SENRYU STEW # 3

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

penguins

see the world

as black and white

expanded sports coverage

on the 10 o'clock news...

bingo highlights

Death

has been outlawed in France--

won't give up his burka

BLUE MONTANA

Poetry Potluck
One Shot Wednesday

Marie sits in a bar called Blue Montana and plays a song on the jukebox titled "Tomorrow Is Just Another Ache In My Heart." Cowboys amble over like the lazy August wind and ask her to dance. She looks each of them hard in the eye--but only for a moment until she is sure--then politely declines.

Lately, when they hit on her, she takes a new tack. "I'M NOT OF THIS WORLD," she says, with no further explanation. Most of them will stand there for a moment, as if trying to grasp the significance of such a statement, then totter away.

Jimmy, the owner, stands watch over her and tells tales of bygone days up north, where the sky follows along like a gun riding on your hip. Above the bar sits a picture of a horse. A roan mare named Sunshine. Jimmy's one true love. She wandered off one big sky morning, and though he searched for days, it was like some giant spaceship had come along and spirited her away. In his dreams he still sees her, running free beside a rippling stream, and he wonders if it's just possible...

But it's been years now.

Jimmy doesn't have a lot to do with women anymore. Says they're as fickle as that mare, maybe more so...'cept for Marie, of course. Talk gets around. The cowboys think she's a little tetched, so they mostly leave her alone now. Which is fine with Jimmy. He's the only one who knows her real story. Eastern city gal who came out west and fell for a drifter who let her down hard. Now she sits in Blue Montana , playing the sad songs and bending his sympathetic ear.

They are together...and they are alone. As those who grieve are alone together.

But she likes watching Jimmy move, and sometimes a primitive kind of feeling comes over her and she gets the urge to nuzzle...but why does she think of it that way? That word.

And though she will not yet fess up to it, Jimmy feels that she is slowly becoming of THIS world. His world. And he will tame her--slowly building her trust until she is eating out of his palm. Someday, she will shed the blanket of her pain and come out whole again.

And he will be there.

But now, the sun is dropping and she is headed home. She stops in the doorway--her chestnut mane suffused with the soft fire of twilight, and says, "Tomorrow...is just another ache in my heart."

photo by Timoteo

SENRYU STEW # 2

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

cat sleeping

on the TV remote--

searched for it all day

air traffic controller

asleep at the switch...

in his dream he's flying

the royal wedding

is such a bore

I'll enjoy the royal divorce much more

NEVER

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

I never thought it would come to this...

After happy days and high school plays

Willie Mays and back seat lays

Shadrack Horshak Abednego

and Zeke The Talking Raccoon

after the wheels in my head that wouldn't stop spinning

like a record going round

they wouldn't stop spinning

after getting starstruck

after getting struck by stardom

after I stepped up to the plate

after I stepped up to the mike

after the groupies that hung around

black white and brown

who thought I was something

that I was but wasn't

after all the times I was alone

when I thought that I wasn't

after the receptionist turned pale

and told me I looked like her deceased husband

after I rolled over

played dead

and fetched his bedroom slippers

and tried to fill them

after taking the boss's wife to Mexico on a lark

after gassing up at Texaco and peeing in the park

after the drunks and the skunks and the punks

after the first of the Mohicans

and last of the Puerto Ricans

after Woodstock and Plymouth Rock

after the monkeys and the junkies and the flunkies

after the freaks and the Greeks and the geeks

after golden showers and happy hours

I never thought it would come to this...

After my guru told me that life

is like trying to piss on your shadow

while doing the Macarena

(an Indian guru if you believed all the buzz

though an Indiana guru in fact he was)

after all the rejection in my search for perfection

finding Cinderella's glass slipper

and the hobnail boot she planted up my butt

After the good Samaritan veterinarian in Mexico City

yanked her Levis down to her ankles

and shot his wad in a shotgun blast that peppered us both

as we lay there in a stupor

AND THAT'S WHY I'LL NEVER DRINK TEQUILA AGAIN !!!

After casually tossing the condom that had served its purpose

out the hotel room window in Managua

hearing it splat onto the sidewalk

and someone shouting: AVE MARIA !

I never thought it would come to this...

