Long Ashtrays Poems
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Earnings
help wanted
long evenings
a service toil of trays
which exhausted smile
the tip
Earnings
high cut mini
her service
always the management's eye
for sex
The table shines
coins in ashtrays
ashes in plates
faces crowded with food
Her service
"Are you finished?"
always the managements eye
for neatness
Earnings
nightly telephone music
always the same
always the management's ear
for music
Rude
they were loud
and their tip was conservative
Earnings
final tally
her husband walked out
her child to clothe
a decent respectable living
her service
always the management's eye
for atmosphere
Published Black Buzzard Press - 1982
7/11/21
Never been the smoothest talker
Got to make the best of it before I need a walker
Had a lot or nothing to offer
Wasn't always worth the bother
4 days a week I work with and help doctors
Occasionally seeing Boxers
She got some knockers
Too many peeps are squawkers
I'm flying sky high inside a saucer
Above waters
With otters
Never been an imposter
Thought I had a chance and how quick I lost her
It's all been testing my dignity and honor
Never been a prince, always been a pauper
An endless battle to prosper
In the end it was or wasn't a shocker
The truth locked behind a locker
Or bouncing around like a ball in soccer
People being respectful or a stalker
In a world full of good intentions and slaughter
Some folks heroes and others monsters
Objects of value and sentiment behind a glass case
A giant rat race
Traveling slow or at a fast pace
Winding up in first or last place
Oh in that case
No wonder the sad face
This all left a bad taste
Good and bad days
Glass crutches in the ashtrays
While going in and out of a vast maze
It's much more than kind of
A big deal if you can't make your mind up
Before time's up
That's why the past and history is there to remind us
Sit around or get out and try stuff
That's for you to decide what
Find out you might hate or like much
A corner has been turned
A chapter has been burned
A stipend has been earned —
Was it by me?
You can’t unearth a friend
If he’s stuck in the deep end
And he sure as hell cannot pretend
He’s free
Someday, you'll be as real as me
Look in the beggars mind
And here is what you’ll find
A sunrise that once shined
Now cold and gray
In crocodile remorse,
Wives file for divorce
Then send their husbands through
the bootcamp course, so gay
Someday, they’ll all be real as me
Real though I may be,
I’m just a totem pole
A wooden icon, disengaged
From body and from soul
Take your protein straight
No dispensaries of hate
Those confined must separate
Their rooms so deep
While down here in the maze,
With the labyrinth of your gaze,
I wander hungry as you smolder in ashtrays
Then sleep
Someday love, you’ll be
As real as me
My sister and cancer
Maybe it was in 1946
when the winter was very hard
the big lake outside town froze solid
my brother had given me an old pair of skates
something with leather binning, I think
I could get them on
A young girl came; she was sweet and kind
helped to fasten the leather straps
I asked my brother who she was
She is different from the girls on the street
who were giggling a lot and smoking in the basement
My brother said she was my dad's daughter
at home, I asked my mother about my other sister
she looked angry and cut me short
Everybody smoked in my youth ashtrays on every
table, even in our doctor's waiting room
He, the doctor eventually stopped, was in a bad
mood when my mother brought me there
I had a growth on my chest that made him concerned
He cut it out but looked nervous, I had to go
for a blood taste every fortnight and the growth
left a scar 70 years later, it was back at the same
spot, it was cancer
The surgery at the hospital was a more serious
environment, surgeons wearing masks
Anyway, the clump was removed, and again I had
to have a blood taste for a while
Today, I was thinking of my father's daughter
were she alive today, she would have been about
ninety-five, if she is alive, does she remember meeting her youngest brother.
several formica red tables
glass shakers of pepper and salt
big plastic tomatoes I wanted to squeeze
and shaped bottles of sarson’s own malt.
netting on all of the windows
scratch marks from chairs on the floor
ashtrays with notches to rest cigarettes
and 'open' and 'closed' on the door.
menus upright in a v-shape
the 'royals' adorning the wall
food through the fog of benson & hedges
with no one complaining at all.
my past was another country
before chains, regulations and brunch
places I knew from those misty-eyed times
are no more and have all 'gone to lunch'.
How small we were sitting in the backseat of that mammoth car. We were dwarfed on the giant sofa-like bench waiting like a great amusement ride about to start. While we waited we explored our new surroundings. The lining inside the cavernous car was short-hair and smooth and as we ran our small hands across the surface, it felt like a young boy’s scalp after his first summer haircut. It was grey, the color of an elephant toy that had been won by our uncle last year at the fourth of july carnival. We explored the shiny chrome ashtrays. You could see your reflection in them like a mirror and we wondered if the owner used them to shave in the mornings as his chauffeur drove him to work. They were spring-loaded and snapped viciously at our little fingers. They smelled of foul ash and stale gum. There were large cranks with polished brown knobs, handles that controlled the windows. Turning them took all our strength like cranking the hand pump for water in the kitchen at Grandmas house on the farm. There were baby windows beside the big ones and they closed with little widget clips, swiveling inward so you could control the direction and amount of air that rushed in when the car was in motion. Too small to see outside, we sat dwarfed in the backseat watching the tops of trees go by and playing with a doll and a green plastic soldier. The doll was homemade from an old sock. The soldier, alone, separated from an army of plastic soldiers that came in a bag we could not afford. He was found, as most toys were, in the gutter or on the schoolyard, abandoned by the more affluent children. Small, simple toys that would not be missed from a rich kids over-stuffed closet. We knew we had to be quiet, for to make noise would be to draw attention that would come in the form of punishment. A slap on the bare thigh of a young boy in shorts or a young girl in a dress would leave a red welt for hours. The ride always seemed so very long that soon our patience would give out and a bump in the road would trigger a tidal wave of emotions; a push escalating to a shove, a pinch and then a shout. The crested wave would end in a crashing roar with a parents’ curse, a stinging slap, and a whimpering cry. Only puddles remaining, tide pools composed of wet pants and tears.
