The Monkey’s friend and caretaker. He spends his weekends scouring the pages of the Greasy Monkey Web Site here, for spelling errors and links that don’t work. But you know, every once in a while, he and the Monkey sit down and drag the ink pen across blank ledger pads with reckless abandon. This, Until the clock strikes that hour, when it is time to open the doors to the Greasy Monkey Poetry Reading Lounge. Go ‘head and Dig!
A Moth has wings
A moth has wings
a delicate creature
devoid of soul
A moth has wings of powder
and string and bits of
flesh
with no meaning
no valiant structure
small beauty
with no brains
A moth has wings envelop
and cocoon
a corpse alive
with summer’s night air
A moth has wings
and I
have none.
Misty, White and Old
Who will challenge the beauty
of the moon.
A misty daemon shrouded
clouded, white and old
as time itself.
We watch quite politely as
the moon revolves from
one side of sky to another
Following us, watching our eyes
with dead eyes
a million
or so.
This moon is dreamy
this moon is sublime
and no one can challenge its beauty.
None so bold
can move us like the moon.
Benny Terpin
Benny Terpin once said to me
“Go down, go down
South again and see
The old cats in all the old
rhymin’ jamming good timing
holes and haunts dark
and gaunt
See ’em blow, see ’em go –
There’s a window on your past
you don’t keep clean -”
Benny Terpin once said to me.
I packed my goods,
I closed up the joint
I headed down South
in a hurry…
I came up to all the
old rhymin’, jamming good timing haunts
looking for Jimmy Smith and
Teddy E. – Harry Sweets
and all the doors were closed, rotten,
off their hinges – the smoke had
turned to cobwebs.
I turned back on my tracks
and as I gazed deep into a wooded place
I saw Benny Terpin
or at least I
saw his name.
I saw Benny Terpin
on a piece of
granite worn and
bone white, propped
at an odd angle
on a sunken block
of Earth.
I put my jacket back
on
and started the longwalk home.
Chide Me
Chide me
Ride me, insensitive
Drive me to the nearest
brink of pain.
I stand not alone
alone only with all of you
Ride me again
to another new home
driven away alone.
Chide me insensitive
Listen only to those
moans and tears
of sad times. I dropped along
the way — insensitive today.
Babs and JFK
When the President dies
You feel your pain
and hope, despair regain
When your momma dies and your daddy dies
You’re left no hope to gain.
When your dog she dies
in cold remorse your life it holds its reigns.
She looked at me
I handed her over
to two men, she had never seen.
But she never looked at their faces
She never paused to refrain
She didn’t lick them or run about
happily greeting them, us all the same,
as everyday when meeting someone new
She looked at me and they took her from me.
She was broken, she was tired
her body was all that stood.
Her mind was there and memories
of all things to her, good.
And they pulled her away to take her down.
They took most of my heart through those doors
I never saw my dog again
I cried a rueful sorrow
I never held my dog again
I felt I had no tomorrow
When the President dies, or
is killed in hate
You sorrow once for
the hatred.
When your dog she dies
You wonder and hate how
you’ll face
so many tomorrows.
Say Something
(non poems)
Pay for your things
don’t pay for your dreams.
Lie just a little bit
and you start your own never
ending story.
Shelter is the best of all of them
and the hardest to find.