March 2014 K Poems

A closed door means nothing

to these cats. They push their

way in at night; you have to

keep the door closed tight

if you want you and your partner

to get some sleep at night.

Don’t preach do

Long hair is where it’s at

and not being fat; being

kind to those around you,

a smile on your face and

in your heart is the place

you ought to be if you are me.

Did you see Jennifer Lawrence's dress

that she wore on the red carpet? There

is a war in Syria, there is a war in the

Ukrain, there are hungry, hungover, tired

and cold people standing right in front

of us, but all we care about is Jen's dress.

(Thanks to my buddy Maggot for inspiring this one).

You know what I mean?

We need space. More space. Is there

enough space in outer space for all

our stuff? I'm talking about stuff like

George Carlin used to talk about stuff.

Do you know what I'm saying? Do you

catch my drift?

Will Mother Mary Come To Me?

Bless me father, for I have sinned

it has been 38 years since my last confession.

I have lied. I have stolen. I have not followed

the rules and regulations of The Roman Catholic Church.

Is there a Hell, father; am I headed there,

or is there really a purgatory where my soul

will dwell until you are ready for me?

Guide me, father, in thought word and action.

Thy will be done, not mine.

I had a good idea

but I lost it. That

poem will never

be seen, it will never be heard,

it will never be written.

Tears will never be shed

over it. A smile will not

occur. A laugh will not

happen. I will not cause

anyone to think, to blink

to say why this is a great

poem or this poem is awful.

An opportunity has been missed.

I almost kissed the blarney stone

but I didn’t.

Rattle/Envy

Morisson and Pretti Penni don't know

that Dylan is being treated for

a possible urinary tract infection.

It may be what causes him to pee

on the hallway carpet

and piss the lady of the house off.

Morisson and Pretti Penni think that

Dylan is getting extra food.

They don''t see the little white pill

that is tucked within the bite of

cheesecake or peanut butter or potato

and they probably wouldn't care if they did.

Rattle/Lord, I thank you for

the birds chirping and the blossoms

bursting out on the trees. I thank you

for this warm day at hand. I thank you

for the land that I live on, the bed on

which I sleep. I thank you for these dogs,

whom I'm about to feed, the cats who

have already eaten and have gone back

outside. I thank you for my turtles and for

our bird. I thank you for my family and my

friends and for the love of my life who still

sleeps. Lord, I thank you for all that you

have given me and for all that you have let

me not want. Guide me, Lord, in thought,

word and action. Amen.

Rattle/By the sea, by the sea

oh how I wish that I were

by the sea; but I'm not.

I am sitting at my desk

reading and writing, not

at the same time of course

but like I do in the mornings:

I read until a poem, or two,

comes to me. No sand, just

a dog and cat hair infested

carpet at my feet.

Rattle/I am wrong in both situations

She doesn’t eat canned goods.

pushes her food onto her fork

with her finger. My father used to

backhand me across the face

when I did something wrong

at the table and she gives me

an eat shit look when I tell her

that she shouldn’t put her hands on

her food. I am wrong in both situations

caught in purgatory, I guess,

that strange place between Heaven

and Hell.

Rattle/Letting my freak flag fly

I avoid scrums. I don’t like the feeling

that I might be poleaxed at any time.

I hope this is not abstruse to you; perhaps

you are a minion to the herd. I don’t feel

sorry for you. You are the norm. I don’t

wear ties, or punch a time clock. I used

to try to punch out people in bars. I used

to want to be a superstar. Now I am normal.

Not like you, but like you. I like you.

 I avoid standing in line. I avoid traffic.

I avoid shopping for bananas on Sunday

after church has been let out. Almost cut

my hair. But I didn’t.

The cats were at the door at five thirty am

wanting inside. It was lightly raining out.

The grey cat was a bit wet. The black cat

was dry. I toweled off the wet cat, and fed

them both their morning snack of wet cat food.

The grey cat is now in the opened window

in my office, staring through the screen. He

wants out, again, I am sure.

Rattle/Dogs

They trust me to clean their eyes.

They love for me to pet them.

They get excited when I am about to feed them.

They sleep a lot.

They love to walk.

They love my cats.

They jump up to the stove to see if there is any

food they can steal when I am not in the kitchen.

They bark when strangers are about our home.

They pee on the grass.

One of them has peed on the hallway carpet.

They poop on the grass.

I love them so.

Rising from the dead

In the seven years that I have had her

I have never seen this turtle sleep,

but I was wide awake at 2 a.m. and

here at three a.m. I glance over at her

and she is either dead or asleep and I

know that she is supposed to out live

me so I figure that she is sleeping and

not dead. There she is moving now. She

heard me writing about her and awoke.

The centrifugal eye/TV dinners

By allowing our cats to go outside

for the first time in six years

we have gained our kitchen table back

which greatly pleases my love and I.

