Sadie the Cat is Missing Haiku

Dirty gray cotton
threatening, menacing rain;
find a warm place, cat.

Broken Girls

I see broken girls

everywhere,

trying to hide

behind polished smiles

something secret

and shameful

that was born

so long ago

and was pushed

down so deep

it is almost forgotten.

Almost.

I see broken girls,

frantically flapping,

always trying to

win approval

from parents

who have long since

departed this realm.

Broken girls

never rest feeling 

that they did 

enough.

Broken girls

possess hearts

ever weary,

muscles exhausted

from always holding back

that sadness they keep

in the dark,

lest it see the light

and multiply

like malignant cancer cells.

Broken girls

can see each other

and in their

invisible bond,

they make silent prayers

for each other,

knowing that

even they 

are entitled

to a bit of happiness

now and then.

I see broken girls

in line at the supermarket

at evening prayers

fighting with the insurance company

waiting out colorless marriages

in drunken, half-naked stupors

frozen and stuck in therapy

writing poems no one will see

stroking cats in silence

worrying about the future.

When I look 

into the mirror,

I see a broken girl.

Balance

Balance
is an illusion,
only because we think
we need to achieve
equilibrium
to achieve peace.

Remembering
to breathe
completely in
and then
completely out,
forgetting the past
and the future
resets everything,
wipes the slate clean.

It is as easy
as it sounds
and
it is not as easy
as it sounds.

Now go,
and
become balanced.

[re-Posted for http://dversepoets.com/2015/05/14/meeting-the-bar-antithesis/  ]

End of the Line

To my ancestors:
biology isn't fate,
vasectomy trump.

The One I Threw Away

I've kept damn near
everything
I ever wrote,

just in case
the Smithsonian calls.

The only one
I threw away
intentionally
was the whine
written for the
deranged and depraved
married woman
who pursued me
after my newlywed bride
abandoned me
and my heart
was oozing
pus all over
our still-unopened
wedding presents.

In weakness
I wrote it
and in weakness
I dishonored
her marriage.

I secretly wish
every poem I ever
gave away
is still somewhere
secretly tucked
inside a memory box,
yellowed and folded,
treasured beyond
explanation,

except the one
I threw away.

I hope that one
was unceremoniously
dumped along with
wadded candy wrappers,
sticky, spent condoms
and other detritus
born of regret.

Where is Sarah’s Miracle?

When the Lord’s Supper
is shared in our church
lights are dimmed,
and I was grateful
for the darkness,
because I was doubting,
despairing,
wondering why
the Lord
saw fit
to scratch
my daughter’s brain,
in utero, 
marking her with
cerebral palsy,
mild enough
to prompt the
well-meaning,
but ignorant
“well,
at least
it’s not
that bad.”

(Never mind that she
has been diagnosed
with depression
since she was 7;
anxiety and OCD
as a teen.)

I sat with my head
in my hands,
hiding my tears,
thinking,

“where is her miracle?
Do You even perform
miracles anymore?”

Sensing the usher
standing by,
I looked up
and it was Bill.

Bill should have died,
when he was driving
that two-lane highway
through the Badlands,
and was struck
head-on
by a Mack truck.

He was in
intensive care
for half a year,
rehabilitated
for a half more
and now
here he was,
smiling and offering me
God’s grace
in the form of
an unleavened cracker
and a plastic
cup of grape juice.

I ate the bread,
drank the juice,
and patiently
kept on
waiting
for her miracle.

Just One Star

I look into the
limitless purple black
trying to focus on
just one star.

I am dizzied
and humbled.

I don’t have the right
to look up
and examine them
as though they were
specimens
in a laboratory,
for I am temporary
and replaceable,

inconsequential,

while the stars
are unreachable,
indestructible,
lasting longer than
the stones we use
to understand time.

I look up
into that massive
dark silence,
wondering if
someone
out there
is trying to find
me.

Easter 55

Virgin birth? Life after death?

Have you been smoking meth?

At attention, in your pews,

straining for any good news?

Heard not in any church,

hidden books I did search.

Hanging there, as a wraith,

not demanding assent of faith,

seems not a divine plan;

more likely by profane man.

Remember:

Jesus’ death saved everyone.

Nonfiction Books

Nonfiction books
bought, stacked,

possessing the
truth of
the world;

more than
I can
read in
a lifetime,

staving off
The Angel
Of Death.

Fiction books
remain superfluous.

About Sandra

The first poem
I read was
in the volume entitled

"Love is a Dog from Hell."

The perversity of the title
hooked me
and I opened to the section
about Sandra

and read about the temptress
who brought her
naive, young boys around
to show off to the author.

I had been
one of those boys
and I was red-faced
as him
caught me
in his descriptive grasp,
looked me over
and summarily dismissed me
as the inconsequential
youth that I was.

I read more
and more,
each poem
defining the man
and resonating
in me,
at once idiosyncratic
and personal.

