June is draining away
June 2016-“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.” ― Charles Bukowski
Of the Summer Solstice -every fleeting evening light, wish & sigh as brief as in the wink of an eye
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1st Day of Summer
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Solstice scimitar shaft
Slicing search torch
Gleaming longest burn
briefest pinnacle of light
declining seconds after
a descent commences….
The shadows start their
Encroaching erosion
Immediately….
Beware
Learn that lesson
From those who would
Build their world
On your ashes.
Uncollected 2013
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In Sonic Embrace
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(audio version from CD Quattro-Vox 2013)
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June splits open
cleanly down the middle
of herself in the bedroom
just after the grayest
faint whisper that
Dawn could muster
into the folds of
curtains setting sail.
Windows wide open
to allow the night out
and perhaps the morning in.
I stirred from my dream
just enough to perceive
the bedroom awash
in a sonic embrace.
Pinpoints of color
Cartwheel in motion
to swaying trees tops
rocking in the yard below.
The respirator of late Spring
laboring in a rush
of the moisture
laden air awash
hissing in soft exhale.
Then there’s the sound
of a passing freight train.
There’s always that sound
somewhere around this
middle time of June.
In the sonic embrace
bleeding all over your face
pouring into your ears.
fans twirl in slow
languid circle overhead
Fans much more busy
buzzing at the foot of the bed.
June escapes me
as you do here.
My half-dream wakes
me in this first light.
The sonic embrace of false
Dawn.
Between the two of you
Between the two of you
I just don’t know
what I will ever do.
June splits open
cleanly down the middle
of herself in the bedroom
just after the grayest
faint whisper that
Dawn could muster
into the folds of
curtains setting sail.
From Gridville 6/2006
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I promise to keep your photo on the dresser
*
Another month blooms
from inside itself to life
May June July
as flower explosions
scent the time sky
while memory invoked
moments seeded in youth
Sunrises with snow white
air born cotton fibers
Dawns with a high full moon
still hanging in the blue sky
leftover midnight @ dawn
May June July.
Another month blooms
from inside itself to life.
You once yourself
did as much
to awaken in rebirth
on either coast strange or familiar bed
with a yellow light streaking through
custard bedroom curtains
spilling on and firing the ivory of the sheets.
untroubled by any horizon of doubt
from the meridian of the coming day.
Her arms reached for you
while a picture of someone else
sat planted eyeless on the dresser watching
you moving from the small of her back
into that coal shock blackness
of her wild thatched hair
cascading on to her shoulders
bodies entwined rising from the mattress
singing into each others ears.
from Gridville 7/2006
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Dwindling Shadows of June
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVfX_0PtX7E
(Audio version from the CD Quatro-Vox 2013)
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In the dwindling shadows of June
dancing in her
twilight skirt
gushing vermilion liquid
time is like a broken
Capillarity in the calendars
main line artery.
You can’t hope to contain
any of the torrent
Just drown maybe baby
Because the
big drain is on
You can feel the pull
you can feel the life
leave you
diminished
ever closer to
the finish
Not some abstract
intellectual property
but a cold hard tangible reality.
Your ebbing confidence
in a narrow shallow vision
in the past semi-protected
you from the harsh truth
from too much disappointment
There are no prospects
for replenishment here
This dissipation bathed
in spectacular warm light
is waning
the dissipation grows in the encroaching shadows
and takes
what was given
in the finite
while what is being
taken away
is
infinite.
Sometimes Grief 2012
The Old Man’s Fault
Hallmark defines
yet another contrive
consumer day of obligation
but fails to see the
species, phylum, the role
the basic biological
reality as it exists beyond
some 5 dollars of gaily configured cardboard
with sentimentality nobody really believes
or nasty sarcasm that all most
everyone smugly snickers at and buys.
No.
Closer to the truth
on this Sunday morning in June
is that the once thought of as
Protector
Provider
Patriarch
of the nuclear family
has been reduced
to an atom smashed
pulverized fragment
waddling away down
the aisles in Krap-Mart
in a sad post-modern procession
of the daddy parade.
The fat sad daddies
The trim yuppie daddies
Hung over haunted looking
out estranged vacant eyes
ghosts of father figures
Booze fighter Fathers of
medication
neutered
trivialized
reduced to
being walking ATMs
for their families
support and subsistence.
Big dumb stupid looking
bumbling cartoon cats
lisping along as their
little kitten sons
trail a half a dozen steps
behind them with a
brown paper bag
over their heads
whining…..