Before they could go outside

to roam the property, climb trees,

and explore the woods behind the house

the cats would sit on the table

staring out the windows that are adjacent

to the space where we used to eat.

Our first meal, with the cats gone, was

a celebration: yeah, no cats to compete

with us for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

My love hates eating on the couch

in the living room with the tv on.

The Centrifugal Eye/Bless Me Father

I don’t know why I mostly only remember the bad things about my father: him telling me that I would never add up to much, him telling me that I would never make it as a writer, him telling me, “I told your mother how old I’d be when I had ya,” implying that he had not wanted me to be born, that he didn’t want children, that only my mother did. “Don’t look at me like that,” was another one my father used to throw at me. How the fuck was I supposed to look at him when he was yelling at me at the top of his lungs in his thick Irish brogue? You were abused as a child, a therapist once said to me. When I saw the movie, “The Boxer,” which is in large part about the Irish, I understood where my father was coming from. He was a product of his environment. Dad, I have added up to much. I am, and have always been, a great father. I am “making” it as a writer, though it doesn’t, yet, pay the bills. Writing is my passion in life. It is what I live for along with the kids, the grand kids, the love of my life, and my pets. I’ll see you in heaven, my father.

Diana May-Waldman MY two cents--You are a GREAT father. You are an awesome friend. You are loved by the wonderful Joan as your partner. You are an incredible writer---you are aware, alive, brilliant and true to yourself...and because you are true to yourself you are able to be true to everyone around you. Your success as a writer, father, lover and friend is not measured by money....your wealth comes from you being a better man  That my friend is your truth and your wisdom.

Centrifugal Eye?/Open Book

Various intellectuals and homeless folk

gathered at the bookstore coffee shop,

until it closed, not to say that there were

not intellectuals among the homeless.

I worked behind the counter at the coffee

shop and some among the intellectuals

and homeless got their coffee for free

from me. I did not discriminate against

either group. I did discriminate against

the mean corporation that owned the

bookstore and caused management

to be mean as rats fighting for little bits

of cheese. My manager was obviously

under a lot of pressure, often threatening

to fire me if I did not step up in performance

of a specific function. You know how every

store in America wants you to sign up for

their card and have it swiped so they can

keep an eye on you? Well, we had one of

those cards, too. And, mostly I forgot to

ask for it.

Centrifugal Eye/Prostitution

I don’t know what pubic hairs were doing in the jar

with the three dollars’ worth of pennies that I counted

into penny rolls, this morning; but they were there.

Is there some connection between sex and money

that I don’t know about, outside of hookers and johns?

I think I saw a ghost

Something white just ran off into the woods behind the property.

Was it a skunk, the tail of a deer(is a deer’s tail white?); a ghost

that Pretti Penni and I scared off as she foraged for a place to make her morning deposit. Usually she drops in the edge of the

woods and not on the lawn where I would have to pick it up, and

for this I am thankful.

Anyone like you

I have tasted green bologna sandwiches

in jail cells and mental institutions. I

have tasted the love of beautiful women.

I have nearly been straight A in my studies

and I have flunked miserably at them, too.

I have ridden in hot cars, walked, and rode

the buses and trains. I have been depressed.

I have been ecstatic, but I have never met

anyone like you.

A pulpit to read from

I was a bit of a day dreamer in class

and church as a child, and I have trouble

paying attention to people on a pulpit

these days. My mind tends to wander

imagining myself up on that pulpit reading

my poems to a wide audience that never

appears when I do have a pulpit to read from.

The love of my life is makin' bacon

and potatoes with onions, which is

her morning specialty. Usually, I fix

my own breakfast, a couple of eggs

rolled in tortilla with some mayonnaise

or a bowl of cheerios topped with a

banana. I have been out of milk,

recently, so I have taken to using

the half and half that I pour in my

coffee in my cheerios and I find it

pleasant. I hear plates rattling in the

kitchen, now, which means that my

love will momentarily be calling for

me to come eat. When a man finds

a woman who loves to cook and who

loves to cook for him, it is among many

other great reasons to not let her go.

In Rwanda in 1994, the Hutus were not

very nice to the Tutsis, slaughtering over

a million of them mainly with machetes.

How The Lord above can allow such things

to happen is beyond me, though I know

that we have been told that, among other

things, that man has been given free will.

Free will should not mean "conflict" in Vietnam.

It should not mean "peacekeeping" in Afghanistan,

or Iraq. Boy George once sang, "War, war

is stupid," and I agree with him.

I wonder where my cats go

when it rains and they are

not on the carport, like they

were this morning when I

woke. They stay close to the

back door in the morning

when they have spent the

night out so that they can

come in and receive their

morning snack of wet cat food.

Why, there is Jaggar, my black cat

at my feet rubbing on my leg.

