Thursday, December 24, 2015

Christmas in Absurdity.

Christmas Eve
came as a false spring
with sunshine and 59 degrees.

Last night
we walked around in sweatshirts
looking at lights.

This morning over coffee,
among the other tales of sports
and murder, I read that

one in three Ohioans
are now eligible for assistance
from state food banks.

Without irony,
the governor allocated $500,000
federal money to feed them.

Local press called him
Santa Claus, oblivious that the gov's policies
helped create this poverty.

An old man who delivers
hunger to little children,
inadequately remedies the issue,

and is praised for his efforts
is befitting a Christmas Eve
30 degrees warmer than normal.



Monday, December 21, 2015

Last Time.



I'd been working in the fall chill
clipping dead flowers from the yard

when I decided on a short ride
through our neighborhood,
grabbed a skateboard
from the basement,
and went.

Immediately,
in the physicality
of balance and velocity,
hum of wheels on pavement
like waves on a beach,

I headed west
as a burning sunset
dove into the woods
at East Rec,
gone, just as I
used to do 
in this same
oak forest
20 years ago,

just as I
may never
do again.

Monday, December 7, 2015

When a patronizing email awaits you first thing on a Monday morning, but something brilliant in the sunrise won't allow you to give it the sort of energy that might bring you down.

I nodded through your
patronization, and set
my coffee cup on the desk.

Sunshine was creeping west
through the house rows
as frost shone on rooftops

silver like something precious,
something rare, sagging shingles
an asymmetric work of art.

It wasn't winter yet, nor was it

problematic to be patronized.
I've been here before, I thought,
took another sip and smiled.




Thursday, December 3, 2015

Cruise Ship Food Poisoning.

Got a call from an electronic woman
in Kissimmee, Florida tonight who assured me
I'd won a cruise for two.

Having not been born recently, being 
deathly afraid of cruise ship food poisoning,
not to mention my possession of

a general mistrust of all things Florida,
I hung up. Sometimes a robo-call
is just too good to be true.