US

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Play it as it lays
no need to cheat cuz 
in the end you'll want to say
 that you won it
or lost it 
fair and square.

There is a little word called
integrity 
that has gotten lost
under tons of smelly manure
spewing out the wrong end 
of the equine these days
(mouth instead of rectum)
and that makes a horse's
ass out of many of us.

What is winning 
going to gain you
you self-serving twit
when you lose your
soul in the process
and reincarnate as a
dung beetle
eating shit for the rest
of your days instead
of serving it up?


Like the rhino who can
only see 15 feet 
in front of his face
we're all a little 
short-sighted that way.

We'll deal with the consequences
of whatever that is up ahead later
right now just put your 
head down and charge!

If karma exists
then I'll see you 'round
the old dung pile
in just a little while. 

COSMIC JOKE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

An encore presentation that speaks to our times

The point
is not to point out
this injustice
or that
and rail
and wail
and flail
or send those angry missives
through the mail
have at it if it floats your
rubber ducky
if it makes you feel better
 to care
just be aware
that injustice is EVERYWHERE
you haven't been singled out
(snort some o' this up your snout)
be a fundamentalist
if it turns your crank
let the preacher take
your money to the bank
you're still missing
the fundamental point
that this world we've created
you and me
is a topsy-turvy
absurdity
a game one can only win
if not taken seriously
that sounds like a contradiction
(now you're getting warm)
you don't react to absurdity
you don't respond to insanity
with a jerk of the knee
just laugh along
with the other inmates
of the asylum
who've discovered the
cosmic joke
play the game
for all you're worth
but don't take a life
or give your life
(settle down with your wife)
this cheaply
alone in your room at night
putting together that explosive device
and when you've blown yourself
the hell off the planet
and your soul is streaking
back to that place of
clarity and light
you'll say oh you
stupid
silly
sonofabitch
you fell for it again
and all because
you missed the point
of the game
which is simply to remember
that you're playing one
and that later on we'll all have
a good laugh together
and go back
Jack
and do it again

SERIOUSLY THINKING

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

While in search of
an emergency men's room
in the park
I passed a crow
just standing in the grass
paying no real attention
to me as I came within
a few (crow's) feet of him
and I thought for the first time
that it might not be so bad to 
come back as a crow
ya know
or maybe a starling
darling
just hangin' out in the park
scavenging for crumbs or popcorn
people drop
to supplement my usual
grasshoppers, grubs, and worms
and the occasional roadkill delicacy
my motto would be
Keep Calm And Carrion
I mean what's so great about being human 
anyway
as a lot of us really aren't anymore
and I wouldn't have to go to school
(that's why I wouldn't want to be a fish)
wouldn't sing no sad songs
'bout some fickle chick
who flew the coop
cuz we would mate for life
wouldn't have a buncha mouths to feed
for 18 years
cuz when they get their wings
they gonna fly
(bye)
yeah it might not be so bad
hangin round the supermarket
parking lot and givin y'all the evil eye
and I
wouldn't worry 'bout shit
but you would
as I glide indigo through the sky
like a stealth bomber
silent but deadly
ready
to drop its payload
right on toppa yo wittle head

REINCARNATION

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



Don't want to be no baby again

Don't want to be a cranky little
poop factory
lettin' poor ol' mom & dad
hear about it at all times
of the day and night
what a healthy set of lungs!




Keepin' the diaper makers
rollin' in dough while I'm
rollin' in my own...

OH
don't want to think about it 
I will have none of this
do you hear me?

HEY
quit scrubbin' my little thingy
all the time
ain't  a person got any privacy
in this joint? 

Then later in my high chair
picking up my bowl of oatmeal
and dumping it over my head

And going back to school
OH PLEASE 
not SCHOOL again
I already know how to read and write
damn you
just can't seem to remember how that works now
but can't you see I'm a poet
by that wild and desperate look in my eye?
just give me the benefit of the doubt
"Teach"

OH NO
get those math problems away from me!

I can put two and two
together
and I know what you're up to
gonna make me a productive
member of society
observing all the rules
 fitting in 
and going with the flow
just to be like all the rest
who don't want to know

OH 
Jesus
don't want to be no baby
again 
baby
but the wheel turns 
round and round
so probably gonna be
yeah
probably gonna be

Shit

ATTACHMENTS

Friday Poetry Fest

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poetry Pub

Not the kind that come

with your sewing machine

or your vacuum cleaner

but the ones that keep us coming

back to this dubious place

for another merry chase...

love

hate

money

sex

power

food

fame

shame

the love of the game

gambling

rambling

murder

(like a cattle herder)

booze

dope

greed

people

iPads

(EGADS!)

words

perversion

any old diversion

Hypnotized like sleepwalkers

we follow our nose

see how it goes

take off our clothes

any way the wind blows

gleefully ignoring the spectre of karma

So simple

the way Wernher Von Braun put it

For every action

there is an equal but opposite

reaction

Don't need to be a rocket scientist

to get that one

You don't learn to share

what the hell do you care

but you think you're immune

let's go to the ball

and pretend that midnight's pumpkin

isn't waiting down the hall

the unmitigated balls

to think you'll get away with it scot free

now you're hanging from a tree

If the definition of insanity

is doing the same shit repeatedly

while expecting a different outcome

(I'm as guilty of that as any

not like the few

just like the many)

then we are all crazy

to be coming back here and thinking

THIS time

it will be a cakewalk

You know

Fonzie

duality guarantees

that there will always be

heartache

along with happy daze

the more we cling and grasp

the more our grasp is exceeded

Taken away

taken away

To the land of Nevermore

So quick

find a replacement

a sub

a stand-in

a hero coming off the bench

to save the day

isn't that the way

it's always going to go

until finally

at long last

(have you no shame)

we get tired of this game?

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