your tax dollars
when he falls in the line of duty?
I do, and I'm not saying he doesn't
deserve the proper respect,
such a risky job...
but then we have Tyrone Smith
over here (no relation)
who was charged with an
equally harrowing task--
that of driving himself to the
store and back without getting
pulled over for not employing his
turn signal, and if he made 
one wrong move 
that could have easily been
curtains for him too--
and ya see Tyrone was just
laid to rest in a pauper's
grave with no fanfare,
no crowds lining the streets
as the cavalcade of motorcycles
files by, and it makes you think--
well maybe not you--
but it makes me wonder about
why that is, and there's no other
reason of course than
authority must have its due...
authority must always have its due. 
 
   

SOLITUDE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Those who love
fiercely and
strongly
often find themselves
wrongly 
wronged
or so it may seem
as opposed to those who
settle
for what presents itself
as a long-term solution
to solitude
which one who loves 
fiercely
eventually learns
is the long-term solution 
to 
two 
(many) wrongs
not making a right 

REQUIEM FOR THE LAST NORMAL MAN

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

1.

I've taken to writing my grocery lists
on the backs of my business cards
(I make better use of them that way)
and if I should happen to forget
and hand one out
at least the recipient knows the answer 
to the age-old question of
What's for dinner?

And how one longs for the days when
the man in aisle 5 talking to himself
was just your garden variety crazy
person and not some pussy-whipped
hubby taking orders from headquarters or
some Russian spy 
reporting to the White House

2.

The highest office 
for sale
to the lowest bidder 
while Joe Six-Pack grows so 
pious
worshiping flags
he's lost sight of the 
Grand Poobah
who transcends all this tribalism 

but even God knows
He's less sacred than
profane

3.

We gather by the river...

we're not praying
we're just wading in
and peeing 


4.

There's another kind of pollution
it is of the mind
it's seeped into the water supply
it's in the drinking water
it makes you paranoid 
to the point of nothing and
no one can be trusted
not even your own 

mom
you strongly suspect she's a
crisis actor on her days off
from the waffle house

the next stop for you is 
The Walking Dead


5.

I will admit it's getting
harder to identify
the good guys
it used to be so easy
they were the ones with
the white hats

6.

There's a deranged man
who shambles down my street
in the mornings
muttering
Take that shit to Valhalla!
while tugging on his crotch 

I feel that he's in contact
with unseen spirits
who know exactly what he's
talking about
but as for me
I wrack my brain daily
sifting through possible meanings

I know one day
that same flash of illumination
will arrive for me
being fully aware
that to get there
I'll have to follow
in his footsteps 

EXHIBIT "A"

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

And if your life starts out
Like crap
There's no need to panic
Cuz you can hit your stride
A little farther 
Down the line

I'm Exhibit A...

But if your song starts out
Like crap
Like some rap crap
That ain't got no melody
That can only find the beat
But not the beauty 
Then I'm outta here
Cuz that same ol' song and dance
Won't cut it 
Lessin' you're MJ resurrected
On a Sunday morning
Doin' the moonwalk 
On this planet badly in need of a miracle
Or Rita Hayworth in that silky black
Excuse for a dress 
Running like a watercolor in the rain 
Or even Eddie Money wailin'
If I Could Walk On Water 

Could use that miracle now
You betcha

Keepin' the spirit alive
And holdin' on 

WHEN IN ROME

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--dVerse Poets Pub

You bloated pig
wallowing in the ooze
of your own excess
while that anthem rings
hollow
through every coliseum  
across the land
so morbidly obese
you can't even stand for it
in decent fashion anymore
that's alright
don't bother
cuz  you've already shat upon
all you once held dear
(let's start with the word integrity)
but traded for a seat at the circus
clowns to the left
jokers to the right
hope you like 
the freak show

bread and circuses
for the (m)asses