Egg

As a former boy,
the shame impulse
returns
when I cry.

This false
Kevlar masculinity
now breaks
easier than
an egg.

I worked hard
to retrain
these dry,
stoic
eyes,

and
I don’t care
if it makes you
uneasy,

uncomfortable.

It makes me
human.

[Written for https://dversepoets.com/2018/03/26/quadrille-53-egg/]

Fire is the Best Teacher

It doesn’t waste time
with words or clucking tongues.

Fire beckons:
respect me,
use me,
warm your tired, rattling bones
by me.

The earliest memory
of my Mexican grandfather
who chain-smoked
Marlboros
was the accidental
cigarette burn
inflicted by
a tentative embrace.

I learned.

I watch wildfires
reduce drought-dry
California to crumbles
and check and double check
the burners on the stove,
the unattended curling iron.

It could all be over
just
like
that.

Fire
is passion
and force,
an overwhelming,
impossible to ignore
scream.

If you’ve only
been singed,
count yourself
lucky.

[Written for http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2018/03/poets-united-midweek-motif-scream.html]

The Last Hit

The temptation is to look back
and bask in the
two or three
positive
comments,

but that is not
what this is about.

Writing is
about moving onward,

trying to dive deeper
and scrape a little more
pyrite from the gulch.

My hero is Lenny Bruce
who felt he was a machine
if he did the same bit
night after night

in his quixotic quest
for the truth and
the uncorrupted
chuckle.

You're only as strong
as your last hit,

and that's what keeps me
going
on my quixotic quest
for the truth
and the uncorrupted
chuckle.

Unhealthy

When I do not ask
for what I want,
I feel bad,
guilty, ashamed.

When I ask
for what I want,
I also feel bad,
guilty, ashamed.

I just didn't think

I was so

unhealthy.