Bent shoulders squeeze tight against the
seven-layer’d Sheol, curtained against
a world, upturned, and studiously
oblivious to a two-breasted sparrow,
with shark-teeth and winter’d schemes.
Words, like rainless clouds hopscotch over
solemnities, trinkets, experiments, names.
They jostle for supremacy with other shelved
things, like those good ideas, old friendships,
and Dad’s breakfast table dreams – the talk
of little boys of unwhisker’d pedigree.
Watch a man’s skin curl under
flame while doing your nails, and then shrug
away the smell before answering
your phone. It could mean playground
talk, pajama time, and networking to
stop the voices.
Still, hiding there under the clock,
breathless and stoic, that pushes only red and
black and the carbon of sweaty
palms, are the patient lines on an ambivalent
face. Come the creaks and queries and
counting petals on the tired
sidewalk. But garden variety promises, wrapped
in gum wrappers are stuck in pigeon shit, refusing
release into the Cadillac morning on a
farm truck day. So, flow down trucker
tears, leathered and unbidden,
like remembrances of the somnolent road.
Those kind of tears.
Image: Circe by Wright Baker
Rob's Lit-Bits 
Oh, yeah! Loved this. Wow!
Hey, thanks man. I’m trying to work harder on more experimental and progressive forms of the art.
Well, it feels like there’s been a shift in your output, like the words are doing what you need them to. I’m not hearing the cranking of gears in your poetry any more. That’s not to say they haven’t cranked long and hard in the background, but the ride up front is smooth. Maybe that’s what people mean when they talk about “finding your voice”.
Looks like all the practice you’ve done has paid off. I wish I had the same stickability when it comes to working the craft. I love that you keep experimenting, too – that’s inspiring 🙂
Seymour, when I can write a book review as succinct, interesting and insightful as you, I’ll be a happy man. Until then, I’ll keep farting around with poetry and bloggy type stuff!
That sounds like the kind of farting we’ll do in paradise, in our glorified bodies that will probably be denied the dubious capacity for the other kind of farting 😉
Bummer (ba dum bum)…thanks, I’m here all week. Tip your waiter…try the veal…