Poem-A-Day 2010: Eight through twelve

Almost two weeks into 2010, and I've already had one of those days in which I finished my poem like 10 or 15 minutes before midnight (after dozing off with Baby Will in the recliner). So, I've decided I really need to try and write at least something each morning and then expand or write something else later in the day.

Here's days eight through twelve:

008-Two

just shake me like a baby
or a hungry kisser
who has not had enough
practice and is
nervous as all dominoes

falling one into the next
and the next and
why did you come here
anyway if you
had no idea why you came

because can't you see I
am so hard falling
in love like nothing you
could understand or
ever know without falling too


009-Puzzle

Once a joke,
always a joke.

In the moonlight, I'm the one
who always ends up
getting his face slapped.

Maybe it's our assignment;
should be nothing serious.
We'll fly in the morning.

Leaving town, people will laugh
at us. We'll get away
in a car, end with a kiss.


010-As seen on TV

Gather 'round & let your hair down--
the cities are flickering & the suburbs are consuming:
We need a plan.

I have a plan,
but no one wants to listen to me.

I've contacted important people:
my neighbors, my barber, my mother.

There appears to be no interest
in saving the ship.

"Shit,"
they say,
"We're pretty much fucked."

But I am no captain filled with noble ideals
or even a passenger filled with chaos theory.

"We have to turn,"
I say,
"We're not fucked, yet."

But they shake their heads & stare at the icebergs
spreading across the horizon like little pink houses
with white picket fences & nice lawns.

"We got we asked for,"
they say,
"& now we need to pay."


011-I am the shoestring caught in your fence

Soon, you will fall down,
clutch your arm,
and--crying--look around.

Tears will make you hard
of seeing,
but you'll climb to your yard

and cry for mother.
Clutch your arm--
cry--but don't blame brother.


012-Midwest Song

Try to imagine you're listening to me
beneath the leaves clinging to the buckeye tree
in the heat of early autumn, a sort
of sad heat--sweet for its shortness,
because soon the evenings will grown longer
(even as the days shorten), and you'll long
for the sticky heat of summer dripping
off your skin as when you were stripping
clothes to jump screaming off a cliff
in the creek water below thinking if
my friends can do it, so too can I,
and feel yourself fall as if you could fly.

*****

If you want to talk poetry with me tomorrow (Wed, 1/13/10), click here to meet me at the Poets.org poetry forum between 1 and 2 p.m. Georgia time.