Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Hobo Holiday

A fried egg
on the sidewalk
and a ditsy blond
with a microphone
tell me it is
a hot as hell
kind of day
and the cool air
of the library
makes me
want to nod.

My belly
wants beans,
my heart
set on booze.
My imagination
craving anything,
nothing
much to do.

Buckshot Bill and
Long-haired Tom
come back
and Tramp
not far behind.
The air thick
as a shot of
Jagermeister,
heavy
as a dog-eared copy
of The Bell Jar,
margins full
of notes.


Laying aside
paper and pen
emptying my pockets
of change and
a couple of
tattered ones onto
a torn and faded
kerchief crusted
with sweaty salt.

Tramp smiles
nods at Bill.
After the chip-in
we come up with
just over ten
bucks. Tommy
has pitched
about a nickel
of weed and
thirty seven cents
in copper
into the pot
we smile,
a hobo holiday.

We smoke
heading to the river
to  swim
then over the bridge.
Quarts of five nine beer
all around.

Then another.

After the fifth inning
minor league ball
no tickets needed.

A hobo holiday.

Friday, August 24, 2012

Like A Jim Croce Song








There are photographs
in the attic
of my mind.
Old black and whites
and some
in sepia tones.

They are moments
captured from
inky shadows,
memories of the
days when I was
a better man.

Now I am
somebody else.

There are pictures
in sticky page albums
but they exist
only in my dreams,

I have surrendered
the luxury of possessions
as delicate as these,
subject to curling
from the heat,
mildew on rain soaked
days spent moving

too tired to
sit still.

The attic of my mind
saves the happiest moments;
the birth of a child,
a wedding, potluck
lunches at Grandma's
house on Sunday
afternoons, snapshots of
young love
in a wooded park..

Nights alone I sit
and leaf though them
sometimes
trying to remember
sometimes
trying to forget.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Willow

Looking at photos
on a friends page
I fall in love with
a little girl

with cut-away eyes.

She is dressed smartly,
all curls and bows.
I am guessing she is
a hand full.

She takes me
back to days
with my own
little girl, her own

pouty little look,

she could twist me
so easily round
tiniest pink digits.

Sometimes older sis
and bubba already
at school and

Mom safely off,

I would skip work
she would skip daycare
and we would have milkshakes.

The day belonged to me
and a little girl

with cut-away eyes.