Two Poems

Here are a couple of my poems from the last open mike night.  I don't normally share these just anywhere - either because I think they are not good enough or I want to save them in the hopes that one day they might get published somewhere (I got two being published later this year in a regional journal....might get some sandwich money out that!).

These went over well but are very much in the moment, with a political reference in the one and a reference to Billy Collins and Sharon Olds who both have new (or at least newish) books out right now.  

So, preamble complete, the poems:

Summer 2016

All Summer I scurry from

One air conditioned way station 

To the next; from house to car

To store and back again.  

Across the sea, people risk their lives

In small, crowded boats

Under a hot Mediterranean sun,

Thousands of Mayflowers setting sail

For a better life.

All summer we talk of

Building a wall

To make us great again.

We better build it high enough

So we can't peer over the top

To see those people on the boats,

Yearning to be free,

Lest we look greatness in the eye

And feel ashamed.

A Toast to Some Old Poets

A toast to Sharon Olds,

Gifted with the brashness 

To write about anything,

And to Billy Collins, who has

The wisdom and grace 

To often write about nothing,

Reminding all middle class

White suburbanites that

As demographic drift

Signals only slow decline

Of old norms, dusty ideals;

As new artists challenge

Deep rooted prejudices

Of a society built in the quicksands

Of supremacy and inequality;

That there are still things 

To write about, be it the 

Well mapped contours of your own body

And the tired glory of human sexuality,

Or the thoughts that sift through 

Your mind while standing

In the kitchen on a fall morning,

Listening to the dog snoring,

Lost in his own happy dreams.

The very stuff of our lived experiences,

So accessible it seems you can just

Reach out and grab it, spin words into 

Gold on a blank page.

Ah, but you will never write it so well.