RICKY T, 1960 – 1986
Prince of Darkness never shook hands,
flossed his teeth religiously, never sweated,
didn’t like heat, kept his windows open year round.
Computer whiz, master mindpicker,
keeper of serious secrets, cruelly conceived,
Category / Poetry
Culls
If there were a range to wander
on the back of a semi-broke horse
I suppose I would be happier.
Instead I sit cross-legged
on a brown leather couch
Math Girls of 8th Grade
Through the window I saw
you this morning talking,
counseling, I guess you could say,
those girls who draw blousy flowers
on the board in your classroom
[mother in 64]
sticks rubbery thin
the kind my mother called a switch
broke skin on her legs
since father caught her in mud
with white church shoes
Martha Jane Canary Tries AA
She’s back to the bottle again,
after an early fever that gambled
away its taint on a sucker’s bet
that the bulldog at her throat
could be traded for a nice coffee
And in this Brutal Passage
He came out of the gray huddle,
an avalanche of a man,
broken and vast, without forgiveness.
He knew spit and strike,
choke and an eternal bad morning,
I Had Two Great Dreams for My Body
Tonight listening to you falling asleep 900 miles away
I talk about the kitten’s cottony belly, his ruthless teeth,
not saying any of the other,
feeling the searing holes there below, here above
and I realize the oily undreamt dream I’ve been given;
Continue reading… "I Had Two Great Dreams for My Body"Spreading Jam
Morning and again,
mind’s eye has her spreading jam,
all the greater sadness
left to rest of day.
The Romantic
A man says he carries letters
in Portland, Oregon.
Not that he is a letter carrier
or mailman,
but that he is “a man who carries
letters.”
Strange Blue Moon
Long ago we quit offering our tails
like the others—prairie chicken, peacock—
though we gasp when they tremble
to beckon a mate. Even the wild turkey
that once climbed our neighbor’s roof