I took it home
and Bukowski became
that unreachable standard
that all who create
must have.

An Inadequate Keepsake

This is
the best day of my life.

I'm not fooled
by its mundane patina,
its ordinary facade.

It is a golden day
because
it is not a memory
nor a dream.

It is real,
and I am awake,

and this is not
a poem,
but rather
an inadequate keepsake
of an ineffable grandeur.

My Demise

It won’t be
like anything
I have planned:

with my luck
when I get that
final shove
off the cliff
into eternity

I’ll probably be
straining too hard
while sitting on
the toilet,
a well-read Sam Ash
music catalog
still in my hand
and my heart will say
“Check, please”
and I’ll fall forward
in a crumpled ball
my ass fully exposed,
forehead on the
cold hard tile,
immobile,
save for some drool
unceremoniously
dripping,

and I hope this happens
on a day
when everyone is out
and hours pass
before I am discovered

frozen
in rigor mortis
in this royal pose,
much like King Elvis.

So,
Lord,
now that I've described it,

please

don’t let it be
like anything
I have planned.

Blankety-Blank

All night I worshipped her blankety-blank
without a single thankety-thank.

So I called her a middle-aged blankety-blank
(just to give her collar a yankety-yank).

Then I pinched her on the blankety-blank
(it was really just a prankety-prank).

She hissed "don't you touch my blankety-blank!"
(I was hoping she'd give me a spankety-spank),

but she just covered up her blankety-blank
and asked how much I drankety-drank,

and then my heart just sankety-sank
when, in a tone too frankety-frank,

she said "never again, Mr. Blankety-Blank,
will you blankety-blank my blankety-blank!"

Onward

We cannot wait
until everything else
is put right
to act.

No,
through the
smoking black
choking stench
failure,

we must press
onward.

[in Soupy Sales foramt - 25 words or less.]

Tools

These words,

differ little

from the crayon butts

that scribbled something

indecipherable,

the photographs

that tried

freezing reality,

the keys

that rose and fell

in stumbling arpeggios,

the scratch

of the strings

on my $20 guitar

when I was 13.

They were just

the tools

I had at the moment

to help

capture the parade,

and maybe

understand

that which may be

a cosmic

absurd joke

after all.

Still

while I love my tools,

I cannot forget

that after all

the songs,

poems, cartoons,

jokes,

my life is more than

these things.

My life is to be

a vessel

bringing

understanding,

compassion,

the overflowing chesed

from above

through me

out in all directions,

infinitely.

When I remember this

perspective,

I am properly

humbled

and happily accept

that I am a tool.

[For #OpenLinkNight at @dversepoets.com - my favorite place for poetry on the internet.]

Come the Flowers

From the cold

and dark season

every year

come the flowers.

I envy their

uncontested beauty,

their grandeur and attitude,

as they bloom

without restrain

or shame,

knowing they are

the most beautiful

in the world

for a time.

Those with

provocative splashes of

orange,

reds and purples

excite me most,

with full curves

and unrestrained,

mysterious

allure.

They attract every

living thing,

especially

monsters with

huge nostrils,

who want to possess,

consume,

and inadvertently

kill them.

Worship them

from afar,

and love them

on their own terms,

as the proof

of Divinity

that they are.

Emptying

I am emptying
myself

of all things comprising
myself

in an attempt to
be the most perfect
servant,

but I’ll never know
if I reach it

because
by then
I would have lost,
I should have lost

my name,
my personal pronouns,
myself.

On Some Nights

He kisses her
goodnight
and on some nights
she kisses back.

He always tries
a second kiss,
to gauge her interest.

Most nights
her eyes are tired
and glazed over,

and he feels like he’s
kissing a dummy,

but more likely
it’s the
other way around.

Cigar Meditation

I lean back
in the chair,

and light a cigar,

feeling a kinship

to my Spanish-speaking abuelito

and Groucho Marx.

Sucking in the smoke,

a joy, exotic and ephemeral,

like an amorphous nipple,

I let it slither out,

amusing myself

with its heavenward

curling gray path.

I take a sip

from the tumbler

of apple cider vinegar

and honey

over ice cubes

pretending it is a cocktail,

because even though

it too, is an acquired taste,

it doesn’t provide

the liberating

slippery feeling

of real booze.

I inhale,

then put the smoke down.

I sip,

then let the honegar slide slowly down.

I ponder the

future destination

of the sun

as it sinks

predictably

and dispassionately

over countless stories

that I’ll hear someday,

maybe.

This ritual

forces me to slow down,

to remember

that some things

remain unchangeable

and to accept them

as they are,

or waste your time trying.

I learned early on

you can’t smoke

a cigar quickly,

but then again,

why would you?

New Masters (a sijo)

We buy the smartphones, unaware we are buying new masters.

The app store tempts our vanity with personalization.

Soon, we all are narcissists, looking in our handheld mirrors.

[Written for #formforall at dversepoets.com - a poetry lovefest online!]