Edward......

~
Edward
~
Edward just hasn't been Edward
These days.
I've suggested he move occasionally
Lest mud dabbers
Use his cheeks to nest.
He likes the blinds closed
And refuses to shave.
He declines invitations
And silently protests my insistence
To get out of his chair.
"Edward...are you with us?"
~
I read Edward the Bible
But he wants to argue interpretation
By laying his head back on the chair
With his mouth wide open.
He'll sometimes stare out the window
And I can almost hear him
Mumble to himself
In a low reverberation;
Like his electric shaver.
Edward is no longer mindful
Of the needs of others
And well...he pretty much doesn't give a crap.
"Edward...why in the hell
Don't you take your medicine?"
~
Edward has been losing weight
I recently noticed.
And his clothes just hang on him
Like a wind starved sail...
Not that his clothes ever change.
These days he's becoming
Quite jaundiced
And last week
I had to replace a tooth
That had fallen from his mouth
Onto the floor.
~
I spray Edward's room with Glade
Twice a day... and wipe the floor
Below his chair with Lysol.
But I swear
It's not helping to eradicate
The feculent odor he's been casting
The last few weeks.
...and when another follicle
Falls in his lap
I date it in Edward's journal
And place it in a cigar box.
~
I was clipping Edward's toenails
Yesterday...but they seem to
Slip right out of his skin.
And then this morning,
Right in the middle of Jerry Sprenger,
I began some therapy on his arm.
It came right off in my hands...
I swear to god!
The whole damn arm!!
Almost as if it had rotted right off!!
What do you say to a man
With a putrescent appendage?
"Would you like me to have Dr. Pizzaro
Over to look at that arm, Edward?
...Edward?"
~
"Well god-dammit, Edward...
How long have you been dead?"
~
~ ....Ian
~ 4-17-04
~ Dark Poetry

Rainbow Train

~
Rainbow Train
~
Waiting for the Rainbow Train,
Hydraulic brake line, Vancouver rain;
Turbine engines, coal and steel,
Drunk conductor
...corn mash meal.
Rail-line spikes, maintenance shed
Locomotive Prussian red;
Switchback system up the grade,
"...cannon ball", American made.
~
Doodle bug through Santa Fe,
Coal cars spilled in disarray;
Bison herd from iron horse,
Carpathian Mountains ...stay the course.
Longhorn cattle, Texas gold,
Bronco buster, bitter cold;
Socket wrench that frees the wheel,
Woven bridge of structural steel.
~
Waves of grain, purple sky,
Dodger Stadium, apple pie;
Hobo's sleep in cattle cars,
Moon's horizon, shooting stars.
Roundhouse magnet ....spins the train,
Cowboy high on white cocaine;
Red rock country, rattlesnakes,
Whiskey dinner ...Fall snowflakes.
~
San Francisco destination,
Indians forced to reservation;
Eastern railway, lighthouse vision,
Rocky Mountains ...tunnel-vision.
Flat-car waits with cargo loaded,
Ship to Tombstone bar decoded;
Fill the crystal
...with champagne.
Put me on the Rainbow Train.
~
~ .......ian
~ 1-25-24

Taxicab Protocol

~
Taxicab Protocol
~
It's dawn... It's dawn and I've just finished
My nightly twelve-shift driving taxi;
Ferrying prostitutes and
Playing designated driver for
The glassy-eyed Armani-suits
At the local strip bars.
~
You're probably still sleeping in
But I like this time of day
When the city is just beginning
To open its eyes;
To stretch its arms and yawn.
I think coffee tastes its best
At six AM.
~
Oh sure you might look at me
And consider me a bottom feeder;
A low income parent
Who can't afford a lawyer
And has his children dragged away
By Child Protective Services;
But that's not me.
Generally now-days you get into a taxi
And Punjab speaks broken English so badly
You'd think you were In a Seven-Eleven
Or even on a different continent.
~
Six years ago I quit my job
As a day-trader selling junk bonds
To fat cats
And took a leap of faith
To drive this taxi.
It's the freedom I needed
To unchain myself from
The past as an indentured servant
To those silver spoon corporate bullies
...that and some of the bad choices
A youth might make
When cops and street-dealers
Knew me by my first name.
~
Now-days my worst crime is having a
Glove compartment full of parking tickets;
That and maybe driving an extra two blocks
To round off a fare to the next dollar.
But hey...you think you can do this job?
You try memorizing the street names
Of New York City...
And spending your nites
Rubbing shoulders
With the vermin of excessiveness.
~
"Where you headin, Chief?
Battery Place and Greenwich
...lower Manhattan...
You got it!"
~
~ ....ian
~ 8-11-12

