I lay here making guesses
about this poem until
I fall asleep. Yellow crabs
sideways to the waters edge
murmur into the night air.

Night Blooming

On the side of the road
flowers continue to bloom
at night.
Sharp headlights cruise past
without eyes.

We bought our first car
during the opening salvos of the
gulf war.
TVs flashing through
closed windows.

The car is unchanged.
The road still takes us where it took us before.
Past the same windows flashing
images of the same war.

While on the side of the road
flowers continue to bloom
at night.

Memorial Fountain

Feeling good, the Mississippi boy from Money whistled loudly.
Living, we know only the silt at the edge of the black water.
Living, we are fully showered by the fountain's luminous ascent.

Emmett Till's mutilation;
The photograph of his bloated body
in an open casket;
His mother's torment;

His body exhumed for testing;
His identity proven;
Yet his executioner's
justice still undone;

He grave resold;
His body moved;
Money donated
in his memory gone;

Emmett Till's fountain still showers the shore of our abyss.

Just checking

Every now and again I check to see if there is any life on the farm.


BLUE OXEN

When I called her Babe, I thought
blue oxen. Our assumptions
never meshed. When grandchildren
called her Nana, I thought nut bread,
not goddess of sex and war.
My desires were a secret.
Camelotizing her past
and future, she hoped to marry
a knight who slayed memory.
It Ain’t Me Babe played quietly
in my head. Chivalry was dead
and loneliness more dreadful
than betraying any dream.
We were doomed from the moment
we said, “I do” on Folly Beach.
She needed my name to cash
her paycheck. I needed
a designated driver.
For twenty years I tinkered
with a lie until there was
nothing left to fix.
“I’m sorry” is another lie,
when “I was wrong” is the truth.

Bagman and Butler Live

Bagman and Butler live! See their new blog at http://bagmanslogorrhea.blogspot.com/