BLUE SUEDE

https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/

The polished night
obsidian
shelters you in its cocoon
your perfect spot to stay put
and ruminate
until the dawn

You cannot remember
what is holding
America together--
some long lost ideal
of ultimate rightness
and robust potential 
perhaps
as seen (or constructed)
in Whitman's mind's eye

The young greeter wearing
the mask at the market
says you always wear 
the coolest shoes when
you come in...

You look down... 
Oh, those are my 
Blue Suede Shoes!

You are startled 
that a pleasant someone
barely on your radar before 
has taken note of you
when most who once bore
the heavy burden of 
significant other
surely haven't given you 
a thought in decades

 A reason to hold on
at least one more day
you say

Just to see what will happen
to America
caught up in an Agatha Christie
whodunit 
where you think you know
who's the bad guy
but do you really...
in a world where all the players
are complicit in the murder?

RED WATER, BRONZE WORDS

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

The road is just more geology
we kick up pale dust that hangs
peels back to the left
northbound lane
a hawk circles low

America 
I sometimes wish
you would remember me
under the glitter
on frozen moss and snow
the wet seasons
red water
bronze words
new shoots of spring wheat

I have enough despair for two people

A voice calls me to the river

When you see my reflection
in the dewdrops 
on the heather
you'll know that I have returned

POOP SOUP

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

An oldie but goodie! When I read something from a few years back (that YOU probably haven't seen) and I'm cracking myself up again, I say: This one deserves another turn in the spotlight!


ONE

I see...

a home

where the buffalo roam

no more

I see...

a land stained

by the blood

of conquest

I see...

a gypsy palm reader

spitting on your hand--

you spit in her face

I see...

you at the theatre

with your head buried

in your iPhone

for most of the movie

but anyone can see

it's really up your butt

I see...

you incurring substantial debt

for the purchase of material items

that the recipient will neither welcome

nor appreciate

and that is called The Holidays

I see...

You being trampled to death

at a large department store

on Black Friday

TWO

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned...

I wore white after Labor Day

it was kind of an off-white

so I thought it might be alright

no one in my ghetto

seemed to care

Such pretense

when our prehensile tails

are not that far removed

clackety-clack

don't look back

And now Ladies and gentlewomen

here to sing a medley of his most DEPRESSING hits,

the ever maudlin... JOSH GROBAN!

(song playing)

Announcer: We interrupt this song to bring you a news flash...a young woman, listening to our station, has just jumped off her 16th story balcony!

happy

sad

happy

sad

happy happy

sad sad

happyhappyhappy

sadsadsad

the world is bi-polar

(That's north and south, for you geography majors!)

hum dee dum

ya lousy bum

THREE

1st man: Hello, my name is Fu Chow.

2nd man: Pleased to meet you. My name is Egg Foo Yong.

1st man: Yes, I have heard of you...people say that you are a good Egg.

And now, the new craze that's sweeping the nation...SAINT VITUS DANCE!

Round and around

and around and around

and around we go

Take your anti-depressants,

America,

but don't forget the increased

risk of suicide...

EXCUSE ME

but hasn't anyone noticed

that's the exact OPPOSITE

of the intended effect?

Looking for the quick fix

has put us in quite a fix

(Spit on the drug addict

while deluding yourself

that your chain smoking

isn't the exact same thing)

You're listening to Radio KSUK...all Josh Groban--ALL the time...that's right, America, we're JOSHING you 24 hours a day!

(song playing)

We interrupt this song to bring you a special news bulletin...no basketball players were charged with killing any hookers today...

And you wonder why

you have A.D.D.

America,

when there's a commercial

break

every five minutes

Capitalism could have worked

were it not for the

inherent

incessant

need for MORE MORE MORE

built into the human psyche

So go ahead and anoint

your sports teams

as WORLD champions

when no outside teams participated...

