Ritual (Over 100 Quarantine Days)

When the work

is done,

I retire to the garage

to smoke my cannabis,

watch a sitcom rerun

and unwind

as I always do.

I walk to

the front of the house

to check 

my daughter's car

to see 

if it is locked,

as I always do.

I walk around

the black

2012 Honda Civic

and check the doors

and the windows

as I always do.

Noting this ritual,

as I have done over 

100 quarantine days 

in a row, I numbly think:

"There is 

absolutely nothing special 

about this day."

At that moment,

I became conscious

of the purple in the dusk,

the melody in the breeze,

the hopeful laughter of 

the children playing 

up the street,

the scent of her hair

lingering from an

earlier embrace

and the warmth knowing

all was safe,

calm and bright 

for the moment,

and the truth 

whispered in my ear:

"Every single thing

about this day

is special."

The Iron Jew (for Rodney)

The Iron Jew
steps into the ring,
tuxedo shirt
and bulging eyes
and craggy features,
sweat from his fore head
nervousness in his twitch,
he is a mountain
with punchlines
at his 1970s
new York nightclub.

Standing in the spotlight,
gauzed in cigarette smoke,
he delivers
line after line after line,
each one more powerful
than its brother before.

Cynics, skeptics and
shtarkers,
each come up and
each is knocked down,
but the sheer gravitas
and invention of this
survivor and his
world-weary shield.

He leaves the stage,
undoes the bow tie
slumps in the dressing room chair,
lights up a joint,
and waits for the next
challenger.

Scene change:
Thirty years later
on the other side
of America,
I come home
wrung out and hope spent
I go to the garage,
fire up my pipe
and queue up Rodney Dangerfield
on the Johnny Carson show
via YouTube
and
puff puff laugh
puff puff laugh
and his attack begins:
decades melt as
and he hits,
unrelenting;
each hit perfect,
and I begin my surrender:
sides aching,
he punches,
I’m sucking for breath,
 he punches,
throws a three joke combo
with a topper
and I’m almost doubled over in pain,
joyful and liberating.

I have lost myself
and my worries
for a moment,
and I am grateful
as I catch my breath
and marvel that
the Iron Jew
has won again!

She Cobbles a Placid Moment

With kids asleep,
hiding from
unfinished chores,
she cobbles
a placid moment,

exhaling smoke
from the bathroom window
into the cool,
unaccountable darkness.

Spying a distant,
familiar cluster
of red, white and blue
police lights,
muses,

 “I’m so glad
that’s not my life
anymore.”

[Written for de Jackson's prompt: cobble https://dversepoets.com/2018/06/04/quadrille-58-cobble-us-a-poem/]

Really High

If you hold
the vapor deep
in your lungs,

long enough
to quickly recite
"The Lord's Prayer"
in your head,

by the time
you get to
Amen,

you will get
really high,

and really high
just means
you're closer
to Heaven,

closer to God.

Stoned AF (A Cheer)

T-H-C!

T-H-C!

Alter me,

beautifully!

The Perfect Idea

In the haze
of my
self-induced
twilight,

I had
The Perfect Idea.

I don't know
from where it
came,

but I was alone,

so,
I figured
I made it.

Thinking
"this thought is
so good,
I don't have to
write it down"
I luxuriated
in the in
thick warm glow
of satisfaction.

Then,
just as mysteriously
as it arrived,

it disappeared.

I despaired
until I realized
it came from
inside,
so the ingredients
are still there,

and then I remembered
the wisdom
of my teacher

"Don't Try."

I stopped frantically
trying to recover
this cloud-memory,

just accepting that
The Perfect Idea
will come around again,

and when it does,

I'll write it down.

Trance

Nightly
I sit in the cool spring air,
rocking back and forth
on the patio swing,
trying to put myself
into a trance.

I inhale
the cannabis vape,
and play the recording
of Liz Damon’s Oriental Express
singing “1900 Yesterday.”

I am drawn
to this hopelessly dated
recording,
anachronistic for 1971,
it must seem positively
prehistoric now.

“Where's the love 
that we knew, 
is it gone, 
or have you 
thrown it away?”

Something about
those voices,
that 1960’s Hollywood sound,
takes me back
to my earliest memories
of something beautiful,
someone unblemished.

I perform this ritual
hoping one day
it will be
the key
that unlocks
who I really am,

who I really was
before the crash.

[Written and posted for the Tuesday Platform at the Real Toads.]

Quality Time: Vaping in the Early Spring Twilight

We vaped
in the early spring
twilight,

my adult daughter
and I.

Later
I opined,

"This is
quality time:
me talking to you
and you texting
on your phone."

In spite of
her treatment-resistant
depression,

she smiled
said "Yup,"

yielding
a drizzle of laughter.

[posted for https://dversepoets.com/2017/04/10/quadrille-30/]