Day 5 - My Death

My Death

My death was timeless.
It also was not anticipated
In the way one expects high humidity
On a hot summer afternoon
After a thunderstorm passed through.

Oh, I am sure some predicted it
Would come sooner later.
There are after all, those who believe
The Cubs will win the World Series this year.
Such people may be discounted
Either for their connection with the occult
Or because they have suffered concussions at some point.
Betting people would do well to stay clear of them.

The newspaper back in my little pea pod home town
Called my demise unfortunate
Due to the loss suffered by my insurance company.

Folks mostly went about their routine the day of my funeral
And the general store ran a special
On cigarettes and beer.
There are those who called me a good man
When they checked out.

Poetry Month Broadside

My second annual limited poetry broadside has arrived today and is available (as mentioned earlier) as long as they last. To request one, email me with name and address.

Happy Poetry Month!

Day 4 (my NaPoWriMo blog still held hostage)

The Act

A sacrificial smile
A few seconds worth
Of monitored misconception

I can be convincingly contrived
To the point of melodrama
Candy red and sugar dripping

My baseline convalescing
Beneath ornamentation
Awaiting the moment you leave

This two-faced act steps out on a tight rope
Several times a day it will balance and defy gravity
For your benefit alone
Without applause

Day 3 / Untitled

Sleep was a causality of morning
A most unholy beam of light through the window
Spotlight to my face—
Caught in the cross hairs

Of another morning of demands
Tethered to someone’s aspirations
That are at best a no deposit bottle to me



(note - blogger is being a major pain and has my site specifically for NaPoWriMo under review and I am therefor locked out of it. sigh...)

Day Two of NaPoWriMo

Rage

Opened, a red blossom of anger
Long held in a tight fisted bud;
Too long—

Maybe it was annoyance once.
Irritation came and settled it its belly
And churned with the callous lies

Than ate at me like fire ants.
Irritation became causality
Of the spectacle of “awe” over Baghdad.

Like remnants of lives
Severed, charred and strewn about
Irritation could not survive.

The fury with which our own
Came home in boxes
Became the rage in full bloom today.

You talked about political capital,
Suspended habeas corpus,
Mortgaged future generations.

The audacity of
Mission Accomplished

Nature

Nature

Light rains on stones
Moss hides in the northern shadows
A trickle of assembled wetness tears up
Rolling down the rocks of solitude
The air in our midst circulated
By Sunday morning church fans
We pause to applaud
And continue on

Anniversary

Anniversary

The odometer of fallen, rolls onward
Over too familiar terrain.
A merry-go-round insanity
Propelled by stubborn indignity,
Denials-
Capitulating nothing
While eating our young.

Pointless Query

Braking
through the layers

past
linen wrap

percolating pulp
without

reason or
necessity

till exposure
it answers.

Unknowingly

Unknowingly

I saw the sand bottom out
in the egg timer. There were no eggs
or time involved. Just an end to something
arbitrary- or was that in fact time?

Did it end of its own accord, or
because I turned the hourglass
and started a process unknowingly?

How many unknowings can there be in one day?

Regarding Your Silly Assed Expectations / a draft

Regarding Your Silly Assed Expectations / a draft

I have struggled with a second language
The way you wrestle a carry-on bag,
a laptop, a purse and Victoria Secrets shopping bag
as you depart your flight at the terminal.

My tongue manages to say things—
It’s not dependable. Not the way an open window is.
I’ve thought a lot about it. Perhaps too much
of an intellectual leaning. I’m perplexed
to the point of linier grief.

Passing through customs I suppose I can be insouciant.
It is only after the fact that I wallow in subverted dismemberment.
My head rings with the lyrics “too late baby” and I swallow a lump
hanging beneath my chin.

It is the expectation of everyone that I assimilate. I say, “Fuck that!”
Is it a crime to be only marginal in a second language
where most are only marginal in their first?

In customs I declared a bracelet left to me by my grandmother,
Two hundred twenty-nine Paso, a book of matches
with Hector Barilla on the front, my clothing, toiletries
and a cheap paperback, "Say It In English."

Journal Bits

From my journal - a few recent bits:

• Dexterity lingers in hinged sticks / that count themselves by one
• If these were normal thoughts / they would bask in the sunny side / of frequency- not the cold darkness.//
• Shadows aren't secret places. / Just overlooked and misunderstood.//
• Streets flowed downstream / past lamp posts and shops / that closed for the occasion.//

Inevitable (draft)

Inevitable (draft)

The prodigal son is just one of many
though he knows expectations run high.
There is always this red velvet carpet
that divides his thought process.

The future is some worm baited taunt,
and awkward as being caught with a cousin
at the Perkins family reunion.
It takes the swim of salmon upstream

to break a biblical cycle
that darkens the sky and
chokes off free will.
Times like these you swear
You’re an orphan.

Journal smatterings

• perception grows elongated/hangs around crowds/making the kinds of impressions/teenagers do to one another/looking to make points/with the opposite sex
• Intonation offered up for what?/ears- or simply a regurgitation
• nights of elastic boredom/ripple with salty waves/of complacency we suck on/there is a satisfying feeling /like a dog gets licking your face
• you showered the long day away/I gave you a bath robe/the belt hung limp

Missouri Opus

A thousand leaves give their last all-

Their lives spent together

they reach a pinnacle in their journey.

They take to the air

to imitate birds of spring-

their colors singing out;

they land and cover the ground

that nourished their entire lives.

This final opus their one chance

to shine in all God's glory

before put to rest

buried under a white blanket that

will inter them to the ground

from which they came.

At the Same Time

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." ~ Thomas Merton

I am but a lost and found box
in which I am constantly
reappearing like the stray cat at your door.

Even I fail at times
the test of recognizing
the sad clown of suppressed laughter

or the Angry tiger barb in a bowl
with no other fish to dine on.
Who are these characters I ask...

and in the smoke that clears
is the pretext for lust of three car garages,
swimming pools, a wife and 2.3 children
by the proletariat.

Anger wrapped in swaddling clothes
and a Molotov cocktail in my hip pocket-
Jesus am I adequately confused yet?

You can see my self portrait
in black velvet paintings
for sale in a Love and Peace van
at the 66 station on 8th and Hamilton.

New Homepage Site

My new homepage site can be found at michaelawells.com (note you must use the middle initial "a")

Her Ancestors Lived Deep Within the Crack of Vanity

Another poem of mine is up over at The Flask Review in their current issue.

Another Poem published...

Autumn Sky Poetry edited by Christine Klocek-Lim has published one of my poems. The current Volume 7 can be seen here. My poem, We Missed can be seen directly here.

Do check out the other poetry in this edition. Christine has done an excellent job putting it together!


words

Saturday afternoon....

"Tears roll silently down the hill in neutral."

Right Hand Pointing - # 16 With 2 Of My Poems

Right Hand Pointing 16: "the paradox of going on" here

• Animal Instinct here
• The Cousin here