The box of oblivion

 I'm trying to write a great poem
But dumbness and no brilliance comes over here to my mind
To my racketing fingers that want to produce something unique
Tonight its just a clattering ladder of silly words like the adjective silly

What a meaningful word when it feels literally silly to say the word silly
I try to elaborate some grand scheme of amazing prose
That will impress the reader so much he will go to all efforts to show the world my work
So that they might wonder and look me up and quote me to strangers like maniacs

Could I deserve that or will it be one of those out of reach dreams
What does it take to control the parrot mouths of the internet
That pass names and ideas to all the movers and shakers
Who sift out the winners and throw the aggregates into the unknown box

The box of oblivion maybe thats what ill call this meaningless prose
Yes a box of oblivion a place where effort and attempting go to die
Except these stubborn fingers still bang away on the keyboard
flowing dumbness filling up a dried lake that used to be brimming with brilliance

I'm trying to write a poem
It does pretend every literary vanity
It does wrap up in a silicon coating
it spurts like a burst sewer pipe as you read it all oozing out right down here 

A musician with no grant

 Silly willy wagon musician who never gloated
Now without a swerve a color, an intuition or a float
Bleating like the blindsiding preverbial goat
chilly winking and stinky without any soap

Senseless repetitions an old well timed pun
Then times teenage hounds let loose with their own reruns
As sick and rabid half drunk dizzy eyed
Worried parents drag adolescent as he cries

Now a finger strummer without a drummer
A meth-head jar smoker emotionally bare runner
Piles of wood witch rumours scribbled
Takes a hit leans back hits guitar with dribble 

Tutelina and the cockroaches' greenhouse

 With Tutelina now regularly visiting the clamshell greenhouse, the cockroach had become less concerned about the ants and more interested in expanding his little farm. The clover had spread almost to the edges of the transparent container, and several dandelions had begun to flower. Their seeds occasionally caught in the condensation wet ground.

One morning, the cockroach noticed something moving beneath the composted chipboard. A small family of earthworms had found their way into the soil beneath the greenhouse. They had been living in the damp cardboard nearby but had discovered that the ground inside the box remained considerably warmer. Was it a miracle? It would mean healthier soil.

The cockroach was puzzled. He had spent months protecting his little garden and couldn't understand how the worms got there. Good for the soil yes, but strangers all the same, strangers.

Tutelina, who had been hiding near the entrance, was not concerned. She explained that earthworms were not going to eat the clover or dandelions.

In one week, the earthworms began working their way through the compost, breaking down the old chipboard and mixing it into the soil. The clover responded with thicker growth, and the dandelions produced larger flowers.

The cockroach was changed his mind.

But there was another development. The warmer conditions had attracted a small beetle, who arrived one evening and began feeding on the leaves around the edge of the greenhouse. 

Tutelina was immediately interested in him as a potential meal. It was a dream come true. Beatles were bigger more succulent meals.

Tutelina continued to patrol the entrance, keeping the ants away. And now the odd beatle would curiously come in to look for food and end up wrapped up in a meal box.

The transparent grape box had gradually become something much more than a greenhouse. It was now a food house a place the spider Tutelina and the cockroach could dine at. Sometimes eating beside each other, attempting smiles with their strange mouths.

Outside, the temperature continued to fall towards zero.

Inside, the condensation gathered every morning, the clover flourished, and the little inhabitants went about their business.

An entire ecosystem, with its own gardeners, scavengers, predators and unexpected friendships.

Still growing inside an abandoned clamshell box.

The validity

 The vagueness of the image
A photo faded so badly
A memory I try to conjure back but fail
Like a muscle losing it's strength

I search for the weight of it
The validity it made me feel
A ghost of it leaving the chamber of my mind
Leaving uncomfortable traces
making me beg to see the whole clear picture

A page of my life almost blank now
How many particle electrons it gave me
Sustaining my mind and body
over many months
Its crash agonizing but short

It is nowhere now
Hopeless to follow or seek
An image in the wood
Losing it's edges
I need to see the shape of it

It will not grace my eyes 
ever again

Atchafalaya

 Fell in the swamp
Won't get out
Warm bath in this
Hot stew where teeth are near
Rot and other dead issues

Try to Swim in the slop
Deeper than my length
To wash away the need for land
And indulge the need for mud

The dry bank is oh so far
Something moves in the brackish
It creates a swirl of ghosts upon the surface
Soon it might just sniff me out

And if that comes to pass
Im dragged into water grass
Right down into dreaded mud
My last message tooth on bone

No dice on the supplement

 Slow motion over the goods
What you seek you can not find here
The price is no good 
the mouth asks

The things you've come for
An empty bag remains
an unpaid receipt
An unreciprocated glance

Slow motion farewell
a wish of goodness
some sort of giving up
trolley wheels whine in defeat 

The birth of another homeless

 On the side of the highway
he was abandoned at fourteen
At school they called him simple
At home, useless

He had been kicked out of his parents car
He would have to make his own way from here
He walked up the steep slope beside the highway
the slippery grass did not hinder him

He reached the narrow stretch at the top of the slope 
Along the wooden fence  separating the houses from the highway
He collects fruit that had fallen down on the highway side
just enough for a days sustenance

He wandered on not soiled yet, not dirty
But abandoned, with tragedy gripping the rails
Down the line of fate's indifferent tracks
He would become another homeless collector
of inevitable misfortune