Scrubbing Group

Howdy, penniless barfies who have o’erdrank,
You’re all out of money, and there’s plates in the sink,
That I’d have y’all scrub—as well as the mugs,
Because I don’t like no broke folks in my pub.

But for you, on this evening, there’s great opportunity,
To avoid all those bubbles and help the community.
You see my friend here, the one shaped like a stone ring,
He has also had, more than five, eight or nine drinks,
Though, unlike you, he has the means to pay,
He’s round portly fellow, we all call the DoomGate.

And though he might seem a bit light in the middle,
The stones in the ring start to bling and to fiddle,
And in a few moments he will form a portal,
To a plane home to creatures demonic, immortal,
And I know you are keen to pay off your tabs,
So if the four of y’all could hop between his slabs,
With weapons a’ready and magicks at hand,
you could stave off the evils while my inn yet withstands,
another night yet of some ungodly drinking
where patrons stave off fleeting moments of thinking.

Does that sound fair to you, my pot-scrubbing crew,
Could a rag or a sword each of you wield more true?

We can all call it even, as soon as you’re done,
My poor Scrubbing Group, my Doomgate, S.G. ones.

All-Star Tyger

Tyger, Tyger, skating slight,
But not yet thinner than the ice;
What encircled water warm,
Will mightily embrace thy form?

Does the cindrous globe aflame,
Burn both mine and thine the same?
In the way that I admire,
Without boredom, I seize the fire?

Focus

Focus.
If not focus, direction.
If not direction, misdirection.
If not misdirection, blur.

Speed.
If not speed, acceleration.
If not acceleration, modulation.
If not modulation, flow.

Path.
Don’t chart,
just tumble and stumble
onto
not
into
places you didn’t know
were for you.

Lottery

The Tennessee State Lottery
Is a bargain for anyone
Who needs a daily reminder
God doesn’t favor them.

A two-dollar lesson,
A ward against exceptionalism
Repeated routinely.
God will never let you play to win.
Work for it.

Amazing

Some of the little boys pretend to be Achilles,
Dipped upside down by their mothers,
Screaming that they’re drowning,
In unheelthy invincibility.
 
While some of the little girls,
Can’t let go of being Elsa,
Closed off and locked away
From the terrors of friendship.
 
But all the children on the schoolyard,
Take turns being Spider-Man,
Amazing and sobbing
Over Uncle Ben on the sidewalk.
Surrounded by the other kids
Who pretend to capture the moment
On invisible phones
Not thinking to call for help.

All the stars

All the stars in the sky can’t fuel
The engines of my ambition,
I’ve done the math, and
Will need to tap
an alternative source.
 
With every man a fulcrum
And my tendrils on each lever,
And the galaxies so distant,
My task will take forever.
 
So I’ve started braiding spacetime here
And cutting what ifs there.
And considering hiring a maid from an app on my phone,
Though it makes me a bit uncomfortable.

Amidst missed mist

Forget flying cars and trips to stars and moons beyond the belt,
Please settle, yawn, put the kettle on,
and weigh the cards you’re dealt.
 
Dismiss the dreams of thought machines we’d agreed would exist,
Don’t wonder why no weak AI is rolling in our midst,
With lights and sounds splayed all around, with lasers piercing mist,
The present time does dreams defy, some targets must be missed.

Birdman Dream Poem

The same focus saving man is killing me.
The efficiency and industry
That puts families on Venus,
Refuses to grant me just one little thing.
There’s never enough spare momentsin the day,
Stimulants and schedulers maximize activity,
With every hour billable,
Or mapped out,
Or mandated somehow,
And sure, the latest most creative tales entertain our rests,
But I don’t want to dream
A new studio’s remake
Of an old studio’s remake,
Without knowing the original.
 
I’ve tried to make time, will it, force it,
I carry it to work, and steal glances:
Frames here, seconds there,
Minutes if I sneak off at festival.

I’m nearly through Birdman,
And I want to see how it ends before I die,
Or before another retelling,
Or reimagining,
Or revisiting of the story,
Is all everyone can dream about.
I’ve never been so angry,
That we learned to work so well together.

Pacific

I’ve never seen the Pacific…
I was in town there once, just near it,
With you back East,
But never walked the last few miles to the shore.

Then tonight when you called from your hotel room
Windows facing west, your afternoon sun not set,
Glancing blinding light into your camera sharply,
But softly reflecting from the sea to your glowing face,
I saw what I was missing all along.

Theory of Poetry

A poem is a riddle and I am its Sphinx,
Unless someone else wrote the poem you are thinking of—
in which case my nose is intact and my paws are remarkably homonoid.

A poem is a griddle, and you are its links,
Unless you aren’t reading the poem—
in which case you’re probably not some sort of meat wrapped in skin either.
You might be a river.
Or a creek. Or an ocean. Or a stream.
Or a great flood that covers all the land despite all the rainbows.
Maybe that’s why people approach you in pairs.