The words won't come. Momma said ther'd be days like this

                                Momma said Momma Said


             Sometimes life is so bogged down in the fire that needs to be built if you want to raise the temp to 60 degrees, the wood that needs to be cut for next winter as you eye the  dwindling stacks in the wood shed for this winter that Norm gave you, the weeds choking the garden till you can't breathe, the tiller that won't start and the words that won't come even if you didn't have to waste time bringing wood in or is that just an excuse--all the lists.  This whining will be brief though wining would be preferred--a vintage over-priced Oregon Pinot--oops there I go again.  The words would come but they would be slurred.  My good old inspirational friend with MS, Doctor Herb(acious) Orange, (what a name for a horticulture teacher) that no matter what difficulties he encounters can always say, "Life is good!"  I'm already feeling better but the words still won't come and the firewood still isn't in.  Ah, the word horticulture I love.  From the latin I wasted 4 years studying instead of small engine repair I could get that tiller running, hortus=garden and cultura=cultivating, agriculture.  When I taught Intro to Horticulture at Clark College, I would always start out with this politically incorrect pun I heard years ago which seemed appropriate for beginning students: "You can lead a hor-to-culture but you can't make them think."  So I am trying to think:  What poems for today?


The thing about leaving home is there is no firewood to carry in only a thermostat to turn up that magically brings heat

 

                                                               At Home


Leaving home why

Every place we go

No matter how nice it is

Stars as bright food as good

We say it is not where our heart beats

Where there are no voices but the echo we own

The deck room framed big in garden

How nakedness is free

No one watching only the trees

Screams of joy not heard

Sense of peace no paranoia

Doors not locked

Windows free to open air

We wonder why we leave

To remind us there are crashing waves

Mountain paths to find

So happy to stay home

Sometimes you wonder if bringing in the wood has a higher meaning than just staying warm.

       Bearing Gifts To Nothing

Can man ever change his flaw

Single I stand not wanting to be right

Asking only the chance to plead my cause

I cannot say but here is my light

Generic masses hold tragic failings

They die of greed  or mutiny

In Dutch phantoms or Caine sailings

Swearing oaths god damn their inability to sin

Who will kill you ugly hydra

I can only pique make you madder

Only to suffer as poor Phaedra

Does truth care does it matter

Blame the gods for such faulty workmanship

Or the stars not you dear Brutus

Your fathers worshipped the flag why not shit

One mans questions are koto notes in the wind 

Island or continent time grinds to sand

Despite our breathings for all our toilings

So I try to forget I am a weak man

Foolishly bearing gifts for nothing

                   

When our horse loses, when life looks empty and bleak there is always this hope.



                                From Despair


                         No spring will come

                        They have won

                        The rats have eaten  my seed

                        The tulips are frozen mush

                        Hope has died

                        Me too inside


                        Kerry off

                        Carry on

                        The world must grow smaller

                        To touch each man and woman

                        So there can be no lies

                        Where we look into each others eyes

                        Sharing love as lovers do


Sometimes the words come but they were not the ones we wished.


             Suicide By Cop


When a poem must get out

Coyotes  howling

Doors unlocked with found keys

Fleshy cells remembering another night

When I saw your eyes in my head lights

Not a deer on the highway

Looking up at me like that one in Grass Valley

Pleading but knowing death

Was close at hand

Wanting it to be over and gone

I hope you died instantly homogenized

Reformed into something better

But why did you make me a murderer
                                    

It's all about LOVE

                     Be my Valentine!  Sending out hearts to all the people I love.   Love and Valentines Days:  thinking back.  Wow, that girl in fourth grade, Cherie Dedmore.  Surprised I even remembered her name  Wonder if she is still alive.  First girl that I didn't know how to react with--just peach fuzz--you know love is just a four letter word except I didn't have a clue but I knew the word from my dad's service station:  **** which rhymes with lucky.  Didn't know what it meant though.   I knew so little about the four letter word:  LOVE!  And then there was the guilt of the forbidden fruit that Catholic schools and teaching put on our backs. I lived it.  I am a recovering Catholic.  St. Augustine saying," It wasn't an apple on the tree.  It was a pair on the ground."  Sex was made to make you feel dirty and not talked about except in the confessional.  Back in the early sixties sex education was limited to restroom walls and our snickering friends who found their dad's playboy.  I know because at eleven I was the colonel of the urinal at Pop's station.  My duty was to keep the restrooms clean after school.  I read some weird stuff before I scrubbed it off.
                     So, "What's love got to do with it?....(Is love) just a second hand emotion?" sings Tina. There are many kinds of love:  Fraternal, maternal, filial, sororal, unconditional, gay, lesbian, friend, platonic...  I want to talk about romantic love between two "partners for life."  Love and sex.  Sex and love.  One without the other is like a reuben without the pastrami.  A peanut butter sandwich without the peanut butter.  A chocolate cake without the chocolate.  When  two are enjoined, it is possible to experience heaven on earth if only for fleeting moments.  To go somewhere where many people in love have gone before.   In these poems I wish to wax silly like Maccha sang "It's just another silly love song."