After all the false starts and missed connections

and what ifs and what the fugs

after to give as good as you git

is to no longer give a shit

after all the days and nights

in the prison of my own desire

all the bittersweet days I remember

in an updated and romanticized version of life

the images colliding like sub-atomic particles

as a thousand million bursting stars

explode in a never ending climax

expanding ever farther into the reaches of space

I never thought it would come to this...

Face to face

at this moment

in this place...

and neither did you

TIMOTEO'S SENRYU STEW (eat slowly...and savor)

One Shot Wednesday

hacking up a hairball

onto the carpet--

cat licks himself again

beauty contestant stumbles

regains composure--

expletive deleted

coyotes howl

pampered pooches chime in...

call of the wild

Poetry Potluck

cactus needles

in my butt--

splinter group

taco stand

tasty burritos ...

off to find some Beano

she gives enemas

for a living--

bottoms up

AND THAT WAS THAT

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

Whatever happened to hot apple pies

cooling on the window sill,

Norman Rockwell calendars,

and long romantic walks in the park?

And whatever happened to Ozzie and Harriet,

holding hands,

and hula hoops?

Whatever happened to cuddling

on the back porch swing,

men wearing hats,

and...

women without bras?

Whatever happened to pulp fiction,

poodle skirts and Parchesi,

slow dancing,

the strong silent type,

and...

women without bras?

Whatever happened to family picnics,

bouncing the kids upon our knee,

Sundays at grandmas house,

draft card burning,

civil disobedience,

bad acid trips,

wife swapping,

women without bras,

and horizons without limits?

It was a summer's day in 1986--

I remember it well.

I was strolling through the mall,

and being the observant fellow that I am,

I noticed that all the bosoms were unbound,

unfettered,

free to be all they could be--

to jig and joggle,

to wobble and weave,

to bob and bobble,

to bank and roll

with the normal ups and downs

of everyday existence.

Then,

the very next day,

as if by some cosmic signal from

THE GREAT GOOGLY-MOOGLY

ALL

THE

WOMEN

PUT

THEIR

BRAS

BACK

ON

And that was that.

And a colder wind has blown o'er the land...

but sometimes I still long for the good ol' days

when the nips that nourished a nation

were proudly displayed

through the milk of human kindness

and in the interest of full disclosure--

no fakes, forgeries, or false impressions given.

And I guess I should just forget about the past--

make a clean breast of it,

and end this uplifting tale.

But sometimes I can't help but wonder...

Whatever happened to hot apple pies

cooling on the window sill...

long romantic walks in the park...

and...

WAITING GAME (a pantoum)

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

I have led a life of great anticipation...

trading the hours of my days for the digits in a ledger--

biding my time; buying into the myth of security in numbers

and always believing that love was just around the corner.

Trading the hours of my days for that which gave me pleasure,

I languished in lobbies and watched the women of the world walk by,

assured the law of averages was in my corner--

a lonely sojourner playing the waiting game.

Watching the worldly women walk by,

I lobbied for a glance or a smile--

a lonely sojourner playing the waiting game,

still convinced that love was just around the corner.

And so, with a glance or a smile,

once in a while one would come my way--

curious, as she was, to see if love was just around the corner,

and for a while we'd fill the empty space with laughter.

Yes, now and then one would come my way,

but in the end those who wait are never waiting for each other--

mindful, as they are, of love that's just around the corner,

leaving just an empty space and the memory of laughter.

And near the end, those who wait will always hold a place for one another--

finding, as they do, a kind of purity in numbers,

trying to fill some empty space with memories and laughter...

leading lives of great anticipation.

PEOPLE

Poetry Potluck

One Shot Wednesday

People are so strange,

and weird,

and funny looking--

with their baseball caps

and safari hats...

All shapes and sizes,

but mostly round--

with bellies that spill over belts

like giant teardrops about to fall,

and long baggy shorts that stop

just above their socks

(another inch and they'd be pants).

Huffing,

and puffing,

and shuffling along--

off to the bank,

off to the cleaners,

off to the market to pick up some wieners.

What do they think?

what do they hope for?

who are they buying that Soap-On- A-Rope for?

What are their innermost

dreams and ambitions?

(hey, did that guy just let off an emission?)

Ambling along in their clogs

and their flip-flops,

connected to ipods

and some kind of hip-hop.

Joking, and smoking, and choking

their lives away--

yet up every morning

to greet the brand new day...

People are so strange,

and weird,

and funny looking

on the outside...

But often beautiful--

yeah, kinda beautiful

on the inside.