The Drawing

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

Time Change

The clock

Sure and steady

Springs forward

Like a hungry robin

If only time stood still

Something for Nothing Man

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.

Birds and Bees

Birds and Bees

It's profound
she said as I spun my deep yarn
It's profound
she said from the loft of the barn
where I told her there's no harm
for birds to sing and bees to swarm
It's profound.

Expletives Undeleted

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

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.

Terrorism

Terrorism

overwhelms us
fretting from fear and anxiety
overwhelms us
terse terror in a society
a troublesome child's variety
catastrophic sobriety
overwhelms us