              Blue Sky

Kind of blue sounding

People say there have been prettier ones

Than you

But they are now so wrinkled

They have not met

You

I see you I believe

Maybe my eyes were shut

Now I see

You

Where and when I found such luck

Discovering the phantom orchid moth


            Song

When I see you so pink

I think of such incongruity

So bold a clashing color

In this autumn gold Ginkgo time

The sunset deepens on your face

To make the rosy fingered dawn envy

                                                           

Love without reciprocation is sad.

 Checking Out A Library Book

Like so many books on a library shelf

I came and saw you in the stacks

Would I choose knowledge very rare

Borrowing this book

Wanting more than osmotic stew

Standing in front of you  

Looking at so many unknown pages

Grabbing it from the row

Chasing each word as if my last

Tattooing chapters relentlessly on my soul

Feeling needles

Hoping you would read me too

Love the fine print

Then open wide

Hey, we had an earthquake out in Yacolt, Hemingway, just recently.


                    Delirium                                                  


I felt tremors

Aftershocks falling down the Richter scale

Still twenty minutes after

Tremblers

Some adrenaline rush

Like only a stealheader would know

Then times it geometrically

That is true love

It is not all about sex

Your head nuzzled in my arm


And then there is obsession again.

                 Red


She was the devils helper

             Red

I should have known

I could not help myself

I was magnetized to her

Like there was nothing else

That mattered two cloven hooves

I am going to ride it out

The difference between life and living

               Breathing

Breathing in pure oxygen

Then all hell breaks loose

Cant be stopped

             Damned

Happy Valentines Day Star, May, Oliver, Finnian, Caty Lynn, the amazing Maisy, and the beautiful Hannah.

I could go on mushing.

defining Hell

               

            Or as Pop used to say, "What the hell?" or," I'll be go to hell."or just "Go to hell!"



                Here we go.  What is HEdoubleQ to you.  There are many things I am when I live in hell.  Certainly,  I don't want to go or visit.   Sometimes, I find myself in hell despite trying  not to be there. I try to be in it less and less.  So, the Reenster's  spins HAPPY for her 2013 word.  HAPPY seems to me to be the antithesis of HELL.
                Which brings me to one of the few ancient jokes I remember.  Think Dante short.  Guy goes to hell.  (Hell is all about making choices)  The devil says, "Would you like to decide what ring of hell you wish to reside in eternally."  Satan takes him through various very bad places.  Visualize standing in volcano lava reaching for a cup of water that spills before you can bring it to your on-fire lips...etc.  Finally, they come to a ring where people are sitting around tables drinking coffee knee deep in shit.  The guy very enthusiastically just grabs a chair and a cup of coffee and sits down.  He says to the devil, " This is the place for me."  Lucifer laughs and says to every one" Coffee breaks over.  Back on your heads."
                   Hell isn't always fire.  I remember my dad giving me the threat of the strap and me crying, "I'll be good."  Does being good send you to heaven?  Does being bad qualify you for hell?  What is a mortal sin?  Hell, I don't know.  I'm going to confession.
                                         

   Father Forgive Me


For all of my sins

Most were not intentional

You said that mitigates

I only have hope

To be forgiven

For things that I have found wrong

Made grave damage

I did not know the outcome

You say I should have

Havoc not able to be foreseen

Blind to stupidity

Just blind

I quit smoking Camels at 63

Do you understand sin


Some people equate evil and hell.  Lucky are you who have never experienced evil; but if you had maybe then you would believe in hell.  Could hell be the absence of light?  What would an eternal nuclear winter be like--no gardens, no fragrant flowers, not even snow drops in winter to give us hope.  Only Hell-ebors
                                                                                   
                                                                                            

     

                   Fright Night

The muscle moon was pressing down

For some it is enough to push one over

Drive them off the beam

He said no

Admitted there is evil

He could not deny it

Good he could feel

If he touched softly

Tried to bring some Spring into his bones

That heavy Winter full moon

Branches so transparent not able to hold it back

The rain is muddy puddles

There are no reflections

No pictures on refrigerators

Only weighted pounds of bleak nothingness

There must be good somewhere

Hard to see with this dim light

I am afraid of this night

When the muscle moon is on


There are personal hells.  Do we choose them?  Depression?  Lack of hope?  Giving up?

                                              My  Sick


                        When I go off the beam

Like ole George the Indian and his little mutt dog Sportie

  Is a 45-calcopkiller speeding bullet left the gun

Cannot wish the trigger back done

Collateral damage

Who or what took  the shot

Self inflicted pain

Wallowing in a whirlpool of blood

Flowing from my gashed heart

Trying to swim out

My hurt will not stop flowing following

Flailing desperation getting sucked under

Gulping for breath wanting out

Releasing to the down deeper pull

Now fighting back for breath

Now wanting death

Not wanting out

Fondling each squirting artery thrust

Tourniquet tourniquet stop red to black

Reaching up to the outstretched hand

Slapping it away

Silent hope it will reach out again

Who can explain rejecting easing of pain
                                   
    It is a certain kind of hell insane

Some kind of immersion in masochistic glee

Sick when I go off the beam