You will always be the Earth

that the sun revolves around

until it draws close enough

to consume you in its fire

THIS MIND LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK

AMERICA

Imainary Garden With Real Toads--dVerse Poets Pub

Over at da Wally store
da peeps dey waddle in
an' den dey waddle out
an' dat just de employees
cuz everybody fat
in America
fatter den me big fat cat
in America

everybody eat good
in America
compare to where me come from
where many say: "Food? What is dat?"

in America me see dis guy on tv
he cram down seventy hot dogs
just to set some kind of record
yeah, me REALLY see dat

where me come from
dey would call dat obscene

but it okay in America
where all da fat cats be gettin' fatter
fatter den me big fat cat
in America

don't get me wrong, friend
me mean no disrespect
cuz you are da new normal
an' me just a skinny guy
who feel like he don't fit in

wish me had some meat
on me bones like dat
cuz den me could wear all black
an' turn me baseball cap around on me head

maybe if me stuffs down
seventy hot dogs
each an' every day

ugh...urrrrrrp...

'scuse me, friend
but me feelin' sick now 
sicker den me big fat cat
barfin' on da carpet
he say dat's what all da cool cats do
in America

FISH IN A BARREL

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--dversepoets.com

You remember the wild west
where everybody was a gunslinger
and when the bad guys came to town
an armed citizenry had some
recourse to deal with 'em

I had a vision
of a new America
much like the old America
where east is west
and west is west
in the new wild west

Where pistol packin' mamas
are toting something more than lipstick
and Tic Tacs in their bag--
and they know how to use it

Cuz a shootout
is better than a massacre
any day
pardner

Or would you rather be fish in a barrel?

You know as well as I
that day is comin'
there'll be no more debate
just a throwback to a simpler time
when men were men
and women were Miss Kitty
and the cathouse
is right down the street

So sidle up to the bar, boys
and get yer whiskey
and learn how to down it
in one swallow

Cuz a shootout is better
than a massacre
any day
pardner

Or would you rather be fish in a barrel?

I had a vision of a new America
where necessity
becomes the mother of invention

Where zombies roam among the populace
programmed for apocalypse
(they're already here)
and they have to be taken out
you've seen the movie--
we gotta take 'em out

Cuz a shootout is better
than a massacre
any day
pardner

Or would you STILL just rather be fish in a barrel???

 

THIS POEM (inspired by the debt crisis, the economy, war, rampant paranoia and...you name it.)

This is not your father's poem

we must admit it's true...

this poem belches at the dinner table

picks its nose at the opera

and passes gas in church...PEW!

This poem is a nasty little bugger that will sneak a peek up your dress

or bite you on the rear if you don't stand clear.

This poem stepped on a crack and broke your mother's back.

This poem wants you to wear your stiletto heels and give its ass a whack.

This poem doesn't give a damn if you're black or if you're white.

This poem IS black...this poem IS white.

This poem don't care if you're gay or if you're straight.

This poem IS pretty gay...and this poem WILL set you straight.

This poem needs no critique,

nor will it ever appear in some anal-retentive academic journal.

This poem possesses no mystique,

but its heart is pure and its message eternal.

This poem don't care about what's "PC" or what isn't...

This poem is free to sing My Country 'Tis of Thee...or 'tisn't.

This poem makes no apology to any lace-panty wearing pantywaists

who may be offended by words--

who believe that speech should be free

only when they agree.

This poem don't cotton to no flag waving love-it-or-leave-it hypocrites

who tell us we should love the symbol more

than what the symbol stands for.

(Do you KNOW what it stands for?)

This poem believes that life, liberty, and the pursuit of "hap"

is being threatened by the whiners and all of their crap.

This poem knows that our minds have been brainwashed

by those whose misdeeds have been whitewashed

until everything we believe is hogwash.

This poem advises you to murder your television.

This poem has had a hell of a vision

that your television is out to murder you.

This poem wants us to get our heads together--

this poem wants us to get our shit together,

but this poem doubts whether SHITHEADS can ever get it together!

This poem is bi-coastal.

This poem went postal.

This poem is headed for a fall...

this poem banged its head against the wall

and passed out in the toilet stall.

This poem is a celebration of what America once thought she could be...

and a requiem for what she has become.

This poem is done.

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