Old Ass Poetry 2002-3

October 2002

Don’t Look Back

If I empty my head can I hear it?

cranium flip-top like the lid of a stein

sluice out the jumble

into the void

there goes

the Andy Griffith show when Ernest T. Bass was not

a creach-ture

the shirt I wore when I played

spin the bottle

The smell of us inside the van

after we smoked pot and did it

every word on the postcard he sent from Egypt

thousands of songs

the words will never show, the you I’ve come to know

my feet on the sunny dashboard

heading toward California

Is the weight

causing me to grind my teeth at night

my body whip tight

can I keep only the trail of crumbs

I won’t be able to find my way without

stop turning back as if I had forgotten something

important

that happened.

It has all happened

I have listened to my heartbeat

countless times

at night

but I hunger for my soul’s voice

to rise above the static

and whisper in my ear

January 2003

Covet

You asked me

to share the message

thanks a lot for the hospitality…

never a dull moment…

I’ll be in touch…

but I covet words

they hold an essence of the person

that I can keep all for myself.

pouring over and polishing

never wearing out

thanks a lot

brings to mind your eyes

the handsome flash

of your Han Solo grin

at something I said

never a dull moment

brings the time

when you sat at the computer

with your shirt off

while I did the dishes.

Like a married couple