The Drawing
Her face- squirkels, hatches, cross-hatches-
shadow values of light and dark drawn from dreams;
her depression drearily depicted, like the gloomy drizzle
Of a rain-drenched day; lines of lassitude detail the comatose
torpor of sadness, the sorrow of trickling tears, cold charcoal
lips blended with graphite tips, rendering real his art, light
evolving from dark.
Time Change
The clock
Sure and steady
Springs forward
Like a hungry robin
If only time stood still
Something for Nothing Man
Always he does things on the cheap
Free and easy his battle cries
Cobwebs line his leather purse
He fleeces friends like woolly sheep
Free and easy his battle cries
A coupon-clipper extraordinaire
Give him gratis or give him death
“On the house” his favorite words
Cobwebs line his leather purse
“Free of charge” his favorite tune
Low-price bargains make him swoon
A gratuitous, something for nothing man
He fleeces friends like woolly sheep
When the check comes and it’s time to pay
He runs like hell the other way
Well fed, foolish and friendless.
Expletives Undeleted
Mother fucker.
Mother fucker
Fiddlesticks,
Fiddlesticks
Gosh, darn, golly, gee
Caught his thumb
In an old car door
And went sailing out to sea
Motherfucker
Motherfucker
Shit fire
Shit fire
My heck, holy crap
Stubbed his toe
On a jagged rock
And felt like such a sap
The mothers came a-running
The fiddlers kept a-fiddling
And every time some hurt arose
The expletives kept a-dribbling
His words a sort of code you see
When nothing else will do
Forgive him mothers everywhere
He doesn’t have a clue.
Smoke Rings
She always smoked afterwards
arching her fine cat-like body
while gently squeezing the softening
member with her free hand. Smoke
curling in perfect ringlets. Volcanic
her O-shaped lips still tingling from
the taste of love. It was always like that;
him gently snoring satisfaction; her silently
blowing bands of hazy smoke rings
over their cooling bed of love.