“O Father….I’m so ashamed…”
All hail
that worthless drunk
drinking by himself
out in the garage
that fragile shaky
blue veined pasty
pile of protoplasm
who holds his family
together with a iron
willed grip of silly putty
and threat of the liability
of alimony
His manhood
maculated
Balls ?
What Balls ?
He’s been bent over
in a question mark
into a bowling ally
beer gut male pattern
baldness worn down
burnt out shell
surfing porn sites
of the internet looking
for pictures of women
who remind him of
old girl friends.
In nature
Especially the insect world
The male role is
defined only
the biological imperative
Basically ?
He’s fertilizer
after that
it’s off to be eaten.
If he’s lucky.
So here’s to your Dad
The father
once son himself
reduced to a lonely holy ghost
And if he’s not here
remember
your first teacher
the artist who help
create the piece of work
that is you.
Daddy on a lease
Daddy on the skids
Pale wobbly old man
shaking his fist a death
Raging how he still can
even if he never did in the first place.
You want to believe that
you’re here on earth because that worthless
bastard thought about getting laid
one night after too many beers
and conceived your existence ?
Go for it.
But closer to the truth
just maybe you never knew
that once there was a man
who when he looked at you
in the eyes for the first time
in that moment
did see
a world of love
shinning private light
like a gate in heaven
had been left ajar.
Go right ahead.
Curse his name as you try to forget him.
But….. if he’s still around ?
some night
and no not on this day…
crack him a cold one
and put your hand on his shoulder and say.
“ No…..to be fair it’s not all your fault
I would have been so goddamn miserable even without you.”
And then duck pretty quick
as he takes a swing at you….
And he connects square
and plants back on your smart mouthed little ass?
You had it coming
Sometime Grief – 6/2010/12
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June Fragments
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What kind of Guy was He? 3.0
He was the kind of guy
That when he heard
Ice cream trucks
On summer evening
And all he wanted was
to buy somebody
One delicious cold moment.
Some people
Yes.
Some people can write it
And others can do it
But only those
Who can hear it
Do anything with it
For you.
Let me tell you something there pal…
She had eyes
That were meant to be broken
Like a race horse named
I’ll take another.
1st Day of Summer
Solstice scimitar shaft
Slicing search torch
Gleaming longest burn
briefest pinnacle of light
declining seconds after
a descent commences….
The shadows start their
Encroaching erosion
Immediately….
Beware
Learn that lesson
From those who would
Build their world
On your ashes.
Did you Ever?
Look in the mirror
And see
A missing person?
Type Wrote
So here I am once again
Typing rope over the
Horseshoe Falls at night
shinning a spot light.
But not a tether in sight,
Sticking Points
You perfect prick bitch
Such an exquisite thorn
That impaled itself
Buried so deep into you
Where in the end all you
Could do was barely mange
To snap off the top
With the point still
Embedded deeply
And sure
Time I guess
Will allow the flesh to heal
Cover the surface
Of point of entry
But deep down inside
The missing fork end
Will remain burrowed intact
Like the one half
Of a pulled apart wishbone
With the only remaining question
Did you get your wish…..
Or just the short end of the stick ?
The Open Casket of your Face
Left only to wonder now
What was left for you
To see in the open
Casket of your face
When first light dawn
Whispers pale blue shadows
In a shaky wobbly hue
Filing the sky so gently
A pitcher of light trickling
Into the day bowl
Gradually like the touch
Of his hand upon your shoulder
Forgotten promises
Revived back to life
As you rolled over
Open your eyes for the first time.
But now there’s no one there
Quite the nothing next to you
Just the outside of the window
As God turns on the Mourning Doves
She fights now the memory
The feel
The touch
between the sheets.
Just eyes sent away
Just eyes taken away
And the voice of such
Fleeting rare poetry.
Silenced. 6/2012
Notice of Vacancy
This is to inform you that
The poet is not in at the moment.
We have no idea where he is
And if/when he will be back.
He could be out drinking somewhere
By himself in a place where nobody
Can get at him.
(He’s been doing that a lot lately)
Last we knew he expressed he was
Just out of words he thought mattered much anymore.
His images and sentiments ignored or
Just coolly appraised from afar without any passion .
It’s really starting to get to him.
He realizes fully well how little
This poetry matters most days.
If we hear from him
We will let you know.
Don’t expect much
He doesn’t.
Got Abstract ? 2014
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Manhattan Partitions
Reconciliation:
An accounting process used to compare two sets of records to ensure the figures are in agreement and are accurate. Reconciliation is the key process used to determine whether the money leaving an account matches the amount spent, ensuring that the two values are balanced at the end of the recording period.
