Road Rash

A ghostly white guardian glowers nearby
its crater marked countenance scanning the sky
I wish to gain speed but the car in the lead
doesn't know what it's like to be fleetingly freed
the august assembly of everything green
is friendly and waves to my moving machine
as smoky cloaked cleavage bestudded with pine
entices the hungry observer to dine
but how many signs can a lonely road bear
when failure to yield means no shoulder is there.

Stash

I journeyed to the shrine today
in search of some asylum
and watched the butterflies at play
the floaters of the phylum

the monarchs ruled as royalty
their spotted wings resplendent
which gained a growing loyalty
from all the rest attendant

there were yellow ones, some were white
and tiny ones of azure
that begged my heart to join their flight
a sorely sought for treasure

for if I'm ever down again
in some sad situation
I'll surely smile remembering when
I scored this rare elation.

Waters

Under the bridge, that’s what the old adage says right? We’ve all watched the flow of time and the passage of transitory things in our lives – mine has been a steady stream of short-lived acquaintances, for once people see I’m as detached and sometimes as chilly as that proverbial water, they move on.

I generally keep to myself and literally live in my own little world. Several cases of betrayal and wounded pride have left me leery towards people and it takes me a long time to warm up to someone, if I do at all. There is no animosity involved, just a sense of personal security I get by keeping my business to myself, so when I do click with someone it’s quite exhilarating.

One such person I’ll never forget is a guy named Brian. We worked together 20 years ago and when we realized we both dabbled in music we decided to get together and jam. It was an instant bond; we spent many hours learning songs and even worked on my original music as that was truly the passion in my life at that time.

I would go to gatherings in NY City where people were allowed to leave demo tapes and after we had recorded a couple of my songs on a crappy 4 track cassette rig I prepared a tape and planned a trip to drop it off. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw the tape which said ‘Written by Bob Hazelton – Performed by Brian and Bob’. He looked like I had just punched him in the stomach, so I said, “What’s wrong Bro?”

“Oh nothing’, he said trying to sound unconcerned, “I just thought we would both be listed as writers.” That was all he said and I felt I didn’t need to explain that those songs were already done and arranged when I showed them to him. In my mind I figured he must understand, it wasn’t to cut him out of any royalties (as if any of my songs would be hits) it’s just that I wrote them. Any future material we came up with together would be noted as such. But after that, things changed and we slowly drifted apart. As I said above – wounded pride – this time it was the other guy, not me feeling it.

Brian ended up getting married and putting music aside completely and after a failed attempt at a band with other people I did as well. Then both our marriages flopped and he took the ending of his quite badly. I never heard from him after that because he soon moved to a new city and started a new life.

His name came up the other day and I said, “Hey check for him on Facebook.” So my wife did and his page came right up. He had remarried and had a cute child whom he obviously adored from the pictures he had posted. I was going to send him a message but looked at his smiling face and decided against it, why remind him of a painful past that had rolled beneath his bridge and vanished long ago?

Well anyways, my wife called me this morning and said he had died suddenly, it was in the paper. I found myself thinking back on those days filled with music and fun. We loved playing Pink Floyd and Roger Waters is probably my favorite lyricist of all time. When Brian played his guitar it sounded like David Gilmore was sitting right next to me. After work today I’m going home to dig out one of our old tapes so I can hear his disembodied voice, that one small piece I have left of a friendship I will always cherish, and waters will start pouring from my eyes as those lyrics ring out with more meaning than they’ve ever had before—

‘How I wish, how I wish you were here…’

No Bones About It

Civility is nearly dead
what happens when the food runs dry?
We must remember our daily bread
does NOT mean those less spry.

Wearisome

Is this such a jaded age
that witticism on the page
is simply pegged as pointless tripe
resulting in unspoken type
while sniveling is seen as sage
if you’re down with all the hype
but here’s one glaring gripe—
you lose your heart to ride the rage.

Just Look

And there, upon an intermediate hill
stands the truth no one knew they were looking for
as cryptic as an ancient cross
as lethal as a misty sea
a thing of aching beauty
and vile revulsion
that beckons like a lighthouse
and teases like a chain link fence
with a hole just small enough
to slip through.

