Ridicule

Farce is just another name for
"You don't matter and I hate you."
I'm not even joking.

Bottle Openers

a slick drip and a sudden lick

or maybe it was the temperature

that could have been it

either way now i have it

and now i enjoy it

a slap and a wiggle and that's that

but it really seems to be a bit of a 

beginning

where it seemed like there should

have been an end

oh but the aroma is the beginning

and the taste is the end

although when the taste begins

the end is nowhere in sight

maybe its the temperature

that signals the real end

that could be it

the end comes when everything

is warm and not cold

either way now i enjoy it

Canned Goods Keep

I'm telling you Bartholomew.
These will last through The Apocalypse.
When my neighbors ask, "how did you live?"
I'll say, "I put my trust in preserved goods.
I set my hopes on lasting strengths
And they did not let me down."

I know this is true. I've done it before.
Remember the war, Bartholomew?
Remember when we fought our brothers?
And I thought "certainly brotherhood lasts.
Surely this will all blow over like the last war.
Brotherhood keeps.

Like a stone flung into a lonely pasture,
Like the final swallow of yesterday's coffee,
Like my mother's warm smile and gentle touch
Years after her passing, Like Love, and like hatred,
Surely brotherhood keeps."

We both know, Bartholomew.
We both know how quickly brotherhood
Shatters in the face of something wicked.
When our neighbors asked, "how did he go?"
I said, "Don't put your trust in blood.
There was a wickedness that took him.
Only it took me first and that is how he went."

Come with me Bartholomew.
Let us leave the neighbors to their chatter,
Let us find our brother where he sleeps,
We know the only things that matter,
We have the lasting strength that keeps,
And it will never let us down.

One Hundred

"Ready?" asks the winter and we all shout "No!"

"Ready?" teachers walk back and forth. "Pick up your pencils."

"Hold your breath" says the dawn "Ready to drown in sunlight?"

"All the others are ready" my parents are in a rush. "Have you gotten your bags?"

"Here it comes." trains are fast and full of hope "Are you ready?"

"I think I'm ready." now the voice is shaken and alone. "Its my first time."

"You're ready?" a child is a big commitment. "We weren't ready for you."

And you think that you're not ready and never have been ready but no one was really asking.

"Ready or not" life has no pity for children. "Here I come"

In Defense of Short Poems

Sometimes I see into the soul of things, 

A momentary glimpse, short and succinct.

And then, the seeing done, I look about

And see that I am merely looking. 

I remember, though, my seeings 

And I hold them fast for dreaming. 

They would be my poems; 

They would be my dreams. 

Short and succinct. 

Reasons

Some people have reasons.
 They listen intently.
A sapphire song come sailing,
Fastened to a distant home,
And they can hear it and obey.
I peer through life.
I long to hear that voice.
And yet for all my desire
I have never heard it.

A Taint

All the doggerel that God made

Flows into a pile like vomit. 

And I, stuck in the mess, sing.

How can I spew but filth?

How can I speak but dirt?

All the doggerel that God made

Flows from my mouth. My shit

Soiling his gentle hands.