IN THE FLASH OF AN EYE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--dVerse Poets Pub

And now I find
that I give less and less
of a damn
about any of it

But it would do my heart good
if I knew that just once you stopped
and questioned your motives
for all of it
cuz if it's just by rote
it plays a sad and sour note
to my ears

And let me draw my own conclusions
as to why she smiled at me
in the supermarket
let me hang onto my illusions
a wee bit longer
cuz in my mind
and in my heart
I'm still back there listenin' to
The Mighty Quinn
(everybody's gonna want a dose)

Don't mean to be morose
but I need a reason
to fall out of that bed

Just don't make me feel that
 your day
and your life
won't be complete
unless you are killing something
that smiles

Decades whiz by
in the flash of an eye
and when I say I took her support stockings off
and wore them over my head
and then went out and robbed da liquor store
I think U know what I mean--
it's the universal language of love
ooby dooby dooby doo
 just me and you

Will apologize to neither god nor man
for what I am
my is-ness
is none of you biz-ness
and yet I'll pray
that you'll be forever freed
from your own private hell...
and thus release me from mine

WATCHING FRENCH FILMS WITH SUBTITLES

dVerse Poets Pub--Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Look up
look down
miss the action or
miss the meaning
but you don't want to miss those tits
so to hell with what they're saying right now

Knowing one's priorities
makes life much simpler

ALL THOSE ANGELS

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Always felt loosely tethered
well you can kick that up
a notch now
a shadow of one's former
self that was no more than a
shadow to begin with 
giving way
day 
by
day
to an emerging grey sky

The why??? of it
 gets caught in your throat
as you laugh and shake your head
at the sudden realization
 that all those angels
and that luck of the Irish
rolling your way 
were just a thing in your head
and things being preordained
seems the only logical conclusion
and talismans are just pretty stones
that dangle at the end of a chain
which seems like a 
totally appropriate metaphor

I SHOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS LONG AGO IN HOPES YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN IT AND STILL BE HERE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Online bullying?

when I was comin' up
it was up close
and personal
and in your face
(not Facebook)

one thing it does
when you're on the receiving end
is helps to build character

so develop a hard shell
kids
like that giant tortoise at the zoo
(and shine it with turtle wax)
and have some empathy
for your tormentors
for they are hurting
the same as you

and

consider the source

can't tell you how many times
that has seen me through

never once validated
or took their words
to heart

that's called knowing who you are

never knew anyone
of my generation
(them damn hippies!)
who checked out over it

cuz

there is a place
deep inside
at your very core
where no one can hurt you

find it

it is your strength
and your reserve
and one day
it will lead you
triumphant
into the sun

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.