A Letter from Gunner

A Letter from Gunner

When you recall a painful moment,

Where does it hurt?

I’m not talkin’ about the pain you remember

When you broke your leg

Thinking you were some sort of

Lady cowboy or something.

I’m talkin’ about the pain you remember

When that puppy you got for Christmas

In ‘97

Got run over by your brother

On his bicycle.

Where do you feel that?

If I hadn’t gone through that growth spurt

Earlier in the summer

Who knows

I’dve probably had to back over that poor thing.

-Bubba

something I made for someone who wanted a poem about the dreamworld

I Am Aware, No I’m Unaware

I extol not in the least of things, no

Nothing in life but the silent cannons

Rolling, flood tide in my mind.

Or sometimes the circus

Enchanting, always — immense

Wrapped in drapery

But the floods

The floods and fountains

They always ruin the circus

And with the flood

Comes a ship

Carrying my hesitations

A sliding door

Abruptly wakes me 

I know now why I hesitate

Darling, I’ve missed you.

So much.

A sliding door

Inherently shut.

they left a spot (draft)

The apartment wasn’t clean, no

No, not at all

Was clean enough, they said

That’s what they said

For a reduced price

It was supposed to be clean enough.

But I found the spot

The crimson crust hiding beneath the light switch

In my bathroom

I could feel her there

It wasn’t clean enough, no

Not at all

I left the spot there

I don’t know why

It wasn’t my job

It wasn’t my wife

It wasn’t my fault

It wasn’t.

Beyond Oblivion

I am alive 
Within all of you. If someone asked me if I wanted to 
live forever, see the future, no matter what it 
might bring, comfort or destruction, democracy or 
despotism 
Even if heaven is as grand as they say it is, I would 
say yes. Better to side with the devil you know Than the devil 
you don’t.

A quote by E.S. Wynn from Beyond Oblivion

The Motorcyclist

A man's face is splattered on I-35,

teeth ground into a paste

of flour and mashed cranberries.

He's left a trail of Château Pétrus

500 feet long

leading up to his cracked bucket of hair

pink grub worms, exposed, crawling and falling,

looking for a place to hide.

But instead they are spill on the pavement,

forced from  dark bowl of bone

into  light, scattering, blind, drying.

I stop and stare.

It is my turn now

I waited almost a full half hour in the queue

along the cement backbone.

Perhaps I should have taken the train.

But I like his stain,

which will always be in this lane.

Anyway,

the sun is shining on my face

and it’s a good day.

salt

Salt

Last Thanksgiving,

My mother over salted the stuffing.

Dad gave her a shiner.

I cried and I tasted the salt too.

At Christmas, the driveway iced over.

It was a thick palette of cold crystal.

Dad threw some rock salt over it.

I didn’t see him at the time,

but I heard his burdened groan.

I still slipped running to the mailbox,

I was eager for Grandma’s Christmas money.

The fall and the ice tore my jeans.

The salt pierced my skin like hook meets worm.

I stained the driveway with my red

And tasted the salt again.

That summer,

Buddy got hit by a car.

His back legs were crushed, mangled,

one of them holding onto his body

by only a dangling milky white tendon.

Dad shot him in the head

right then and there

in the street

in front of me.

He put Buddy out of his misery.

He did the same for himself on my birthday,

but I was all out of salt.

Salt Rocks (me) #1

Guess who sucks.