What Charlie Said

WHAT CHARLIE SAID

I’m sitting here waiting

For that damn bug to climb down the wall.

And that’s what’s bugging me.

The blasted thing has six legs

You’d think it’d move faster.

All we got is this field of white.

That’s what we artistes do.

Or should that be artisti do,

Stare at white and blink sometimes

And wait on the freakin’ bug.

It don’t take a big vocabulary to write;

Hemingway proved that.

Maybe it do or don’t take genius.

What it takes is one hard ass

While you hope the bug’s photogenic.

Photograph is of Charles Bukowski

Unsunny Sunday

UNSUNNY SUNDAY

It’s a miserable day.

Perfect for a walk.

Nothing takes away the memory

Of misery

Than a miserable stalk

Down a rainy trail

It’s a miserable morn,

Drear and cold damp.

I’ll let the wind and drizzle

Wash my tears

Down the wrinkled ramp

Of my aging face.

It’s a miserable path.

Wet and gritty.

Can you imagine a better clime

To write rhyme

bemoaning self pity

From my groaning soul?

It’s an misnomered day.

Sunday afternoon

Washing down the gutter of my psyche

And cluttering

Like litter and doom

The drainpipe of my life.

Broken Child

BROKEN CHILD

Are all writers broken children?

What drove us to speak, to talk, to shout and scream

With our mouths closed and lips unmoved;

Ventriloquist to our characters?

We face a blank page as if it a mirror darkly

Might reflect unseeable images of our inner self

Or is it someone else?

Or the souls of persons nonexistent?

Do we tell of the life we lead or the life we wished?

We pour out some hidden world, secrets of our psyche.

Is it mere imagination or the deeper truths of human nature.

Are we imbued with insight and perceptitive minds

Or because we are but broken children

Is it just retaliation?