The Unread

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Austin

My love for you now

  burns as bright as it did

  when we danced beneath

Pink Texas skies.

Muted far lullaby

  calling back to the past

  Birds and bats intertwine

bringing night

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Houston Scootin’

She’s good looking

She’s got me spooking

She got me in the kitchen

working Sunday’s cooking

She’s really fit

I want a bit

of that big booty baby 

But I’m gonna get bit

But now she’s mine

All of the time

How’d I manage that

When I still ain’t worth a dime

Well here’s my secret

‘cause I know you wanna hear it

I take my baby dancing

all the time, yep that’ll do it

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A Drunk

The house has turned cold,

it’s forgotten our living,

the window looks down on the sea. 

This green antonovka,

sent in mail by mother,

drips down through the folds of my hand.

And you’re sitting

there, with the room in-between.

I hear people outside

laughing off to the nightclub

huddled close together to trap in the heat.

A whistle chases them down

from a drunk I can’t see,

and they shout back curses that bring me a smile.

I turn back without thinking, 

and we lock in our eyes

and the universe crumbles away.

My apple is gone, but my hand is still sticky

and the weight presses me into the chair.

Black leather, all around me,

I sink in the crack.

You left then,

leaving only perfume.

The dog comes then and laps at my face. 

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Current

Tonight I am Nemo

breaking the frontiers of seas

with the Nautilus purring around me.

The wars of the world, and the worth of the women

are distant forgotten old callings.

Tonight I’m a leaf

floating off down the river

while my tree drifts off far behind me.

The fear of the fall, and the fun of the flying

become lost to me now as I drown.

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Ado, Adios

They coached us down

   to Gruene Dance Hall

on Thursday with the band

The handle to the great oak door

smoothed with decades use

The band tuned up 

the lights turned down

I harumphed towards the bar

Oh yes, I’ll have another

dear brother bar man

the musics loud

the crowd spins round

Yet my rooms sadly still

A cowboy gang two-steps

  or line-dances on the floor

A shrieking group of ladies

celebrates one’s loss

Who needs the name your born with

when now you’ve got a man?

Your tip jars fill up faster

the more the Lone Star flows

Might hope to cover

half the cost

of smashed glass in my foot

The next song picks up faster

A “hee-haw” cuts right through

The chandelier, bedecked with beer

Begins to shake and tinkle

The cowboys crowd the ladies

and they kick their shoes together

a bridesmaid grabs a rancher’s son

and the sneak out to the stars

The room begins to spin at last

Whiskey’s gift eternal 

Since you so insist it

I guess I’ll have another

You’re starting to look haggard

Most high lord Revel’s toll

Better make this one a double then,

and a Shiner for the road

The bridesmaids not the only one

the queen forgets her king

the devil in a wide brimmed hat

Slithers his forked tongue in

Vows don’t start

until tomorrow

What harm is one night’s sin?

The music reaches high crescendo 

Fixtures cannot hold

Lights go out

To scream and shout

The band brought down the house

In the mangle of the limbs and legs

the tiara rolls out, broken 

Cowboy hat smashed, red and flat

The dance hall, it seems, is closing

Here’s your tip, you salty bitch

to clean the mess

There’s others that need me now too

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The ashtray would soon overflow,

the bulb blew out back-a-ways.

Blue light from the telly

lit the shadowed, gaunt face

hearing the seconds and hours tick tick.

Time

Time

Black eyes unmoving, penetrate

the shut door

I’m waiting for my man

Another packet gone

another packet born. 

He’ll come home soon,

raw fisted.

I made him meatloaf last night

He seemed to like it.

He’ll come home soon

sightless.

Fag stained teeth, fag stained fingers

he’ll come home soon

and in whiskey clouds

we’ll dream

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Classroom 4/25

I.

I cannot just sit 

And write poetry all day

I have things to do

II.

The phone in my hands

Gives me everything I want

except for solace

III.

Poor Mr. Tesla

Gets no credit he deserves

And thus dies alone

IV.

All things I have learned

In the schools throughout life

Help me not with love

V.

Tick tock goes the clock

as the time slowly changes

for folks everywhere

VI.

Dark Matter teases

All of our astronomers

Confounding their views

VII.

Like the stars in space

we were all once closely bound

But now move away

VIII.