Badlands

.~
Badlands
~
These are the badlands.
The "Ignominous Interstate",
The calamitous freeway
Of broken white lines
Where mercury rises and a line of
Harley Davidson's cut a swath
Into a brave new world.
~
These are the badlands;
Where the Short-horned Desert Lizard
Succumbs to the poison
Of the a Common Prairie Rattlesnake;
Where the Prairie Rattlesnake
Is the succulent meal
For the Carrizo Canyon Coyote;
Where the Canyon Coyote is pancaked
...and flattened
By the 18-wheeled Texas long-hauler
On Winslow, Arizona Interstate Route 40.
~
These are the badlands;
Better known as the
Valley-of-the-Moon or
Hell's-Half-Acre;
Where a poor man would gladly exchange
A sledgehammer for a full canteen;
Where a rock in
The bottom of your boot
Is just another pebble
...and the sun beats down relentless.
~
These are the badlands;
Where a motor cycle's rumble
Can be heard approaching from
Fifty miles away
Across the hot,
Black asphalt desert floor
...vroom-VROOOM-VROOM!!
Where a 1973 four-wheel drive,
Rusted Land Rover might be out of gas
And a grungy, red-bandana,
Ill-shaven, Gabby Hayes
Look-a-like stranger
Would stop to help the distraught
Owner of an upside down road map;
And then shoot him
In the head five times.
~
These are the Badlands;
A stretch of dusty, god forsaken,
Meth-lab,
Rusted RV's,
Broken axle,
Long-horned skeletoned,
Angry dreaming,
Berm-softened,
Hitch hiking,
Chrome spoked,
Sons of Anarchy ruling miles
...where only the strong survive.
Yes
...these are the badlands.
~
~ ....ian
~ 1-13-17

Cathedral Holocaust

~
Cathedral Holocaust
~
There are some things
That are not meant to be burned;
A synagogue soup kitchen,
An orphanage for adolescent children,
A list of holocaust victims
Or the gothic Cathedral
...of Notre Dame in Paris.
~
A cause was only speculative
But the flames flew high
As ...only the fires of hell
Could replicate;
The rooster of Paris
Fell from it's lofted perch.
~
The street junkie sobbed,
The indifferent protestant
Sat upright ...in tears;
The TV audience wept,
Even the defrocked priests cried;
And the world looked on
In collective horror.
~
Incinerated ash
Rained down from
God's heaven,
Blackening the landscape.
Stained glass lead
Flowed from the windows;
...escaping it's centuries
Old emplacement.
Wooden pews collapsed
From the stonework
Of fallen buttresses.
~
Oxygen sucked out
Of the a blaze inferno
As multiple fire hoses
Battled Job's biblical behemoth.
Day's later, soot still
Twinkled from the sky....
As a stillness calmed;
And the new creation
Whispered a genesis
Of reconstruction
...and the rooster crowed.
~
~ ........ian
~ 8-31-'23

Savage

~
Savage
~
I was a Norseman;
A Viking.
Born in the open sea;
Disciplined by my father
With the handled end of his broadax.
Cold the face
...I was to be weaned
Off a talon into
The frozen chilled air.
~
Raised on the sunrise side of Aarhus;
My toys were the trinkets
Of walrus ivory
And the wooden sword of Odin.
I was taught raider games
By my grandfather
While our fathers burned monasteries
And vanquished the enemy's Summer harvest
...as I concealed my envy.
As an infant teen
I helped to build longships
Of oaken wood-plank and kemp;
And sang mysteries of faith.
~
I was plagued by impatience
But taught to row;
My shoulders weathered
...growing stronger
As the sun beat down.
I learned to understand
The temperament of the searing flame
And the waterfalls forgiveness.
I cut my teeth on
Many a whale harvest
And became respectful
To the fitness and power of the falcon.
~
One day I was chosen for battle.
I hugged my mother
And with my labor intense
Earned Rite of Passage...
I boarded under a great flotilla
Of square sails and
Dragon headposts.
We were masters of the sunstone
To navigate us
Through the frozen North Seas
...despite the absence of stars.
I joined the horde
As an apprentice dog savage
Burning the homes of the sapless.
Proficient on many conquests,
I took honor and title
As a pagan warrior.
~
I kidnapped a slave Saxon woman
And brought her back to my village;
I wrapped her in the fur of the polar bear,
Drew my fingers softly
Along her skin
And taught her of ways Freyr
...Goddess of Fertility.
~
She became mother to my children,
My square sail and
Dragon head-post.
She displayed amber and
Wore the silk I bartered
From the Far East traders;
And we drank the red wine
Of conquered cities.
~
My brother saw me die in battle
During our Scottish invasion
...and my displacements and I
Were brought back to Viking soil
And given a proud Viking burial.
~
I lived as an elitist;
I died
...in vibrant colors.
~
~ ....ian
~ 3-27-14

'23 Corvette

.............

