NO MORE WITHDRAWAL
Time raises against the pendulum
or pours down fluted stem,
tracking itself across
the ominous shadow of umbullates.
Sap rises through memory,
bitter as the drooping hours.
Dense fog, wingless song
cracks open the mouths
of sober men at their high windows.
JOE STOPS THE ROT
It would never do,
to not have eyes or teeth,
or breath.. . even the fetid morning variety.
And flesh on bone
like lollipops
ripe for licking.
At my age,
I should be able to
look into a mirror and grin.
And stand for a time,
count my toes,
two for each decade.
Such a failure
to not have nasal passages
and nerve ends
and not forgetting,
the beating heart
that rules this wrinkled roost.
Hands, knees,
all present and accounted for.
Even the navel.., umbilical to the end.
No, this is not death,
not even in the brain that can’t be seen
or the hair that does a gray strip tease.
And hell… what’s that?
Heaven? Show me the polaroids.
I see life.., and it does me.
BREATH
The hardest slog
is getting enough oxygen.
Needs are bird crap on the windshield
compared to that.
Woman and the banquet
and the fluttery praise..
sheer aluminum siding
on the house of all hell.
The toughest part
is doing what the lungs tell me.
Blood needs those tiny baubles
otherwise why flow.
And here is the one I love
telling me once again to take the trash out.
So what do I do
but exhale.
Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in Connecticut Review, Kestrel and Writer’s Bloc with work upcoming in Pennsylvania English, Alimentum and the Great American Poetry Show.
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