He is smart enough to not be

near the rain at all.

Of the rain and mice and rats

I’m not going to stand at the door

and look stupid while Kobain refuses

to come in from the rain. He is wet

but I will not dry him off until I am

sure that he is not going to wander

out into the rain again. Kobain is

the more adventurous of my cats.

Jaggar, my other cat, is inside and

has been inside since the rain started.

Jaggar, obviously, doesn’t like to get wet.

My love says that she has seen Kobain

climb trees and sit in them watching

birds. I have never seen such. At one

house we lived in, one where I would

set traps to catch large mice, maybe

they were rats, Kobain and Jaggar

would both bring me gifts of mice, or

rats, that they had captured and killed.

I know that their intention was good,

but it was a rather gross experience

for me. I am glad that there are no mice,

or rats, around the home we currently

are living in.

Raise your beer glasses tall

tis the day to celebrate The Irish

I'll join you with a cup of milk

or cola, for don't you know

I inherited the gene. Me uncle

was a drunk and my grandfather

before him; the sickness skipped

my mother and father but landed

straight on me.

Wake up from sleep

go to my website;

it's alright: bunch of

hits, bunch of books

sold.

And they arrive on the scene with

their blue lights flashing. The criminals

are gone, and so nearly is a little old

Vietnamese man, who had survived

The Vietnam War, but might not survive

the beating he just got from two young kids

who just robbed five dollars and seventeen

candy bars from his store.

Not quite right

We were celebrities for the night

tasting the limousines and the bright lights

and then I woke up and realized

that I had not gotten that right.

Do you want Mary to appear to you?

Everything is hers.

And everything is mine.

And everything is yours

just let me tell you how:

be good to your family,

your friends, your neighbors

and strangers on the street.

Everbody Works at Wal-mart

Everybody

works at Wal-mart

and they drink

Coca Colas

while watching

American Idol.

Mikel K

You can only do what you can do

I love shooting ranges and guns.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Given that they have killed the elephant

for his tusks, left him bleeding and dying;

they killed the Indians for their land, and

they’re probably still killing us but we don’t

know who what where when how or why?

The Fucks

The fucks were a family of corporations.

The only thing that they had in common

was fucking folks. You know who they are.

I know who they are. And yet we let them

function, support them, no less. What is

wrong with me? What is wrong with you?

Chicks and beer

Chicks and whiskey.

Man, theeeeere ain’t

nothing like chicks

and beer. I like bowling.

I like bowling while

drinking beer. Hell,

I’d play Bingo if I could

drink me some beer. I

don’t drink and drive like

I used to. I don’t sleep

with women in black outs

no more. I’m a civilized

gentleman, and I care about you.

Dead flea, or was it an ant

between my fingers, the

reincarnation of Gandhi

and I just squished him to death.

Lonely rooms

and empty spaces.

See the faces stare.

submitted/Sometimes, I don't feel like searching

for something, like my keys, or my cell phone.

You can call the phone, but you can't call the keys

so no doors will get open, or locked, until you

locate them. Sometimes, I don't feel like searching

for something, like the meaning to life. There is

no meaning and there is complete meaning

all at once, just like there is Heaven and Hell

and you can live whichever one of them that you choose.

Cuz I’ve Found It

It’s a weird world and I’ve been weird

every once in a while myself while wandering

about the planet looking for love. I used to

get drunk and look for it. I went to meetings

and I looked for it. I’m 53 years old and I

ain’t looking no more.

From mammy to pappy with love

Can you call things up? And then make them do

special things like you do? Can you, dear?

Because she was lightening

and I was thunder; all these

great things were supposed

to come out. And many of them

did. But, in the end, turned out

we were just ordinary people

and not The Queen and The King

of The Hill.

Son,

When you're ride is over

you got to get on off the bus.

You got your whole life in front of you

don't squander time being a bum;

and that writer thing, I don't think

you have it in you.

Dad

Did you eat that last slice of pizza?

Should I do the dishes before you

get home?

I love you. What's for dinner? Oh yeah,

those spring rolls you left out. That will

be a tasty dinner. You are so amazing.

We're going to The Margaret Mitchell

house tonight. It is the 40th anniversary

of something. What an amazing day!

What an amazing life!!

Impecunious having little or no money

Subterranean avuncular; impecunious

when they were above ground, trod upon

by catatonic kittens, when down under.

I don’t know why. I wish that I was more

waifish as I attend to them. The boss could

never catch me sleeping near the graves.

His riding lawnmower would always wake

me and I’d grab a rake or shovel and act like

I had been working all the time. I’m going to

catch him, I heard him say to another guy.

When school got closer, and the hangovers

got worse I just wandered away from the job.

That poor bastard probably died working there.

I dont feel like looking

in the mirror, right now.

I don’t want to be reminded

that I am not what I am

supposed to be.