Road Trip Angels

On those nonstop solo cross-country drives when one lonely day bled into the next,

there were those 3 AM Waffle House waitresses.

Some sported a ring on their marriage finger; others had rough, bare hands worn from carrying full trays or doing dishes when the washer called in sick.

Some were tank-tough, old-school cool.

Others had Moon Pie eyes and sticky-sweet lips like candy wrappers.

Their apron pockets: filled with insufficient tips and too much shit talk and gossip from drunks and locals.

Went home with the smell of grease and grits all over them.

These women were my road trip angels, always offering a smile and a coffee to get me back on the road and closer to my destination.

What Grows During War

Life teeters on a fulcrum between melody and madness.

A confection of chaos and glory stuck between the teeth.

Some salvage old kisses from love’s graveyard and polish them anew, while others rub hate and lies into wounds and call it medicine.

Walking the world’s streets, you can feel the mixed-message braille of broken glass and heads-up pennies beneath your feet.

A bullet here, a bouquet of laughter there.

This life, a teetering between melody and madness.

You can feel it in each new earthquake and bomb blast.

Yet even in the most violent moments when grace dies, its hair refuses to stop growing.

Allurements

To mirrors: never let me fall too far inside you.

To fog: I’ll always remember you in your San Francisco dress.

To oxygen: I’ll never take you for granted.

To atoms: offer me unhackable elements, an electromagnetically charged semblance of serenity.

To heart: find me when I have trouble finding myself.

To music: let me be beat.

To bullets: sweet melody your miseries.

More Than Just Words

This poem doesn’t have a face for wearing hats or a voice for radio.

Has an overly bushy brow that can beat Frida Kahlo hands-down in a battle of the unibrows.

Doesn’t have a talent for horse whispering or finding its keys in the dark.

Gets cold in summer, warm in winter.

Once dated a gloomy surrealist who told him old tombstones were Mother Earth’s rotten teeth.

Doesn’t know up from down. Walks around with dog hair covering its most proper thoughts.

This poem does, however, know to say thanks when kind words are offered.

And it’s sure to wipe its feet before entering your ear to reveal its deeper meaning.

A Crow Song For What Ails You

Butterflies and bakers, doctors and dockworkers. Everyone and everything exists in their natural way.

Healed hearts and broken mirrors, first love and last paychecks.

The sun rises and falls. Bridges are built, some are burned.

Gardeners and auto garage workers. Heroes, hairdressers, and those outside the margins of a once-upon-a-time story.

The crows are extra loud this morning.

Some sing for their food. Others conjure magic. Some just wanna make some noise.

Banging On My Front Door

An AK-47 claiming he’s the delivery boy and a knock-kneed tuba tuned to the key of gloom.

Bad weather, lousy music, and World War III bearing a bouquet of bombs.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and a clogged toilet doing a crappy Bob Dylan impression.

A half-dressed serial killer wanting to slip into something less comfortable.

Banging on my front door: droughts, diseases, and all the bad poems I’ve ever written coming back to haunt me.

Coffee

The volume switch that gets us going to 11 and louder, the haze buster with a diamond luster, the gritty black beauty that don’t mind gussying up with a bit of cream and sugar to keep things light and sweet. Voodoo juice with a pogo stick kick. The get-up and go-go, the amygdala tickler, the bounce around the house offering a morning jolt of vitality and cordiality. Coffee gets us outta the house and into the world. It’s the sacred sip, the high C in the octave of electricity, the ever-dependable countdown to ecstasy. The liquid hello that lubes the gears of this dizzy world.

Ode to a Jukebox

Plugged in and alive with technicolor cool, the jukebox offers a bounty of sonic nectar: Rock, funk, country, punk.

Retrofitted with bliss, glass scratched and smeared by music-hungry hands, it’s a beat casino paying off in rhythmic dividends.

Era-defining songs sounding like everything from a midsummer rain to a scorching summer city day.

Holy Grail of romping stomping hallelujah.

Incandescent firekeeper of footloose bump and grind.

The jukebox is a genre-bending, time-leaping machine. Offers up songs to heal our souls and sing our lives by heart.

Problem

The problem with the problem isn’t always the problem.

Rather, it’s making a bigger problem of the problem instead of first seeking a possible solution to a problem that might’ve not been as big a problem as the bigger problem created from the original problem.

Which all boils down to the idea of thinking more positively, which can really be a problem for those who have a bigger problem

with living on the bright side of life.

Breath is music

Human steps are music. Songs sewn from every thread of existence.

DNA blows blissful sax riffs. Eardrums hum, hearts lay down steady beats.

Lips bebop, feet hip-hop.

Human touch plays double dutch with hanging ropes, twists them into love knots of well-tuned hopes.

Breath is music. Human steps are music. Hollers of tolerance break down hate-hewn walls.

B-natural beauty chimes timeless melodies.

The nectar drawn from human pain creates enduring voices sweet as rain.

Breath is music. Human steps are music. Songs sewn from every thread of existence.