A Softer Greg

This was, just like any winter, curiously
Just like every other winter in that
It was different enough from last year
That we felt the way that weather worked had changed.

This year snow fell but did not land,
Dusting my shoulder a softer color.
The taste in my mouth was my own breath,
Jacket hood pulled over hair
With nose beneath the collar.

Each underarm was over warm
And dampening beneath the layers
As I walked from my house, streets away,
Towards the destination shivering
Quietly

Walking By Itself

I’ll pick up this old pock-marked pen –

My teeth have gone its length and back –

And try my best to write again.

Yet every time I try, I track

The same ideas, the same sincere

But ultimately fruitless lines:

I climb the limbs of trees I’ve scaled for years,

Their roots less deep than they appear,

Their trunks still snaked with winding vines.

I dig the dusty cardboard case,

Spin records on my fingertips

And flinch each time the needle slips.

Their revolutions circle back to trace

The grooves that settled in the wax.

Some revolution, huh? If it repeats

And reproduces all the pops and cracks

But feels so obsolete.

Despite myself, I am once more

Holding the pen and writing down

A set of words that you’ll adore.

I’m meters from my goals, my fingers sore,

And I’d hate to be caught without my nouns

And adjectives and verbs and thoughts –

Objectives pre-disturbed by sloth and rot –

To be mistaken with ideas I’m not.

August 8

Good Luck, Brave Trucker

“Well, gee,”

says I to Stick Marie,

“I thought I’d hate your company.”

She built this netpage on the web.

All day she sells that girly shit

she knits.

My wife was almost Honest Deb.

This chick, I’ll stick with it.

The kid

that Stick Marie had slid

is crawling in a scribbled grid.

It’s running circles in the yard.

It hardly knows the things I do.

It mews

and doesn’t care when I am hard.

It does because I do.

The boys catch trout

and send me pictures from their boats.

I’m driving still and can’t get out,

trying to float,

I text back if they don’t gloat.

The road

until I can unload

is long and all my wheels are slowed.

These eighteen dogs can pull the weight

but in the mirror of the stop

I drop

my eyebags down and shift my freight.

I’m far from home and there are pills to pop.

July 27

Stop Doing Things For A Good Reason

Though it was unforgettable
Do not say it was wonderful.
Did it make you uncomfortable?
How did you know it could be great?

And just as vital to our growth
Is when we do the things we loath.
We have to face that we do both
That which we love and which we hate.

July 26

Sonnet For Teenage Pregnancy

He is chubby-cheeked still, and he clutches the controller

She is third best in her class, someone says, “that’s the girl with no friends”

When they kiss he is the first boy to touch her molars

He is as clammily warm and charming as the evening extends

All five of his sisters are older than he

And her younger sister is, if possible, more awkward and reserved

He’s afraid to buy condoms because of uncomfortable he would be

They both got more than they deserved

His parents got their very grandchild

From their youngest and most unmarried son

But the wedding is Christian and quick and unwild

Nursing school can wait, she knows, he’s the one

And the night is unusually cool for the late July

When the windows are open and the outdoors are dry

July 25

Your Umbrellas

You can stand under my umbrella
Well actually it was your umbrella but I was the one holding it
The streets were flooding and the rain was going sideways so we got soaked anyway
But I kept holding your umbrella

I told you
“It’s a good song but the arrangement is wrong”

And a few days later I carried around the pink umbrella in case it rained
But it stayed hot and the sun was outside
Our hands had no trouble finding one another

July 24

That's The Stuff

Twisted but wistful stares

Under the co-admirers' pissed-off glares

Of them he is entirely unaware

But they really don’t matter.

He lists, stops, moans

Never wished that he could be less alone

Drags the crimson flesh to bone

When his thoughts don’t scatter.

There is something in his regards

He takes no fall too soft or hard

Memorized the names of the boys from Scotland Yard

But hasn’t met her.

He drinks in silence and then he lies

Spends cash on the last of the supplies

Expects nothing grander than his own demise

Or, at least, nothing better.

With friends like these

Who needs amenities

I got the feeling I could never please

Or say thank you enough

But grace, good God, that’s the stuff.

July 23

Short Story - Donny

Another short story. There is profanity.

Short Story - Donny

Reggie

Give Reggie a broad
Six inch heels
Rows of curl
Short skirt, flirty blouse
Thick purple lipstick
Pointy nose

Make Reggie more condensed,
Define him better,
Her hand resurfaces in the space
Between his forearm and bicep

February 24

Why Is It

Why is it

to create

I stay up

late

righting

the wrongs

I didn’t do anything

during the day

Why is it

I feel the need

to write

my poem

this way

so poorly digestible

clumped

this is

is this

contemporary art

Why is it

I say:

run off to France with me

as if our feet could carry us

across the ocean

My favorite

friend just doesn’t feel

the way that I feel.

about her:

“I may not be your kind,” rasped out by Garland Jeffreys,

given to me by my dad, on Christmas, with two other CD’s.

Why is it

the talking

can so easily be done by someone else

is this

contemporary art

yet?

January 9

I93, Woods

The interstate highway 93 in New Hampshire cuts through the shallow valleys of the southern part of the state. The surrounding trees end abruptly where the highway emerges. Logging was a fixture of the New Hampshire economy for years, but even before then, there was widespread deforestation to make way for the numerous farms that used to cover New Hampshire.

                Sometimes I imagine what it would look like if the highway had not cut the channels through the forest. Then, I remember that these trees could not be more than two hundred years old. After that, I remember that living in a wooded area means that I do know what standing in the middle of a forest looks like. Oh well.

                My grandfather cut wood on his property for two decades and the wood stoves in his Massachusetts house were fed by his efforts.

                “He loves trees… He loves to cut them down,” my grandmother once said.

                My grandfather split far more wood than he would ever need. He was always looking after the health of trees by removing unhealthy branches or cutting down dangerous suspects. His workshop garage was surrounded by stacks and stacks of wood, waiting the warm the house when need.