Sid

Do you fly Sid?
Do you cry Sid?
Tell me why, Sid,
Did you die, Sid?

You leapt away on Ground-Hog Day,
If you had stayed and joined EBay
You now could Burger King with Tyler
Tour with The Who that used to play.

Can you see the cowboys wrangle?
Do the wood nymphs sing your dream?
Could Atlanta's vicious freeway
Honor you and your bass seam?

Does Chrissie H still wanna marry
Just so she can work UK?
Will the Four Johns walk again
Through anarchy and still decay?

Sleep brother Ritchie,
Sleep unbridled, bittersweet.
Sleep fast, King of Punk-untitled.
Sleep, sleep, sleep your endless tweet.

Red Neck (F)amily (B)arette

'Ere the fish is local,
So's the licquor.
Yee loose yer tongue,
Yer better run quicker.

Bring all the younguns,
Yours and the strays.
Kraoke night has
No room for the gays.

Two-dollar long-necks
'N free gummy worms.
'N strange Uncle Marvin,
(He makes us all squirm.)

We got Health inspected
In Dick Nixon's day,
No papers to show,
But we did ok!

Nearly wholesome foods
'N gals missing teeth,
If you don't "like" us,
We'll break both yer feet.

Imprint

She read his book,
He read her diary.
They both became
Imprinted in print.

Her heart beat silently,
Demurely, in a deaf-house.
His heart muted-
Wrapped away in cerecloth.

Thoughts, they nagged,
Dreams, they persisted.
Breathing in unison,
Coincidentally sleeping.

Children came, stayed,
Often playing in secret.
Cereal was eaten,
Clothes became dwarfed.

She grew older,
He grew greyer,
Merriment left altogether,
Tired of gaming alone.

Then the sun rose in the West.
Her diary and his book ashed.
They died in separate rooms,
Rather glad for the reprieve.

Windchill Noir

"Whitecaps, yeah it was Whitecaps where Tony bought the seaside home."
"No, he backed out of the deal when Carm found out about one-legged Svetlana."

Lasagna silence.
No closed captioning.

When did we stop talking about getting a place on the water?
When did we stop talking?

The ducks are in the pool. The ducks are in the pool? the ducks are in the pool!
I don't like to fish. I fish every weekend.

I play the Rat-Pack on a boombox outside our bedroom window when I fish.
She never leaves, she will never leave.

Why do I always buy duct tape? I have a case of duct tape.
Waterproof duct tape. The tide is high.

Revenge is like cold-cuts.

A Cadre of Saints - Future Tense

Days pass,
They get rolled up like pennies.
Hope rises each morning and works into the night.
What can give us the strength to outlast the darkness 'till the new day bright?

Carp goes fishing when he can.
Never left the water yet without a stinger loaded down.
He hardly ever has seconds at his house though,
But the children at county farm don't go hungry.

Millie prays out loud all the time,
It scares some people, makes them nervous,
A few of them whisper and say ugly things that we all have fell into,
While Millie sleeps in Abraham's bosom each and every night.

Mr. O'Donnel never goes to Church,
(Everyone knows his business would do better if he didn't hire so much riff-raff.)
Yet no one down on their luck has been turned away from his mill,
The bond of a handshake; a pew filled by proxy.

Days pass,
People go on.
How fortunate are we to breathe the same air as
Such people as these that roll up pennies and deposit gold.

Nuance

Sifting cornmeal,
Cut orange peel,
Cookstove heat feel,
Kitchen smell zeal.

 Butter churn sky,
Tater pan fry,
Stackcakes so high,
Cobblers and pie.

 Giving our praise,
Turkey/ham glaze,
Knowing the days,
Fade in life's ways.

 Thankful for tin,
Worn rolling pin,
Think back again,
Of home, of kin.