...Hey, look at that--it's 2018.  Who knew we'd make it this far?
Hopefully your head isn't still hurting.

...My PC crashed the other day, so I got a new one.  A Mac.  It doesn't like me very much, even though we've just met and are only now getting to know each other.  For instance, it wouldn't detect the new keyboard or mouse I got.  For instance, it won't let me pull up a photo for this post.  (A blog post without a photo is like standing in line at Starbucks in your underwear.)  I hope our relationship gets better soon, or this is going to be a rocky courtship.  

...I've had a few good writing days of late, well, that is to say good days of writing bad, sad poetry, but I guess somebody's got to do it.




The Weight of Some Bones

My head is full of wrong ideas,
a bar without whiskey or beer,
a harp missing strings,
somebody's lost left shoe tossed
down an abandoned well.
The flimsy moon is wandering,
lost as well, somewhere between Bend
or Phoenix or forever.
The rocks might show mercy
but they're all busy weeping sand.
If there was music on this page
it would sound like (...)
If there was a smell to this ink
you'd assume someone died in a fire.
It's all about the beats now,
or the absence of beats,
those spaces hollow as a sparrow's bones,
light as a book of matches or tooth picks,
yet far too heavy for lift off.



When Misery Comes

When misery comes with her
lipsticked face and cracked glass teeth
don't look to the moon for help because 
she is worthless, a flattened good luck charm,
a broken promise you once believed in.
Put your hopes in something certain instead--
the scorched earth, the un-loseable 
grip of loss, death's hand waving you home.
Remind yourself that even Jesus wept.
Try to comprehend that if God can cry so openly
you can as well.



I Am My Own Thief

Unusual bleeding should warrant alarm and
yet some days there is never enough bloodletting to go around.
Some days the vultures peck maniacally just for sport, not even hungry,
the Jackson Pollock splatter needing another color besides crimson.
I'd be better off handcuffing myself to a windmill or runaway train
but instead all I do is stand at my own grave wondering what to steal.  



The Missing

The front of me is always 
on the dark side of the moon
looking two-faced and bloated
with the weight of atrocity.
The screams of missing children
ring out in the night and
what's worse is their mothers 
can hear them in their sleep.
Some of us are not meant 
to see the sun, even if we're human 
and not actually vampires.
Some of us spend our years
peering down into that deep, dark tunnel, 
looking, looking, shouting out
the name of our own missing.