I couldn't help but wonder
why something that seemed
relatively accessible
was apparently so hard to find
then intently watched a fellow seeker
begin their quest in a different spot than mine
and I suddenly realized--

it was simply because
the path is completely unique
for everyone.

Appetites

Does hunger drive your soul
to savor all you can
or do you fill your bowl
with the lenience of The Lamb,
will novel flavor goad
you to indulge for a span?
consumption can be slowed
just resist the urge to cram.

Persist

Time melts away
or so they say
but how do you keep
remorse at bay?

Try looking past
what holds you fast
and always leap—
surrender last!

In order to see
what has yet to be
succumb to sleep
while holding the key.


***Inspired by a prompt over at Poets United about Salvador Dali***

Picking a Fight

The key to this broken down city
removed the paint but good
if you want things so damn shitty
please go back to the ‘hood.


***No your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you; it’s your everyday average poet and wife with Frank Fritz, one of the American Pickers. They stopped to do some picking in an old factory (one thing we have in abundance in Amsterdam) and we ran over to see if we could talk to them. Both guys, Mike and Frank were just so nice and it was really neat to meet these people I watch on TV all the time. I can’t wait to see the episode!

As to the poem, well it’s dedicated to the delinquent denizens of Eagle Street that felt the need to severely key one of the cars in the Picker’s entourage. As we approached I saw a bunch of people decidedly ‘gangsta’ in appearance and attitude. They must have been mad because all the activity really put a damper on their crack business. Someone went up one side of the vehicle and down the other, I was so embarrassed, what a welcome to our town. I can only apologize and hope that certain people get what’s coming to them.***

Conceive

The august night is cool
in the shadow of the fall
a lambent moon is waxing
our shady grip relaxing
so silver dreams can pool
near the garden by the wall

where growth is ever stalked
but time to sow is scant
when furrows of fertility
enable the ability
before the light is balked
and the season says we can’t.

Exposure

I’m here in my aquarium
just waiting to be seen
a glassine sanitarium
within the mean machine
and deep inside my cranium
the gears begin to keen
impatient to be truly free
from this menagerie.

Verifiable

God I hate being right
it’s quite a perplexing plight
to bear this burden I do
of forecasting ills often true
why can’t I lethargically laze
like those that exist in a daze
instead of attempting to see
the pattern through the lunacy
the chaos that we all endure
that leaves us alone and unsure
as I have felt since very young
when dreams were carelessly flung
beyond my untenable touch
revealing I wouldn’t be much
a failure that forfeits the fight
God, I hate being right.

Perfect Ass

Charlie O'Shea
spent part of each day
observing commuters, getting carried away

driven to ride
he secretly eyed
the subway's assortment of stylish pride

along one such line
a diva divine
compelled him to say, "Oh my God she is fine!"

but he quickly hushed
and brilliantly blushed
then a stuttering stream of apologies gushed

for right next to him
and looking quite grim
was the person betrothed to his lecherous whim.

Blockage

My main source of traffic? A spammer
that hasn't a virtual clue
their bothersome link laden clamor
is stuck in the trap of the loo.

Crispy

When truth is forsaken in order to sell you just may awaken one day within hell you’ll know by the smell it’s something like bacon and then you can tell that you’ve been mistaken and seriously shaken.

Plutocracy

There are no shepherds tending flocks
in sweet idyllic fields
just misers pushing for their stocks
to reach new record yields

for once the greedy saw that wealth
could be a cheap façade
they quickly spurned the nation’s health
to rule the poorly shod—

the golden mean has changed a bit
it’s now: ‘Do unto those
that handle all the menial shit
a future full of woes.’

Incorporate

The front door squeaks
my pressure peaks
one steaming cup
new tickets up
the best day in weeks,

the food is fresh
unlike my flesh
as passion feeds
my dreams and deeds
that have yet to mesh.

Interjection

Words can flow
fast or slow
they can change
as concepts grow

some will hang
or turn to slang
then rearrange
when slyly sang

those that sell
repel as well
becoming strange
for quite a spell.

