I Poem

I demand my right to a verb.

Painters paint, singers sing, dancers dance,

Workers work – hell, even engineers engineer stuff.

All I want is my verb.

I’m not just a writer – I’m a poet.

Writers write and that’s all well and good for them,

But I don’t just write… I do something else.

I just don’t know what you call it.

Somebody wiser than me once said that

It’s not what you do that defines you,

But it’s who you are that defines what you do.

Salman Rushdie said, “a poet’s work is to name

The unnameable, to point at frauds,

To take sides, start arguments, shape the world,

And stop it going to sleep.”

And that’s fine by me – so from now on,

I don’t just write – I am a poet, and I will

Define what I do. – And I poem.

Digging in for Another Day

All around me are familiar faces,
oh, the band marched on in formation.
Racey days help me through the hopeless haze.

Blessed be your name,
dear Prudence...
we fall down.

Hey there, Delilah,
better pack your bags and run.
I'm the son of rage and love!
Go!

You feel bad
As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain.

I must go on standing.

She lives with an orange tree.
My life is in you
fumbling his confidence.

Chronometrophobia - the fear of clocks - the fear of time -
I've got a black cat walking across my path,
every night I get down on my knees and pray:
how lovely is your dwelling place?

A Brief Suggestion for Anyone Approaching Beauty in its Natural Habitat

Faerie is perilous,
pitfalls and dungeons...
The realm wide, filled:
All beasts and birds;
shoreless seas and stars uncounted;

beauty is an enchantment, and a peril;
A man fortunate to wander,
richness and strangeness tie the tongue.
Dangerous to ask questions,
lest the gates should shut,
the keys be lost.

Heaven's Ghetto

inspired by a conversation about 2Pac

I wonder if Heaven's got a hood -
A divine ghetto where the only way
The streets are paved with gold
Is if we melt our own teeth.

We tear our bling from our ears
And necks and toss it in the fire,
And from its diamond sparkle
We build towers of home.

The ill, and the sick, the broken
And the needy folks, left mamas
And abandoned children, we all
Gather in heaven's ghetto.

And in the perfection of poor love,
We wait. As Wall Street squeezes
Itself through the eye and
To the front, we wait patiently...

Knowing God will still be
there when we get there.

Casserole

I came to your table on a Friday morning
looking for three bites of a three course meal
But i left your table on that Friday, mourning
the food and the ambiance and the service's zeal

The words were stale and left a bad taste
like when you get biscotti but wanted biscoff
and the grease on my page was nothing but waste
a sensation that will take all day to rinse off

Though we know a poem to be a delicacy
like a caesar, a souffle, and between, a mackerel,
it's clear that, without energy or accuracy,
you threw one together and called it a casserole