An orange sun lands,
bursts of burnt orange flares
and the highway shimmers
gives up the heat of the day
flames still simmering
under the cracked blacktop.
Driving squint-eyed into a vivid afterglow.
I am taking pictures with my mind,
developing, downloading
filing away snapshots of
this weltering of light.
I have to get home
it's getting late
and I must show her
those images
while they are still fresh.
She will coo and ah
while I proudly relay
the best miracle of the day
only half believing me.
Categories:
squint eyed, poetry,
Form: Free verse
On its surface a crimp and cockle
of a purling tide have rucked an impression
on a stone.
We are here to find Eagles
but the sky is too low and the wind too high.
You show the image on the stone
as if this were the very thing
we had been looking for.
I look at it squint eyed:
could be a crow
You throw the stone into Lake Huron,
won’t hold my hand
won’t speak again
until I admit to the endless possibilities
of crinkles, tides and wind
to produce
magical eagles.
Categories:
squint eyed, poetry,
Form: Free verse
This frail squint eyed woman
She wears the crown
She goes around town
Her hair matted and coiled
like entrails.
Pass her on
She’s your brother’s hand-me-downs.
This dark-skinned immigrant
from an old barren distant land
feeds on this town’s useless information.
She laughs so hard it stings.
She is simple and decisive.
“You will never learn a god damned thing”
“You are a sad song that played too long”
“I’m in demand…ask all your friends.”
“What a shameful game she played”
“Don’t you remember yesterday’s embers?”
“Show me your army..”
“Where do you go when no one’s watching you?”
“Wish I had another stab at your pale face”
“Whatever keeps you warm at night.”
This warm grainy palm
On the rusty banister
Is the grand vestibule to our small town.
Categories:
squint eyed, analogy, body, feelings, sick,
Form: I do not know?
Planned non-obsolescence
is when you pour from a nearly empty carton
with unusual reserve
so as not to be the one
who drank the last of the milk.
When you push in your trash
so it squeezes into the eight-gallon white liner
with the faintest hint of a squint-eyed possibility
that someone else might possibly squeeze in just one more thing
after you,
so you are not that one
who didn't bother to help clear out our trash containers
leaving pristine liners for all of us.
When you don't prepare a will
because you weren't planning to need one.
When you continue to take one more possibly last breath,
one more last compassionate project,
one more than merely civil relationship,
despite having considered all the reasons
not to bother listening
to what
and whom
threatens to obsolete you.
Categories:
squint eyed, environment, humanity, humor, nature,
Form: Political Verse
Met the squint-eyed oracle
Puttin' down the trowel
To the new Delphi
'Cause his tongue got stuck
On circumstance
Claimed was struck
Epileptic-ally divine
On a highway back in Illinois
And just grazed the viaduct
If only a priestess with shorthand
Would live in a camper in Mazatlan
He'd write the link 'tween Jefferson's dream
And Lincoln's
Quite willin' to play first chair messiah
To a new civilization
Provided we're all in the audience
Did a stand-up routine
Two epics long
Of daring do over Burma
Time done in institutions
Told of a dozen psychotics saved
By what's called his
"Radiated Presence"
Each broken reflection's of self
Wondered off wavin'
It's time for lunch
Categories:
squint eyed, confusion, history, imagination, introspection,
Form: Free verse