Long Fistfuls Poems
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Life's a carnival ride, a bag of barkers and crabs
pinching the mind with pink toys and shiny swag
stuffing your mind with sweet soft fuzzy things
wraps you in heavy chains and a cold nose ring,
leads you to a fiery, Ferris wheel ride of denial
plunks you aside a bearded lady-opening thighs
you want to jump off, but you're just too damn high
she takes you around a brutish, glittering world
leather studded, hungry for a necklace of dirty pearls
Her mouth is smeared with black lipstick and gravy
the rides finally over but the soul is still draining.
The fun house has mirrors filled with bending dream.
Walls are wailing, blood drips down from the beams
you scramble down back alleys for pockets of peace
then slide on chunky puddles of black ice and screams...
There's only one way out, and that's all the way down
the chute's filling with hell hounds and manic clowns
balloons brimming with flocks of blues and red herring
fistfuls of daisy grenades, with them there's no winning.
You've hit rock bottom, there's a tunnel of golden light
a beautiful angel in waiting but she's lost her mind
slowly she's swinging a crinkled-up no vacancy sign
while the barker is spinning flocks of his little white lies.
Life's a plastic bag filled with mad barkers and whirling crabs,
teasing like a virgin, then swallowing you whole like a hag.
Johnny was a lover of God's country
who roamed cherished land because he was free.
A skilled outdoorsman with backcountry charms,
he donned a burlap sack with holes for arms.
To wear rugged shoes was quite a blessing,
for barefoot he'd trek, soles without dressing.
He wore a useful pot upon his head,
books have depicted, historians said.
He was kind and gentle to all God's life,
though he was childless and had no wife.
He escaped wild beasts, slept under stars,
and had tales to tell along with scars.
As an optimist with fistfuls of seed,
he ceased moments to meet a future need.
Crisp and delicious, he loved apples' taste,
pocketing precious seed to sow in haste.
Imaging orchards graceful and wild,
he planted new life with faith of a child.
With settlers he'd barter for basic needs
blessing them with the product of his seeds.
From Pennsylvania to Iowa's ground,
Johnny's living legacy can be found.
1/20/2021
cat man had enough forced isolation
sabbatical dreams after quarantine
entered his hermit cage in seclusion
I need time out from lockdown he promised
they told me of the psycho cat’s demise
but cats have nine lives so I can spend one
and I may use it on my free accord
face my own mask and fearless persona
fantasize about chosen solitude
beat the rat race and feline adventure
the label I hide on the wine bottle
is a wise decal of aspirations
decanting the truth into fine crystal
bodes a farewell from forced captivity
while I look at the ceiling of limits
eerie floorboard creaks near the white sand beach
sanded pine wood pining for ocean’s roar
no more footprints I can walk on my hands
balance harmony and despair for good
when he woke up deluded in night sweat
pyjama purring and soaked wet with delight
claws clenched around fistfuls of withdrawal
clattering teeth grinding out last resolve
he took a swig from his wild genie’s flask
rolled a stone in front of his caveats
crept deep into his cave and growled
untamed will had been abandoned for good
and he dwelled in emotions and chuckled
social distance is not bad after all
I just don’t want to be told what to do
it’s in my genes I’m made for concealment
contagion won’t harm be for I’m myself
26th September 2020
Collaborate With Me contest
Sponsor Kim Rodrigues
Honey Locust Trees, perched precariously on
Ledges lost amid ruptured chasms of evil
Ant hills, protruding fistfuls of grapefruit-sized
Giant ants suffering remnants within sight of
Chernobyl, in the Ukraine forbidden zone;
Seemingly immune to the poisonous pods;
Literally dripping heavy ants clinging to juicy,
Waxy seeds as they climb and fall over each
Other feasting on spandrel sins denied by silver
Palaces adorned with backroom deals and
Shady hats glittering with guava-glazed
Toasted pecans, spun with rain-soaked
Clumps of blue spirulina hungrily engulfed
By the living dead...
Enrobed
In
Pock-marked
Palladium
How wonderful! God sees our worthless vessels,
yet they carry his message and light into the world.
O wonder! God moves our feet, directs our paths.
Our minds must not hinder nor slack. They must
attack the dust, muddy mess, and all life’s elements.
Special, me? If you flip my lid, there’s a dynamo
treasure trove inside. Jewels of the universe reside
within, deposited daily by the Holy Spirit. The gems
of God’s Word are precious, spectacles, reminders.
Blessings! Tucked away, dusted off, to heaven or bust.*
Don’t hold on tight but release fistfuls of holy dollars.
There’s much more where those came from. Fill
your jar daily then open up and let out the sun, moon
and stars. Don’t mistake a handheld diamond,
sapphire, ruby for a god. It has no power over you,
under you nor around you but God’s power lights
up the universe. We borrow it to light our houses
but most assuredly we can never illuminate our own eyes.
God lit them and will darken them. Take care if you want
to see the light of heaven colorize your eyes once again.
1/31/2022
*The term “or bust,” used in traveling in a vehicle.
People would make signs, “To New Orleans or bust,”
for example to indicate they would do
everything possible to get there.
There's a Polaroid from sixty or so years ago...
It's of a man and a boy in the foreground.
The great Niagara Falls just beyond.
A thin rail in between them and the rapids.
Black water violently rushing over the brink.
There was great scarcity for the man...
scarcity of money
scarcity of security
scarcity of light
scarcity of love.
but he always held on tightly to his cub.
With fistfuls of hard labor
and a thimble of fair luck...
The burlap of time softened
to rough cotton puffs.
For his entire life, the man held the boy tightly.
With the black brink of a fall always in sight.
When I imagined what it would
be like to be a writer,
I saw myself hunched over a
typewriter with bourbon on the
rocks sweating a ring onto my desk.
I could smell the ink on my fingers
and feel the burn of alcohol in my gut
and hear the keys clapping, a standing ovation
for the poor sad boy who wrote wings onto
his back and flew away from the red mud county.
But it's quiet here.
I sit alone at my desk and I reach into my guts
and I grab fistfuls of blood and viscera
and the keys don't move
I choke up the rage my father left in me
and the keys don't move
I cut out the fear my mother so lovingly placed
and the keys don't move
I drag out every black eye, bloody nose, and split lip I ever earned, every fight I lost, every single argument I had, every sunset I was a brother beneath, every truck cab I ever fell in love in and
THE KEYS DO NOT MOVE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At first, the sky split like wet paper,
a soundless tear widening~
then came the howl,
not wind but something older,
chomping away at the edges of gravity.
Cities collapsed inward~
skyscrapers bowing like stalks of wheat,
glass raining upward into the maw of clouds.
The ocean stood on its head,
fish gasping in the sudden air,
their silver bodies flashing
like discarded coins.
Somewhere, a child’s laughter
was cut short by the taste of iron,
their mother’s hands clutching at the ground
as it liquefied beneath her.
Dogs howled in unison,
then fell silent,
their throats full of ash.
The tempest had no name,
no reason, only hunger~
swallowing forests whole,
leaving behind teeth marks
in the bedrock.
When it passed (if it passed),
the survivors dug their fingers
into the new earth,
pulling out fistfuls of blackened roots,
wondering if the sky
would ever stop chewing.
They named the silence aftermath,
counted teeth marks on the horizon,
licking their wounds and
tasting the residue of swallowed cities.
The wind, when it returned,
carried only echoes~
not of voices,
but of the absence
that gnawed louder than their hunger.
What grew first were the questions,
twisted as the scorched trees,
bent toward a sun
that no longer recognized them.