A ham sandwich lunch

A frozen pizza dinner

My college diet

IX.

The last lecture slide

A long class coming to close

It was not all bad

X.

The love in my heart

gushes for humanity

yet none of them know

XI.

The vastness of space

Is beyond understanding

One life is too much

XII.

A final haiku

To put an end to the page

Only to go on

XIII.

With the swish of brush

On a canvas pale and white

Thoughts spring from the mind

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Classroom  4/16

I.

Walking along roads

I’ve never walked on before

I find myself lost

II.

Sweat falls down my back

As she sits in front of me

I dislike first dates

III.

Haikus through the class

Help pass by the long hours

while bringing up joy

IV.

Fav’rite socks have holes

So can no longer be worn

Yet so hard to toss

V.

An angel sits down

at a table of devils

and tells an old joke

VI.

Before Hubble came

We thought space was much smaller

Now it’s infinite

VII.

The sun beating down

harshly upon our poor backs

We toil ever on

VIII.

Bright stars in our sky

Millions of lifetimes away

yet so close to us

IX.

City without light

Haunt the dreams of present man

That craves more power

X.

Stars so far apart

Come together in the sky

And tell ancient tales

XI.

Please come home sober

Or please go on through to bed

Just don’t come through here

XII.

I’m leaving my home

For an exciting new life

with tears in my eyes

XIII.

Do not use “people”

When the word you want is folk

People are not folk

XIV.

Some things can’t be known

Thoughts such as “nothing” and “death”

Yet we know them well

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Sitting before me

dressed all up in black,

her hair falls over her eyes

as she looks at me.

Scrutinized, I sweat

my stomach in turmoil.

Words start to come

yet stick in my throat.

Frozen in fear

my palms moisten,

breath comes jarringly

disaster inevitable

I finally find courage

I know what to say

I master my strength:

“I don’t get out very often.”

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It rains it rains it pours on down

The rays of sunshine cannot be found

Hide among the clouds on high

while we off the ark wait to die

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On Grandad   -   1

I sit at home alone with the dogs, and am having imaginary conversations. This is an extremely human thing that we all engage in, but rarely discuss, wherein we run through conversations in our head that we plan to have in the future, or conversations we hoped to have the courage to begin, or perhaps even just conversations we think would be interesting. Well I was having one of these about Grandad. 

My Grandad lives in an isolated small town in the far north of Scotland. He’s lived there most of his life, raised his family there after marrying a local woman. He’s smart, gruff, friendly while being scary at the same time.  I’ve only ever known him retired, he just says of his working life that he was a chemist at the nearby nuclear plant. That’s all I ever grew up hearing.  He came about in the prime era for a young man to benefit from “big government” as it would be called. 

Post-war Britain yearning for a new social contract to unite the nation and heal the battered population offered a bounty. Born in a two room fisherman’s house he describes as a slum, to generations back of working poor, he was lucky enough to have a government as well as a family that actually cared about him. His dad was a fisherman when the war started. He was a member of the Territorial Army, so off he went. When he came back, he stopped fishing, instead becoming a bricklayer, joining the scores of veterans who were now being used to build new houses and government buildings across the country. One of these buildings was the nuclear facility to which Grandad would commit his working life. For over thirty years he worked there, allowing him to retire comfortably at 56. 

He describes himself as very lucky. 

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Pull open doors

revealing scarves of every fabric

color and of hue

Decide today which comfort

shall wrap around my neck.

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Humidity

Shade offers no respite,

Seek no solace in the shadow

For the heat will find you still

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I remember as a boy

i ran past hills to trees.

I jumped over the dyke i was told not to cross,

and there I first felt free.

As I broke through brambly bush

my legs would start to bleed,

I never cried as clothes got ripped,

I paid my pain no heed,

Every time I pushed my bounds

and journeyed slightly farther,

the forest would grow thick and dark,

and traveling would grow harder. 

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Valentine’s Poem

Roses are red,

violets are blue.

Everybody know it, 

like they know I love you

With your think springy black curls

and seductive brown eyes

Your dancing hips twirl

and the soft of your thighs,

I know you’re my girl

and I am your guy

Now let’s become animals

let’s go touch the sky

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“You see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction. It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof of an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of iniquity and sink headfirst to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion.”

Neil Gaiman - Good Omens

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