Some Nights I Fear Going to Sleep

I don't recall my dreams, at least
not the narrative: Saw a priest
wearing a cape, fluorescent green,
and warning me that West's now East.

Another dream: A vile disease;
it kills none but weakens the knees,
so people crawl along the streets
and weep sometimes and hug the trees.

Some nights I fear going to sleep;
stay up for hours just counting sheep.
My day's odd but I make it mean.
At night meaningless terrors creep. 

Under the Spell of Rhymes

I came across the third word, spell,
in the local library's lost and found,
next to a smartphone heavy as a dumbbell.
The second word, the article of the,
was bestowed upon me by a grand poobah,
the young, recently crowned Maharajah.
My readers shall not wonder much longer
where I found the very first word, under:
I discovered under right above
the fourth word, the preposition of.
The last word, though I seeked many times,
it was only at the end that I found rhymes.

The Brochure

You prepare the sherbet while I ponder the brochure.
You look so innocent, you look so pure,
As if you could heal me—like you could be the cure
To the infectious disease of my existence.
I am tired.  Tired.  Tired of it all.
You serve me the sherbet.  I blush.
And what if I should say no to this chance?
And what if I should say yes and then fall,
And even if you should come to me in a rush,
It would be late. And if not...oh, I feel so insecure...
And if not, how could you help me—and know for sure?

Thankful

I'm thankful for the words
Through whom I've learned to reach
I'm thankful for the birds
Who serenade the beach

I'm grateful for the rhymes
Who give my grief a form
I'm grateful for the chimes
Who salsa through the storm

Been in your debt my song
Who hold my bursting heart
Been in your debt so long
You feel like body part

Obliged to time and age
Who tame events in space
Obliged to pen and page
Who hide and show our race

The Wastebasket

A black colored wire mesh basket—

Inside which some words on crumpled
pages I’d forced into arranged
marriage of rhyme and rhythm, jump
now for joy though it’s hard to see
their friends crossed, some torn to pieces,
thus they taste bittersweet freedom,
saved from the ever scheming mind
of I the struggling poet—sits
in the corner next to my desk
across from the open closet,
where I keep stacks of lined paper
and many dozens of black pens,
and holds words prisoners, those words
who refused my orders and rules,
rejected my concepts and plans,
endured my threats and abuses,
were free at last to simply be.

The Kohls

Let's put our heart and soul 
In carefree cruise control
Now let's go for a stroll
Down this manicured knoll
Oh their tottering foal...
Look how beautiful!
We must have reached the Kohls
I hear their rock and roll
See salad in the bowl
Patties on the charcoal
Let's kiss and pay the toll
So here's our casserole
To make your table whole 
Oh let the good times roll! 

Yvette and Val

Yvette and Val were left behind.
Yvette was blind
but Val was brown
and new in town.

Yvette turned Barbie for the night
and stood in light,
alone near Val
her ghostly pal.

Alarming masks appear and fade.
She's not afraid,
been touched before.
She shuts the door.

Longing's Song

I'm the catnip's scent
I'm the purring sound
In pursuit of lust
I'm the feral hound

I'm the rhyming source
I'm its ceaseless caw
In the timbered heart
I'm the pouncing maw

I'm the empty tick
I'm the timeless hell
I'm the drowning flesh
In the wishing well

I'm the grasping want
I'm the craving tongue
In abysmal lull
I'm the longing's song

Gentle Touch

To write a poem feels as though a game 
Like hide-and-seek: To speak but make no sound. 
Winnicott said that it's a joy to be
Hidden, disaster, if you're never found. 

Meantime I hide behind the rhyme and feet,
And hope you love me or the game so much,
To step around the words and reach inside,
To say "I see you".  With a gentle touch. 

Short Poems #1-2

I live inside a box I've formed of sounds 
of letters—meaning-making music, bounds 
of human-living—written (voiced), to rhyme
and rhythm.

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Existence: Side effect of death, decay.
So many never birthed; but birthed, all die.
Thus life is fall from death; but death is whole.
Death is the soul; and life, entombed remains.