Fortune Cookie Poems

#1

Regret is Desire

sitting on the sideline

never attempted.

#2

Every kindness

no matter how small

advances world peace.

#3

The path of the butterfly

only seems random

if you’re not a butterfly.

Formatted for Mobile Devices

The smart phone

the iPad

the iPod

(the iGod?)

the laptop

bought from

the big box

crap shop

and Bluetooth

is not the

new truth

and last decade’s

PDA

is DOA

and unless your

USB

is version 3

don’t talk to me.

Technology dictates

how we think

and create

and share

and sync

and I don’t want any scrapple

from the fanboys at Apple

and I’m kind of frugal

so I roll with Google

and in principle

I like things open source

but only when they work

of course,

still, all these

gidgets and gazmos

polluting the cosmos

obscure the reality

they don’t want us to see:

that we do not possess them

they possess us

we are their slaves

and in them

we all trust.

and if this thought

causes you to frown

then

power down

and repeat this

not once

nor twice

but rather, thrice

“I am not a mobile device.”


[NOTE: Submitted for Meeting The Bar at http://dversepoets.com/ , May 10, 2012]

The Businessman Speaks Yet Again

The technology is

smart enough and

fast enough

to envision that

perfect product:

a sleek, sexy pad

with infinitely expandable memory

and perpetually updating software

designed to give us

more

faster

everything,

compressed

in a handheld destiny.

Imagine

every song

every book

every film

every painting

every sculpture

and all poetry

formatted for

mobile devices.

Everyone will know

that intoxicating feeling

of owing every work

of the Beatles

Michelangelo

Dorothy Parker

Aeschylus

Gustav Klimt

Mozart

Charlie Chaplin

William Shakespeare

Aesop

Beyonce

Salvador Dali

The Dalai Lama.

No longer

will we seek out

these rare artifacts

these books

those dusty albums,

or travel to lonely museums

to experience this world,

we’ll bring it to you

wherever you are.

All the centuries

of civilizing innovation,

those lines that separated

artist from patron

rich from poor

ignorant from wise

and sacred from profane

forever blurred

and portable.

And, if the device dies

(or if it accidentally

goes through the wash),

we’ve partnered with

Best Buy

Amazon.com

and participating Wal-Mart Superstores

to be the exclusive providers

of replacement

“MyCulture 2.0” modules.

Yes, I agree,

we’ll have marketing

come up with a better name.

Early Education

In Mrs. Brown’s

first grade class

we had to learn

two-place addition.

Adding one-place numbers

vertically

like

3

+

5

_

8

was easy enough

but

11 +

22

__

well, that was

from another

planet.

I didn’t understand

and I was kept

after school

struggling with this puzzle

until

the light finally

came on.

I arrived home

late,

scared as hell

because I knew

the fate

awaiting me,

because

according to my father

only bums and

miscreants

stayed after school.

I was summarily

beat

with the thick leather belt

and, in time,

I became an

overachiever,

an anxious, nervous-stomached

overachiever.

Today I am

a dean

at a college

my father could only

dream of attending,

and

as my 14 year old daughter

struggles to complete

her homework

saddled with

cerebellar dysfunction

dysarthria

dysgraphethesia

dysstereognosis

dyspraxia

obsessive compulsive disorder

general anxiety disorder

and sensory integration dysfunction

I remind her

that while I like that she’s smart,

I love her

when she’s kind.

Autodidact

Just show me the basics

-where my fingers go

-when to wait for the laugh

and I’ll tinker away

fashioning my own

version of it.

No technique

but to listen

for my own voice.

I’ll hack my way

through the jungle

of formal training

and come out

with some weird

twisted mutant,

one with a reassuring

resemblance

to myself

and whatever it is

you call

this.

Making

My normal state is

making:

making myself get up

making all the green lights

making small talk

making quotas

making deadlines

making compromises

making a reputation

making a scene

making documents

making mistakes

making a name

making arguments

making dinner

making grownups out of children

making an ass of myself

making masks

making chocolate chip cookies with M&Ms

making memories

making poems

making a good argument for invisibility.

He Never Dared to Dream

All these treasures,

the beautiful, devoted wife,

the mother of his children,

on the deck of the hilltop house

overlooking his adopted valley

against a rainbow sherbet sunset,

and the Delfonics are playing

off in the distance

as the Yorkshire terriers

gnaw and wrestle at his feet,

and he is overcome with giggles.

All this,

and he gets to sleep with her too.

Maroon

As the maroon spilled across the table
she couldn’t help remember the wine
they drank that first night
and all the promises they’d made,

and now what was once wine is now blood
sprayed across this linen tablecloth

like the aftermath of an exploded contract
ripping apart her soul.

Ringside Table at the 10 O’ Clock Show (Prompt: different perspective)

Normally,  

we’re so divided

we can’t agree upon anything,

but here,

with a 50$ cover and a

two-drink minimum,

we are all of one accord:

he’d better be funny

or we’re gonna kill him.

“Of Course, Our Love Has Changed” (Prompt: Change)

Of course,

our love has changed.

Carefree beginnings

beget inevitable scrapes and missteps

which beget arguments and

emotional slugfests

and children

always ruin Eden.

Recalling every pointless casualty,

every sleepless rumination

when tears were the

only language,

I watch as you sleep

next to me,

and I cannot help but feel thankful.

