Papa Poet & Baby Poet

There are four kinds of poems.
That’s it.

That’s all we have to work with?

Yes.
There are poems about God.

Mmhmm.

Poems about girls.

What about guys?

Those poems are really about girls.

What else?

The poems about the shuffling of paper, or about fruit… Those poems are about nothing.

Well, that’s boring.

Not at all, those poems are the best.

Let’s see… What about poems about war and history?

Those are usually really about God or women.

Okay.  What’s the fourth one?

Poems about poetry.

Like this one?

Yes.  Like this one.

Bob Dylan Goes to the Movies

Bob Dylan Goes to the Movies

Starting the car, I hear
“Mr. Tambourine Man”, the Byrds version.
Disgusted, I put in a
Patti Smith CD a friend
gave me the other night.

She was sounding marvelous
until
“Changing of the Guards”
Jesus Christ.

In the lobby, “Like a Rolling Stone”
is wailing over the crowd.
Holy hell.  I can’t even escape
my life by going to the theater because
my life is there in the speakers.

The picture starts and “Rolling Stone” rolls
through the credits.  I almost
throw up my popcorn.

It’s hard to keep the Coke down now as an emo-punk
version of “Desolation Row” plays…
They brought my eleven minute brainchild
down to a three minute clamor.

The climax of the film features
Jimi Hendrix covering “All
Along the Watchtower”.  I can’t avoid myself
anywhere in this country.

Declaration of Dependence

I

can

not

do

this

on

my

own

New Poems…

So awhile back I saw Derek Webb play, and before one of his songs he told of a new realization he had. He was going to stop explaining his songs. The reason being he wanted the listener to make his own decision of what the song meant, and how it could apply to their own life. I thought this was really good, and I’ve been thinking about it recently because I think I need to make the same sort of declaration about my poetry. I am slow to put many poems up because of how I think people will infer them. Many of my poems are from other people’s (oftentimes fictional people..) perspective, or they’re simply the retelling of a dream or whatever. And in the past I’ve worried that people might think that if the character in my poem is struggling with something, then that means that I am. This is not always the case, and I’m through being concerned about this.
That being said, here are two newer poems.. still in need of a lot of tweaking.

Waiting For

The wolves are waiting for
us when we come home.
My parents, my brother, my aunt;
we all stop when we see them.

They stop too.

All of a sudden they are asleep.
Asleep or dead.
My brother slides one off with his foot
It falls off our wraparound porch.

The family follows his act.
Except me.
I have no part in this.
____________________
The Shower

I am a fast shower-taker.
I can get in and out in five minutes.
Tops.
But this morning
I stayed in the shower
for over an hour.
It was an easy choice.
Be soaked in this soothingness
or face the world outside
the shower curtain.
Outside those green paisleys.
Those beautiful green paisleys.

The Brutal Saint

The Saint thought to himself
“I cannot be a real poet;
for it is being raw that makes a poet
a truly good one.”

And his religion did
not allow him to be raw

He sat,
resenting God for instilling
this desire in him,
but not the means to fulfill it.

It was then that God
showed the Saint the uncompromising portrait of Himself.

For no other god allows
one to be more real than He.

He is the God who allows people
to even call themselves saints;

Allows man to ask the Creator of the Sky
why his dog died;

To ask,
and to curse,
and to blame, and even to
reject.

What could be more uninhibited than placing a child in a woman’s womb?
Or lightning in a cloud?

Tell me Saint, what is more fervant than saving the ones who despise Me?

The Saint knows nothing else more raw
that the furious love
of his Savior.

Gr(a)y

I am a gray soldier.

In the history of the world, gray uniforms have meant exactly that.
Gray.
Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Sometimes somewhere between the two.

Even the word itself is ambiguous.  Grey.  Gray.

The Italians; The French Calvary; The German Army;
The Confederates;
(I would not want to associate myself with their ideals, (but sometimes
I don’t want to be associated with my ideals either.))
I am a gray soldier waiting
for the sun to turn my clothes
white.

I Tell the Boy Nothing

The vertical window
shields the mother and her two small boys
The one old enough to walk stares
at the snow
falling
slow

I want to tell that boy about
the peril that lay
beyond that glass
About how dangerous it is to open
your heart

At first I think this.

I think it’s best to cease the hurt ahead of time

But then I tell the boy nothing
He will find out one day
The pain and the beauty of opening your heart
He will go back to this day
and thank me
for not warning him
For the beauty is worth the pain.

Discourse of a Quarter-Life-Spoiled-Suburban-White-Male

I’ve got it all figured out
Man lies to himself more
than he bears the truth
Hate is all around
but so is love
Hurt will always be unexplainable

I know after I wrote this poem,
I’m going to write another one.

Sometimes I’ll be able to go to sleep easily
Most nights I won’t
Music will forever move me
Too much at times
Friends can make you happier than anything you can find
Friends can make you sadder than anything you can find

And so it is
Patience is one of many words we’ve said too many times
It’s lost its authority
…but it’s so vital
A bad day just needs patience
Wait a week and things are better

And man lies to himself so much it’s absurd

and death always brings perspective
and death always brings questions
and death always somehow makes you happy to be alive

Tossing

I’m tossing around an idea in my head
It’s funny how much power words have.
I mentioned to my wife (in passing)
That I was thinking of becoming a teacher…

And we tossed it back and forth like a baseball.
Some throws just
light

lobs

Other throws,
fast pitches.

Suddenly I’m Mr. Holland
And this is my opus.
I’m receiving letters from all the students I’ve touched
over the years. One includes
a little quip about the time we got snowed in
and all had to tell stories to pass the time.
Another a little anecdote about the time the girl died on the playground
In the adjacent elementary school, and we closed early that day.

Yes, and now I’m retiring. Receiving teacher-themed presents that will be donated to Goodwill within a week.

Course I’m still twenty-three and I’m lobbing the ball back to my wife now.

Title Track

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”–Leonard Cohen

This blog is devoted entirely to my poetry. Please be honest about what you think about it. Thanks…

Here’s the first one I’ll test out. Let me know what you think:

He Remembers Being Small

Sorrow fills the child
His mother’s voice is softly singing
As she drives
He stares out at the clouds
Dreams about what the future will bring
The child just turned twenty-one
three days ago
And he wonders to himself
Are we there yet?

Are we where yet?

The child is left wanting