June had told everyone
How she was through with him
Told him as well in
no uncertain terms.
But yet as the days collected
and the nights disappeared
even the name of her month
now hours and ashes away
from the turn of the page.
June still looked in from afar.
Why was the end of them
still so compelling to her?
She wouldn’t talk to him
She wouldn’t face him.
She wouldn’t look him in the eyes.
But from a cloaked distance
She still watched him
twisting in the wind
June knew.
Yes
She did.
All about him.
His strengths
His weaknesses
His love for her.
Some days the sense of loss
The silence and emptiness
The regret was
almost palatable.
June recoiled from the notion
that there was satisfaction here
to be derived in this devastation.
But what was it then?
She wanted him
only now
in past tense.
In her history.
Reconciled and filed
Like at the conclusion
Of any month.
Her fondest
most recent
emotional
disconnect.
A memory she could account for..
The knowledge
of his broken heart
kept her own stronger
More resolved.
In doing what was best
For her.
Besides
In a few days
She could take
her name away
from him
for another year.
Just a month.
His favorite season
Of the longest light.
.
It was order.
It was just the calendar.
He had given her everything
He had
He was.
And she had as well.
And June walked
on that.
What more could she possibly
want from him?
Expect perhaps this….
To look upon him
and then away.
And know
He knew it
Sometimes Grief- barks up the wrong tree 2012
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Medical Records
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Says here that I was born 6/7/55
for $125.00 with that you get three consulting physicians @ 25 bucks a pop & a C-section.
And all I’ve heard my entire life was that I was no bargain.
Bullshit
-Attitude House 2001
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Sister in Gemini
(for June Webb)
I remember seeing her out in the front yard in the June sunshine
When we were both quite small
Out on a blue chez lounge recovering from her latest operation
Her blonde hair and massive white bandages and cast seemed to glow
The doctors where trying to repair her deformed limbs
She and I had been born hours apart
I was told that June might never walk again and would probably
Have to struggle this handicap for the rest of her life
Yet it was me who was indelibly marked with harmless
port wine stains on my face and neck….
Like a Technicolor Achilles
and was told to consider myself lucky
I saw her years later in the marketplace still limping with
Her signature smile and familiar lope
I kissed her and wished us a happy birthday
And she smiled and remarked…why you haven’t aged at all
I replied with a shrug….you ought to see me on the inside
They knew just where to aim the arrows.
Got Abstract /2014
The Yellow Sting Ray
When I turned 12
I pestered the living crap
Out of my folks for this
Really, expensive Schwinn
Yellow Sting Ray Bicycle
With high set handle sissy bars,
Gear shift and sparkly plastic banana seat
That I saw in the widow of Terry’ Bike shop
In town.
The old man said how ugly it was
and was just way too much GD money
at 89 dollars for such stupid dangerous thing
But it was my birthday
And I think my Nana kicked
In some dough.
So that evening my mom pulls
Into the driveway with it sticking out
Of the rear of the gray station wagon
And I took off on it like a bat out of hell
Not getting more than twenty feet away
And attempted to POP a wheelie like I had
Seen them do on TV.
Of course I immediately dumped the thing
Going air borne and ending up
In a crashing concussion
To the hard into the road surface
Raking myself up one bloody mess
Of road rash from head to foot in
Shredded clothes and with blue stones
And tar stuck into my abrasions.
Not only that I bend the frame,
handle bars
the yellow banana seat
came off as well.
And some 45 years later
I’m still doing pretty much
The same kind bullshit
to anything
I can get my hands on.
Just still trying to ride the GD thing
Without going down in flames
And tearing my ass to shreds
Down into the gutter
Got Abstract 2014
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Lost & Found June Fragments
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Memory
Most of what you are compelled to recall
Arrives in this plain brown reality wrapper
Containing roses and razor blades
in a hollowed out hymnal
So that all you can really remember clearly
Is praying never to be cut like that again.
What is a Good Story Teller ?
A good story teller
Can relate to you the verbatim truth
And you’ll be so sure they are lying
Through their teeth
And yet
That very same person will in the next breath
Spew the most outrageous bold face lie
And you’ll bet your last bottom dollar
You just heard a brilliant truth.
The Pyromaniac’s Logic
Listen.
You remind of the little girl
Who started a fire somewhere once
And ran away
Only to show later
With coffee and donuts
For the sweaty beat fireman
Trying to extinguish the damage
And when during the coffee break
They seemed none to please to see you
You storm away in a huff
Thinking just how ungrateful
They are.
-Uncollected 2012
Rubbereden 
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