Poor Old Keith

 
My heart goes out to him.

Hey, Keith, I know it’s hard languishing on the Express Shelf still after three weeks.
I know what it’s like to be a wallflower
alone and palely loitering on the cold hillside..

I don’t know if he gets the reference. Keats.

Yeh, I know what it’s like, Keith, I say.
But don’t worry. Nicole still loves you.

He seems to lift a bit.

And anyway, I tell you what: if you’re still here when I come in next week, I’ll borrow you. I’ll take you home.

A bit of color seems to flush his cheeks, and there’s a glint in his eyes.

Hang in there, Keith, I say, on my way out.

No !

I’m sorry I said NO

to you

& you

& you

all those times

diminishing yr world

I could have done better

withholding affection is a crime

against the human heart

Fragile Dennis

I think of fragile Dennis when someone needles me,

and toughen up.

He let the jibes get to him;

He closed down the fun house of his world view,

changed his clown shoes for cement boots.

He was heavy as Hamlet,

became prickly

& wouldn’t read his wonderfully quirky poems out any more

because people were telling him,

they were weak.

They were a little childish but

they weren’t weak.

Poets are supposed to care for each other.

I wish some people would close up like zippers.

Bars

They gave me a number to phone

And when I phoned that number —

When I eventually got through —

They gave me two more numbers

With even longer waiting times,

 

But they all said the same thing,

tone deaf to reason and compassion,

the Shylocks of bureaucracy.

 

Whichever way you turned

You got the same answer.

They had it all sewn up.

You were already in prison

Behind bars intransigent as iron.

 

• photo by Damir Spanic on Unsplash

 

 

Okay, I looked but I didn’t stare

On a road trip the other day

we got talking about birth marks

and how you never see them any more

then at the airport

I saw this barista

with a mulberry stain on his face.

I had to ask him,

is that a real birth mark? I asked

we were talking about them

and how you never see them anymore.

Yes, he smiled

as if it were just another feature

on his face

like a mole or scar.

It looked almost beautiful.

Then he made me the greatest cup of coffee.

Thank you, I said

glad that I had asked him

and didn’t wuss out.

It’s okay to be curious.

 

is anyone else fascinated by birth marks ?

what would you have done?

What Happened Out There, Out in the Garden?

 

Stephanie was out in the garden, chasing chooks out of the vegetable patch. She was some way from us, out on the back porch, so I was surprised that she responded to something I said.

“Yes. I remember when …” and then her voice seemed to get swallowed up.

”What’s that?” I said.

But she stood there helplessly waving her hands as if signalling to us to disregard what she had to say and to carry on our conversation. We did and when my friend left, Stephanie came over and sat beside me.

“What happened out there?” I asked. “Out in the garden?”

“What I was about to say got swallowed up,” she said.

“Like in a sinkhole?” I said. They had been in the news lately.

“Like in a sinkhole.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Tell me when you remember.”