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Let’s have a yard sale for your mind. I’ll help you carry out the burnt out brain cells - certainly we can eject that song stuck in your head that you only know half the words to and most of those are “ooh-ooh baby”. Perhaps we can find the punchline to that joke and trap those annoying commercial jingles in a cardboard box to let some collector chuckle over them. We’ll dump the grievances with your mother at the curbside for the homeless people to claim, mama mantras to keep them occupied. In the nickel and dime pile, can go your aunt’s ex-boyfriend’s name from sixth grade, the location of the furniture store that burned down, that embarrassing incident in grade school, and the capital of Yugoslavia. There will be keepers, of course - we can stash the vodka sunrise on a top shelf for late night meditations, the car trip for old age remembering, that wonderful vacation to bore our children, to lull them into not listening, so we can confide the details of their goof ups to their kids, All that would still leave room, finally, for your car keys, coffee cup and computer passwords. My head? It’s as empty as the Senate floor on Christmas Day, but not to worry, you can come with me to fill it up. Into the woods of amber light, bird calls, sun warmed earth, fluffy dew soaked moss, then down to the lake to soak up where the sky has lain with the rippling water, lie in the gossiping grasses and ask the denizens their names, so our heads instead of being stuffy dark attics of rumpled injuries, will be aquariums of sapphire light, flickering fish and singing splashes. |
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I dropped my watch today spilling time all over the sidewalk some minutes ran into the gutter, getting soaked shrinking to seconds in the rainbowed water Some passersbys stooped to help picking up split-seconds from between the cracks long hours from the grass nanoseconds buzzing near the dandelions the early morning hours were gone vanished down the storm drain never to return except perhaps as mutant albino months terrorizing tourists by gobbling up their vacation time a few kind people even donated their spare time dribbling it all back into my hands - my youth I couldn’t locate at all, but as there was a bar nearby, I suspect its whereabouts as the watch crystal was hopelessly cracked and the face empty beyond recall, I stuffed the minutes into my pockets, half hours in my waistband the AMs and PMs wriggled under my arm without midnight or noon to pin them I was in a hurry, (or at least thought maybe I was) so I snatched what time was left vibrating with the cosmic now autumn in my backpack, spring in my step and was off with an oscillating wave |
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I’ll be rhyme, you be meter, in doofy hugs we’ll totter teeter. Lick your ear, nip your neck, traipse as Pan in loud yellow check I’ll butt our heads ‘til you see stars, Save our dreams in coffee toffee jars, Dance in the rain with inside out boots, Blow bubbles in wine with bamboo flutes, Send each other letters that make no sense, Roller your shoulders when you get tense, Laugh real loud at inside jokes, Giggle our ribs with knowing pokes, Alert for you in the pre-dawn dark, In iciest rain provide a spark, Bellow through foam when taking showers, Attach strange notes to oddball flowers, Because you’re my cookie dough, my quilt and pillow bliss My rapture, my capture, my morning Christmas kiss. |
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