Back outta town

 I knew I'd have to make my way back
sky grey blue air cool semi thick
People wandering 
Roadworks never never finished

I look of a shortcut 
Where I might find retrace my steps
To the shack up the way
Sometimes through crowds

Pushing uncomfortably through them
Praying for enough space to get back unscathed
Sun would be up soon frying edges and riff raff
Eyes search for shortcuts

I enter a church half full of it's ministry
some of them move out of the side exit
To let me walk through
Achieving my shortcut

The feeling of progress
A beautiful lie
One that would lull me to sleep
If I ever actually found my way back to the shack

Down into town

 I went down into town
With two others
The helped me all the way
Without asking so much as a thank you

I'm talking about my left leg and my right one
Navigating the pavement
Simple things that my mind could move
I was often accused of being simple

And yet I was perhaps the most complex
Which gave the outward illusion of simplicity
I went down into town on two legs
The strangeness of a biped

The curves of the pavement sidewalk
My own adjustments
Manifesting into flesh and bone
Just to carry me along

Soft food and comradery

Freckles and fraternity
Their fun mix of people
Their local hang out a gallery
The air together is sweet

Friendship is evidenced through feasts and winks
Old stories that have the lot in stitches
Their freckles are now turning to wrinkles
Jovial conversation and livers struggled through beer 

Words words here in speech bubbles
Pouring out of the mouth in gushes
The food going against the flow
The mouths fight for words, chews and swallows

They saw each other as kin
Brothers through thick and thin
Though it was never really tested
No steel to it no blood invested

Just a shout

 All we have is a shout in the wind
A temporary expression
Half an accident, half an impulse
Half a second episode
of a novella our descendents once started

In that short time will we paint reality
With our myriad emotions
Invisible art on the air
Colors of ourselves we can not see
A shout it is

Until we are hoarse in that moment
In space where the lack of oxygen robs our volume
The ability to continue our echoing utterance
There is only silence and starlight
The shout is over

Emptiness welcomes
Transformation flows out here
For there is no purpose in the vacuity
Amelioration comes on as certain as new life
Beyond the dead shouts
 

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.