Eden's Paradox

Eden's Paradox
~
A white Lexus
Pulls into the driveway;
Suburbia is officially disturbed
And sanctioned.
The quiet cul-de-sac
Screaming for permission
To escape Howdy Doody.
~
A knock at the door;
It's not the pizza delivery guy
And surely not Dorothy from Kansas.
She's punctual and exacting;
When hiring a high-end
Thorough-bred race horse
You get what you pay for.
Complete with briefcase he let's her in.
Cyber-world and anonymity
Has brought her
...and bought him ...this incredible
Lightness of being.
You don't enter this world
Through the yellow pages.
~
He immediately recognizes her
From a previous "scene"
And as one of his favorites.
Impeccable;
The unconventional protagonist.
~
He's been nursing a gin and tonic
And asks he if she needs anything;
"After the rush," she insists.
~
He enjoys a contemporary lifestyle.
Four iron-toothed sprockets
Quadra-feet a glass coffee table-top
...that obey their placement.
Abstract artwork depicting
The rise of the Industrial Age
Hang from the ceiling;
Iconographic evidence
That the machine will conquer.
~
His plant life is
The cacti Euphorbia Tortillata
...a living medieval torture device.
On his walls hang the artists of
Mapplethorpe, Sardax and Vega.
~
Comparing notes they talk of
Black hole space travel, her
Various choices of body art and the
Likeness for urban proclivities.
She tells him she was never meant
To be a school teacher
And they discuss the old days
When recreational drugs were the norm.
~
"Now days," she purrs,
"Denial is the perfect aphrodisiac."
For him after a week of "swimming
With sharks" he admits he likes
This time of ...disconnection.
~
Next door a neighbor
Is out late watering his lawn
And notices the bedroom light dim
Beside his house thinking
"...how nice it is to live in
A conservative neighborhood."
~
...she opens her briefcase.
~
~ .......ian
~ 7-21-13

Tidal Hearts

~
Tidal Hearts
~
I have a trunk
Where kept
...are all my Tidal Hearts.
~
In it I keep
A Penitent Heart
When an act of mine
Seems less than courageous;
A Mindful Heart ...so as
To remember that the present
Is always obtainable;
And a Stone Heart
When my center
Of life gets
...too directionless.
~
I keep a Resplendent Heart
That includes the passion
She's taught me;
An Armored Heart
With an illusion
...wish protected;
A Grieving Heart
...insistent I must listen;
And a Compassionate Heart
When I can't always
...be grieving.
~
I have a Disobedient Heart
From the natural order
And current;
A Loving Heart
Thought once
...to be unsalvageable;
A Confused Heart,
A Tearful Heart
And even
...a Romantic Heart.
~
I have a Poetic Heart
That sometimes sits
In an opium den dreaming
...my mad dreams;
And yet that same heart
Can hold her
While she's sleeping
...and I can rule the world.
~
And I keep a Tidal Heart
For those
Whom I've loved
But found they
Could no longer be with me;
And that same tidal heart
For those I've loved
But were inevitably
...cast adrift.;
And yet finally
That same tidal heart
For those I now love
But who find my love
...unsuitable.
~
~ ...ian
~ 1-12-20

...in love obtuse

...in love obtuse
~
I thought things couldn't
Have been more perfect between us.
I mean... we went through the
Usual set of one-sided arguments.
We shared our paths of miscues;
And missteps.
~
I realize people used to stare at us
...but now that I think back
I realize it was just at you.
~
And then one day
It finally occured to me;
Striking me...
Like a thunderbolt.
~
You're a cyclops.
I mean...
Who else but me
Would fall in love with a woman
With just one eye
Symmetrically planted
In the center of her forehead.
~
In all these years
I'm not sure why
I never previously noticed.
~
I guess I was just
...in love obtuse.
~
~ ....ian
~ 7-18-10