Work

We try to sleep all the way
to another existence
But we don't recognize
that, in work,
our solution lies

So complacency
swallows the day

And pretty soon
We'll all be dead
Just a flavour
on the
Monster's Breath

Beyond Words

It was as if the words just floated on a thin layer of his memory. Joel sat outside, at a café, eating a sandwich and listening to his mind peel apart, layer by layer. It was a simple day, with sun, pollution, and pedestrians. Joel watched the people move by like cattle. He wanted to speak to them. He wanted them to share his misery. But they wore smiles, for the most part, and they seemed separate, like cliques in high school. These words though, this sentence, kept repeating. Repeating like a nine to five job. Over and over again, these words recycled through his dusty memory. He swallowed a bite of his sandwich and tasted nothing. It hadn’t hit him until now, but he had been chewing on this one sentence for three days. He recalled her saying it to him. It was late, after some wine, on her front steps. He grabbed her hand, and she twitched. She looked him in the eyes and said it. He instantly froze. Joel could grasp no meaning, and he didn’t want to ask, because he was proud of his ability to understand.
He choked down the words a few more times, then stood up. He placed his tip next to his crumb-filled plate, a balanced dollar, resting between the pepper and the salt. He walked the eight blocks to Val’s home with no thoughts, just those words. A knock on the door echoed through the covered porch and into his ears. Her roommate answered wearing his black business suit. He said firmly, “Val is not here, she left to California for two weeks.” Joel blinked at him for a long period of time. He said, “Okay,” then turned around and saw the front steps. He walked down those steps, and then back by the café. In mid-stride, he glanced at the table he was seated at, searching for the dollar he had left, but it was gone. And on his walk home, he saw the most beautiful half moon suspended in the stars, and for that moment, he understood life without words.

Simple

My Grandfather
Harvested a simple life
On Hundreds of acres in Iowa
And the sounds of his diesel engine
Planted rows of corn
Which grew
Over bad parenting
and past his property line

And when my mother
turned eighteen
and dated my dad
My grandfather
Buried most of her belongings
Next to some horses
That he had once
cared for.

Waiting is Wasting

The rain slowly fell to the sidewalk like little bombs.
But, there were no deaths,
only a few wet individuals who chose not to drive.
And of course, the air became ripe
and the healights flickered on.

People stared through windows,
at shiny roads, with no intention of
leaving their heated homes, where cupboards
overflowed
with canned and bagged foods.

But the trees, the trees were smart.
They simply remained under the everchanging clouds
Drinking Down the Rain,
Preparing themselves
For
Summer's unforgiving Sun.

Haiku

Picnic in the park
The birds are singing
A bum throws up