Momentum

We had a pretty good run
but the process has begun
and soon, we may be through;

although we couldn’t shun
our addiction to the gun
we had a pretty good run

until compassion flew
deciding greed was fun
and soon, we may be through

like an ice cube in the sun.
When all is said and done
we had a pretty good run

at least that much is true,
we tried but never won
and soon, we may be through,

our chances slim to none
but here’s what we must do—
achieve a decent run
and we just may make it through.

Aggregate

Life is like a luscious blackberry
every bittersweet seed-filled sphere
a tick of embryonic possibility
to savor as we persevere.

Rapture

The more ancient the temple
the deeper the shadows
where images carved over
a hundred centuries ago
invite us in with dusty whispers
and monumental mirth
for none has yet deciphered the jubilant truth
their stony gazes can't convey.

Beneath the drifting sand a great behemoth
shakes its unshorn head
and paws about, its massive backbone arched
like the daunting chiseled doorways
that beckon us above,
constructed to outlive their own haunting,
and we, the pesky fleas upon its back
are thirsty for the blood we need
to suffer till the spinning silver disks
appear to spirit us away.

Familiarity

I think it was at the Five and Dime
you flipped a dog-eared grin
that was indeed a chapter in time
and our friendship did begin,

together we spent so many days
discovering new things to see
your colorful climactic ways
would always speak volumes to me;

it all just seemed to go so fast
and then there was the end
but the memories will always last
of my funny fast-paced friend.

Waffles for Westin

I have a grandson named Westin
and in the morning when he’s done restin’
there’s one thing he fancies digestin’
the waffles he claims are the best in

the world, so I mix up the batter
then pour and occasionally splatter
all over but it doesn’t matter
his smile makes hesitance scatter.

Fetching

We resolutely labor
to see our distant neighbor
in an up close and personal kind of way
dispatching one fine rover
to search the planet over
and maybe find out why we’re here today.

Repent

If you're getting paid
to practice a trade
the sweat you exude
is proof that you prayed

to the gold corporate cow
so soften your brow
you mustn't be rude
to the source of your chow.

Toss Up

Wouldn’t we grow sick of joy
if everyday the cute and coy
were babbling their bubbly brand
of blather all across this land—
“Come on every girl and boy
take each other by the hand!”

or am I just a heartless cur
so anxious to unleash my slur
that I ignore the beauty of
attempts to spread a little love?
Shouldn’t such occasions stir
an urge to hug and not to shove

a finger halfway down my throat
before these saccharine sillies bloat
my mind with all their banal cheer
and I am smiling ear to ear
while all the touchy-feelies gloat,
my dubious conversion near.

Flutter

The finches flit and flirt
but scandalously skirt
the cover of a cozy copse
their inner shame inert

and as a plump one plops
his happy honey hops
their conjugation rather curt
the stalemate never stops.

Full of Itself

It tried to coax some lines from me
about the mystic majesty
a spectral silver glimmer lends
to anything with which it blends
but sleep kept singing to my mind
the song not easily declined
that sultry siren's lullaby
I wasn't able to deny
strangely though the temptress seems
to hypnotize me through my dreams
for here I sit and pen this tune
about that most immodest moon.

Code

The Fire Inspector blew smoke from his nose
while scratching some marks on the clipboard he held,
a random viewer would have to suppose
the risks of burning are sometimes dispelled;
as blue and grayish tendrils wrapped around
his ruddy visage, he began to cough
and wheeze (a most unhealthy kind of sound)
which made me ask if he’d be signing off.
How often has this pattern been replayed
by people that know better but don’t care,
like scarecrows lighting matches just for fun—
it’s our credo to defiantly trade
security to face the fearsome flare
of flames that will consume us when they’re done.

Wayward

Now whether you follow a map
or your own intrepid heart
there’s bound to be some detours on the way
but if you’re too unsure to tap
your strength and make a start
you’ll never get beyond that same old quay.

Release those ropes, trim those sails
and raise your anchor high
while looking just as lively as you feel
a soul with hopes and luck prevails
by keeping passion nigh
like precious cargo deep within their keel.

Retraction

When he briefly believed
he knew whatever he conceived
could be achieved,

so he calmly complied
completing what he tried
despite who lied,

but he quickly perceived
the futility and grieved,
when he briefly believed.