One Man’s Journey

Waiting

She gets on the bus every night,
Her red dress clings to her curved body,
Red nails, red lips, long black hair.
She’s magnificent, she’s magnificent.

She moves closer to me,
Her eyes meet mine, she smiles.
“Next stop driver”, she pays the fare.
Says goodnight. I continue on.
Waiting for tomorrow, waiting for tomorrow.

She gets on the bus every night,
Her red dress clings to her curved body,
Red nails, red lips, long black hair.
She’s magnificent, she’s magnificent.

Craters in the Dirt

He sat on a jeep holding his helmet.
A roadway cleared a path through the rubber trees.
Smoke rose above the old French house.
She stood on a porch of faded brick.
Long black hair, round eyes,
Slender white legs.

He walked to her,
His weapon slung over his shoulder.
“It’s over!” he shouted.
She looked, then stepped back.
He shouted again, “It’s over, it’s over!”
She turned, then left.

He looked about.
Rubber trees everywhere,
Spent shells everywhere,
Craters in the dirt.

The dead,
The house and love,
And love.

Blue Suit

You find yourself in your Mother’s basement
Asleep for twenty hours,
When you awake you understand it’s over.
Your wife, children, friends and jobs are gone.

You hobble about in your underwear,
Where is it, where is it, where is it?
The refrigerator is empty,
The whisky is all gone.
You keep looking, keep looking, keep looking.

You straighten up,
Look intense like a soldier on a mission,
There it is.

Clean yourself.
Put your blue suit on.
Shave.

You put the thing in your mouth and pull the trigger.

A Silent Music

The snows spoke to the living earth a silent, silent music,
Heard only by the creatures of the forest.

The cold, blue waves of the sea thrashed the gray rocks
Sending pools of water upon the thickened snowy beach.

As the tide retreats shells, filled with life,
Sit abandoned in shallow cold water.

Watching alone on a cliff,
A peasant woman dressed in black, moves without a sound,
Onto the snow past frozen tress, into the surf,
Then gathers the little brown snails,
To boil, to boil, to boil in oil and vinegar.

Western Omelet

She stands at the door wearing high heel boots,
A tight leather skirt, her long black hair uncombed to a frenzy.
“What is it”, I say.
“Get out! Get out!”

Oh baby, oh baby you don’t mean that
What I got fat living off you?
But baby, there’s no work for a poet in this town;
Lumber mill, salmon cannery, Boeing aircraft.

I pack my belongings in an old duffel bag,
I hitch to the bus station.
It is early Sunday morning.
In the waiting room is a cook,
A drunk on the floor and me.

I order a western omelet.