+++++

Verse in T’s

She was a tart—
tawny and tawdry
and terribly trollopy, too.
With two twisted toes
and a turned up nose
and ten amorous beaus
to boot.

Tiny tin troughs
take time to dine from
or so says tenacious eaters.
Though try as they teeter
on ridiculous feeders
‘cause birds don’t pay
they’re bums.

Twilight tarries
in summer
but trippingly turns up
in winter.
So why the big toot
I don’t give a hoot
time’s gonna do
what it wants to.

+++++

The Restaurant

Living in four rooms
behind their tiny riverside restaurant
Grandma and Pappy
eeked out a living
barbequing for the “river rats”
(that’s water-skiers and sail-boaters).
A pony-tailed car-hop worked outside
and a crew-cut busboy worked inside
(he was always drinking
a big glass of milk—
not Coke, but milk.)
Gran and Novella waited tables
and did the cooking.
Pappy sauce-brushed whole sides of ribs
out back in the yard
on the screened-in homemade stone barbeque
(the brush had a permanent curve.)
He sweated in his undershirt
‘til the white cotton
turned translucent
across his big balloon belly
and tiny nipples.
Jack Buck and Harry Carey
shouted monotonally
(as if holding their noses)
from the cheap nine-volt transistor radio.
Soon Pap would have to go
to his real job—
the midnight shift at
the glass works—
a sooty hell hole
that hummed day and night.
No doubt
Pappy sweated there too.
Tomorrow
they would start
all over again.

+++++

A Moment of Infinity

I like laying here
in the tall
golden prairie grass.
Though dead
it twinkles and rustles
when it moves.
The glow of the warm winter sun
and chilly breeze
are like kettle corn—
salty and sweet.

“It was a kettle corn winter afternoon…”

The timelessness of the moment
is so beautiful that
I almost forget to breathe
and it makes me want to cry.
I feel neither
like an adult
nor a child.
I have no age.
I am infinity.
After a while, I notice
the sun has moved
across the sky
and the grass stops twinkling
and the wind picks up.
Then I am reminded.
I have done this many times
in my life—
as far back
as I can remember.
But each time
seems like the first.
Before I ever leave
I can’t wait
‘til the next time.
I know!
Why don’t I just stay here forever?
“Because you have a job
the car needs gas
and you have to drop off the videos.”
Reality, you suck!
GO AWAY!
Let me savor this moment
it only lasts for eternity
and then it’s gone.

+++++

Old Summers

When I was young
and the days
were two days long
I dreamed--
I dreamed of being
an adventurer
living in the jungle
swinging my way
through the trees
and watching out for
man-eating snakes.
Or an actress
with arms dripping
in jewels.
Or a writer
hunched over a typewriter
on a screened-in porch
with a tall sweaty glass of
warming iced tea.
Or an artiste (ar-TEEST!)
with paint on everything
except the canvas.
A child acts out these dreams
if she wants
because summers are long
and she quickly runs out of
things to do.
In June,
she runs rampant
fishing for crawdads
playing Army
climbing trees
racing homemade go-carts.
By August,
she seems much older
doing slower things
like
contemplating the clouds
or listening
to the cries of
the locusts and crickets
which aren’t there
at the beginning of summer.
There’s a freshness
to be said
of the Mays and Junes—
the new summers—
but there’s an unexpected comfort
in the Augusts and Septembers—
the old summers.

+++++

Richard Wayne—My Brother, My Friend

He’s not gone
He can’t be gone
(though I stand here at his grave.)
Technicolor thoughts of him
thrust indecent, inhumane
spears of pain through my heart.

How can the innocent echo of his giggles
create such agony within me?
His charismatic zest for life
now repulses me—
shuttering to stop
this gray-matter reel from playing.

Look, so vivid
his barefoot prints
in the dust outside the front door
making tracks
to where his Jeep once parked—
“Please don’t blow away!”