If you could just close your mouths
And let your feet be still
Your mind would find a sense of peace
And overflow with skill.
If you could keep your eyes on me
And your hands to yourself
You’d find your time so much more free
And your talent upper shelf.
If you could focus for a blink
And persevere a while
You’d all be smarter than you think
And make a teacher smile.
And yet as you deny these things
I’m please to end a day
When you can do a two-plus-two
And know that biting’s not ok.
Filed under Poems
To make a student concert go
There are some things you need to know.
Just like a wedding, what you hear
May cause you to shed a tear.
They’ll play a tune you know by heart,
Beloved favorite, devoid of art
And then a piece that’s written so
The talentless might play a show.
This will go on for several hours
And won’t be cancelled due to showers
To gird your loins and plug your ears;
You’ll have one for the next ten years.
Filed under Poems
Doggie cuddle
In a puddle;
Heart and muzzle
Under the stars.
Kitty snuggle
Is a struggle;
With every nuzzle
A few more scars.
Somewhere near you is a man
Who has a loaded gun
And a heart full of unspoken pain.
He cannot see the sun,
Nor can he hear the laughter
Of the squirrels and birds and trees.
He walks upright, but out of sight
He’s fallen to his knees.
Somewhere there’s another man –
It might even be you –
Who gives the first a little nod
That says “I feel it too.”
And sometimes just a nod like that
Is all you need to say
To help a wounded warrior
Put the loaded gun away.
You don’t need superpowers
Or a cape to save the day.
Smiling is enough sometimes
To make the world okay.
Filed under Poems
“Sometimes it feels
Like I am the undead,
A decaying body
Kept alive by a head
That is absent of thoughts,
Knowing nothing but pain
Until I can feast
On a life once again.
Some people despise me
For they think I’m a devil,
Depraved, dirty, lesser,
And not on their level.”
The doctor just smiled
And he asked me again:
“How much does it hurt,
From a 1 to a 10?”
Filed under Poems
Childbirth is painful for women
And ball-kickage is painful for men
But after it’s done only one
Waits teo years, then says “Do it again!”
Filed under Poems
Her eyes were blue as Crater Lake,
Her breasts were like Mount Hood.
Her hair fell like Multnomah Falls
And all these things were good.
I held her hand and felt as big
And strong as Haystack Rock
Until my wife came home that night
And smacked me with her cock.
Filed under Poems
For a moment I sat there
With blood on my hands
Smearing life on my white-bread toast
In a room all alone
With inanimate friends
In a halfway house built for a ghost.
My Ferrari was mired
In a 90-hour week
When I needed just 12 to survive
But I’d long since stopped living
For the privilege of being
Among the elite few who can thrive.
The child in the basement
Was calling for daddy
‘Til its fat little throat had gone raw
And yet I was too busy
Helping others to join me
To notice my life had a flaw.
But if I’d payed attention,
Tasted a tomato
Or felt a moth land in my hair,
Just walked outside barefoot
Or put salt in my coffee
I’d realize somehow I still care.
I care about family.
I care about freedom.
I don’t need this bottle and pill.
And maybe that baby
Will say “taste the tomato”
And if I haven’t yet died then I will.
Filed under Poems
My eyes were purple lightning
And lips were platinum knives.
My heart beat with a vigor
Like when rappers beat their wives.
I squeezed my hands like oranges
As my skin began to burn
And I knew to that Panda Express
I would not return.
Filed under Poems
I didn’t know that hair could ache,
Just how much snot a nose can make,
How badly belly-buttons burn,
But today I guess I get to learn!
Filed under Poems
The Daily Travesty 