The Boondocks Review

For My Daughter, Lilly

2008-12-09T23:15:00.000-08:00

I began to write a poem
About blooms and daily treasures,
Using big devices borrowed
from Penguin’s Big Book of Literary Terms,
Like metaphors as simile sounding imagery.
I would show my sagacity with such saccharine sentiment:

Lilly, my love, your face is as a rose,
A beautiful bloom that brings to me
Daily treasures of the heart annually.

But that would be sequacious, you see.

The simple truth, less fluffy, is better:
Thank you for being, for you are the best part of me.

Public School

2008-12-06T09:47:00.000-08:00

Shout and giggles scamper down cinder block walls,
Creeping into the teacher's carefully crafted lecture.
Those not infected by this inexorably infectious behavior
Lay their heavy heads on their hands
And catch a few zees.

Still, the teacher, the giver of knowledge,
Persist with teaching
The unteachable.

Red Flannel Umbrella: a found poem

2007-10-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

I’m cool like wool in Florida:
top down, fifty-five,
freezing hot, that’s me.

Euphoria! Nothing can diminish
my Euphoria, my glee.
I’m free
like cotton in a pool of sun.

West Coast Tour

2007-10-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve driven west
Across blankets of sand and heat,
Chasing after wisps of electric dreams
In the honky-tonks and taverns:
El Paso, Las Cruces, Santa Fe to
San Diego (I’ve touched the Pacific).
They’re all the same, stage after stage:
Stale beer, the lust of liquor,
And on a good night
Enough money to sustain till the next stop.

I’ve played for the vintners in the Napa Valley,
But I couldn’t afford to taste the wine.

I’ve followed the 101 through the Big Reds
With guitar in hand, pickin and grinnin
Up through the wet, green farms, across the Puget Sound.
They’re all the same, stage after stage.
The lights are dim; the smoke is thick—
And I made the loud, loud music.

I’ve followed the Columbia River, frightened
Because I couldn’t see through the rain.

I’ve drifted with the velvet snow across the Rockies
So I could break bread with ex-Brigham Youngs.
They treated me well.

I’ve driven circles in Colorado,
Seen young lovers caress in dark corners of the Catacombs
In Colorado.
Those were good shows.

I’ve done this for three hundred dollars profit
And a chance.