A room filled with sadness
Standing alone in a room filled with sadness
Photograph smiles in a frame on the shelf
Ashtrays are filled with a death wish still breathing
Lighting another in spite of myself
A hand full of pills and a glass of Jack Daniels
The tube shows a movie, Bogart and Bacall
Through heavy eyes, I am still thinking of you
Only the floor there to meet as I fall
When on the door comes a knock unexpected
Shattering plans that I must put on hold
Closing one eye as I look through the peep hole
A shadowy figure is there in the cold
Twisting the lock and then turning the handle
Chilled is the blast that runs into my face
There I find death with his sickle untarnished
Needless to say my sad heart starts to race
“What are you doing, you can’t be that stupid
It’s not your time for this world to depart
Just for some girl who has left you here crying
Wanting to die for a damn broken heart”
I stopped and I thought as I heard this thing speaking
Then shoved my finger inside of its chest
“I’ll do as I please you know not what you’re saying
It’s my time to go and I think it is best”
“God what a loser, oh wait, I meant Satan
Fine, suit your self, we’ve a place you can lie
Swallow those pills but I’ll take that Jack Daniels
I will get thirsty while watching you die”
I thought of us and what I would be leaving
How much it hurt you had found someone new
Then of my heart that was shattered in pieces
The sound of your voice when you shouted, “we’re through”
That you are happy with some other poet
How every scar of my life has now bled
Why would I want to give you satisfaction
Knowing you’d smile when you heard I was dead
Then like a bolt or a light bulb exploding
Came a decision as clear as a bell
I’ll stick around in this room filled with sadness
It’s got to be worse than that place he calls hell
This is one of two poems I have written for John Hamilton’s Lost Love poetry contest, but haven’t decided which I will enter. I will post the other in a little while. : )
There is no poetry without you
Softly flows the sunset colors
painted on tired skies with fire
Igniting a wafting cloud in orchid tints,
the fresh scent of pine lingering within its escape
Drowsy horizons boast their claim
along seaside waverings in salted mist
Romance swims on shorelines engulfed
with all of the pageantry a white cap stanza can bring
And I whistle as I walk along,
taking in this wonder that has followed me home
Resting on a porch swing, feet off the ground
as morning glories sleep beyond white painted balustrades
Satin fingers intertwine with mine,
milk pudding lips bring their flavor to me
Luscious frosting in a whipped frenzy
coating my mouth in sugary mass
I point to the sky, the stars they beckon,
heart shaped constellations for two
Twinkling in your twilight eyes
as I reach for my pen and pad
Only to realize that this indeed is my imagination,
lounging on a worn out sofa, tattered cushions,
empty beer cans acting like so many ashtrays
leaving wet rings on a table, but who cares
There was a time when poetry flowed
from these nicotine stained fingers
in paisley emotions and violet scentings
climbing the arbor of love
But since you left,
leaving behind the shadows which claim my eyes
my ink is dry and my paper tossed, tiny balls in random patterns
on a floor that begs carpeting, but only bares soiled footprints
As I struggle to my feet, to the front window
desperately waiting for the grass to grow and butterflies…
I stab the wooden sill with my pen, I need it no more, for…
there is no poetry without you…and never will be again
The reason I feel this poem is trophy worthy is it is exactly how I was feeling at the time I wrote it, it came from a very deep place in my heart. It covers the wonderful happiness I felt and the sad loneliness that came afterward which for a time did take the pen out of my hands.
Things That Should Grow on Trees
Things that should grow on trees include:
big sea birds with
extremely long wings, old-fashioned shoe
horns, tape recorders who
play sporadically cries of
grief, blank
photographs, stamps with
printed eyeballs, people with
colourless or
very nearly colourless hair and
skin and
pinkish eyes, the word
unfortunately, the word
regrettably, the word
even though, miniature
pianos, vampire
teeth, leaf
blowers, False
IDs, illuminated loyalty
cards, the watchful and
attentive, damp
clothes, pom
poms, glass
shards, pack of
cards, rope knot
balls, plastic
trinket boxes, ashtrays (glass only), lips (too
animal lips), spines (too
animal spines), toast, headache
tablets, running
shoes, and
whores.
daddy died alone in his home
ashtrays with cigarette butts completely hoarded his deathbed
the smell of smoke almost immediately made my eyes turn red
i regret the 15 years since i last saw him
however i choose not to trip
daddy died alone in his home
i have a quiet conversation with him in the wee hours of the morning
i find myself knocking on the door of the visual voicemail on my phone
his deep, raspy bellow is simply asking me how i am doing and how he would like to see me sometime in the near future
i wish that the elements of those many years of cigarettes would have never bumped into the dreadful doom of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
please go visit those responsible for the roots of your life
please do not let time, stubbornness, pride, or fear control any part of your personal turns in direction
one day in the center of your plans to finally go see said loved one,
a curveball may come out of nowhere with a wind that strangely kicks
the carpet can sometimes taste like rusty coppered regret when the mouth and the tounge hits it as a result of complete disbelief
all that you will have are many wishes and several interrogative wonder whys
the next thing you know, you are living in time machine blueprint permanence