Of course,

our love has changed,

is it now hard won.

Sherri (June 22)

Where are you,

crazy lady?

I miss you,

because I never had a baby sister

to look up to me

and you’re the closest I got to that.

Don’t think that

just because you’re always the one

making desperate decisions,

uncertain of which way

tomorrow is pointed,

doesn’t mean

I don’t need you as well.

You’re one of the few people

who knows what’s

under this skin,

the weaknesses

of our shared DNA.

Sher,

we are more than kindred spirits,

more than familia,

I recognize

the self-deprecating humor,

the desire to please,

and that kernel of doubt

at the deepest part

of the soul

just as I recognize

my own face in the mirror,

except,

you’re prettier.

Call me.

Jeff (Some Version of the Truth)

You were so little

when Aunt Nancy brought you by

the first time,

and I loved to watch you dance

as I huffed and puffed

on the harmonica.

Years later,

when going through photo albums

someone asked of you

“Who’s the Black kid?”

At first, I didn’t see the color,

but eventually

I pieced

some version of the truth together

as I’m sure you must have.

As far as I know,

you’ve never been told

who fathered you,

and maybe your mom

doesn’t know,

and maybe your dad

never knew that

he had a son.

I doubt

knowing the truth

would help now

as you sit in the penitentiary

with your admission of guilt

and life sentence

without chance for parole

for killing your girlfriend’s mother

because you believed

the allegations of her abuse.

I’m sorry you thought

your girlfriend

was telling you the truth

too. 

Welcome to the Mine (prompt: Welcome Poem)

You need to be prepared

to outwit the frustration

work past buckets of sweat

and mostly persevere.

We miners

tinker ceaselessly  

blessed infrequently with

a sliver

a sparkle.

Some days there is

so much to harvest

and sometimes it’s a glint

and that’s all you’re gonna  get.

When you don that prospector’s helmet

and dive deep into the mineshaft

where it’s dark and spooky,

remember, it’s a numbers game

and sometimes

all you’ll have to show for your work

is yesterday’s dust.

You gotta like the digging,

the challenge of breaking rock,

disrupting the Earth

and finding something new.

So, welcome,

now pick up

your pencil

and get at it.

This Desire (Prompt: "Don't Start That Again" Poem)

These moments

of inexpressible happiness

sneak in

as though I shouldn’t hear them coming

and I feel the profound

connection to everything

and then the truth breaks through:

I am only spirit,

unencumbered

to light upon all things

knowing only

the compassion and love

of a truly enlightened being,

but then

just as soon as I become

aware

it vanishes

and I desperately try to gather

the tantalizing details

to hold forever –

and this desire

to possess

that which is not mine

signals the return

of my cursed,

flawed

humanity.

Silly and Magnificent (Prompt: Serious Poem)

By definition,
tomorrow never gets
here
and I am convinced
that God is forever 
re-creating the past
as a cosmic collective
reconstructed memory
for His own amusement.

So all that 
exists 
is in the 
here and now

and even this 
is an illusion.

So, 
when I say
I want my illusion
to be 
beautiful
compelling
sweet and juicy

equal parts
silly and 
magnificent,

I’m serious.

“Priorities” (Priorities Poem)

Looking at the list

of all the things I want to be

and then comparing it

to what I’m doing,

--explosion management

for my 14 year-old

talking monkey

blonde landmine

balancing and structural support

for my two adult children

as I run alongside

while they practice

riding through life

without training wheels

dream and wish fulfillment,

with a side order of

emotional, spiritual and

recreational partnership

 to the most beautiful woman

in the world

cultivator and synthesizer

of ideas, profound and trivial,

and multimedia documentarian

of this life

willing follower  

critical deconstructionist

and very flawed example of

the power and the glory

of Jesus Christ --

I notice

I put others first,

then myself,

then God.

My priorities are not

in order of importance,

they are in order

of grace and forgiveness,

from the smallest

to the Greatest.

Worse Than the Bars (One word prompt: domesticated)

Trained
and sitting in cage,

he’s domesticated.

But
worse than the bars
that surround him

is the minimum security prison
that he’s locked himself into
from the inside 


and he tossed that key
far far out of reach.

No Technique (Telling It Like It Is poem)

Is 

No Technique

a technique 

in itself,

I wonder 

as the prompt

reminds me 

of why 

I hate poetry

and why I like

whatever it is

I write.

Seeing, Paying Attention

Since everything is always moving

all the time,

my challenge is

seeing, paying attention

to the many kindnesses

hidden in this as the world -

from the promise of a rosebud

to a perfect storm-klatch of words,

because they were all

put here for me.

Yes, even you were put here

for me

and I for you.

May my life fit

perfectly

into the space of time

I have been given,

and when I am taken

may there be

no debts owed on my bank account

no apologies or tributes left unspoken

no dreams or desires not sated. 

Epiphany

Before I knew it

there were wrinkles

taking up residence

by my smile,

stray gray hairs

curling wildly from

my sideburns,

my aching, crackling

knee joints

betrayed me,

the memories

stuck somewhere in the back

require a more complicated

set of cues

to loosen them

from their

hiding space.

I needed longer arms

to read the small print

on my blood pressure

medicine

and I understood

the necessity of

euphemistic language like

“erectile dysfunction”

and I smiled because

these were proof

that I beat the odds

and have lived

longer than I thought

I would,

long enough

to be an old man.