I'm trying to catch up on several prompts I missed in recent weeks, and what better way to get started than with the challenge to run a race and write a poem in 75 seconds or less. Here's what happened when I took that dare, in the order these things came out of me. I've only left a couple of takes on the editing-room floor, and I tried not to tinker too much with what was on the page. I think I ended up with the lyrics to fourteen B-sides. Anyway, let's unleash the doggerel...
A greyhound flies down the line.
“Spinach, tonight?” says the man with the cigar.
“No, no, no. Place or show. Otherwise, I’m not eating at all,”
she replies, showing him the ticket in her hand.
And that’s how it went in those days,
when we were young and selling ourselves for Caesar.
**
Hit me. I’ll take another.
I’ll buy a vowel.
I’ll take a train to the other side of the oyster.
I’m riding what you’re hiding
and dying for the dream.
Hit me. I’ll take another.
I’m on fire.
I’ll retire.
I’m drowning my sorrows in water.
Firewater really oughta solve something.
Right? A solvent.
**
Scrubbing the backs of our minds we find the time that we were in Syria and went to the seaside only to find everything sliding off the edge of the earth into an afternoon of asteroids and that’s annoying when it’s not really what you planned for an outing with the kids. What’s a guy to do?
**
Another attempt. The bell and off we go.
It’s almost like swinging, desperately for your life,
against the fists of some other sick animal
thrown in the ring with you and trying to prove
its self-worth through vicious metaphors and wicked verbs
against the jaw, the ear, the kidney, the eyes.
It hurts to rip it up and lay it on the page. It hurts.
**
Too strict? I’m much too strict with myself.
Give me the rules and I play by the rules.
That’s the kind of fool I am.
Too strict? I’m much too strict with myself.
Tell me how it’s done and I’ll do it.
Kind? I’m much too kind with my hands.
My mind is another matter entirely,
judging, jeering, jangling at all hours.
Strict, and on the other hand too kind.
**
Running in the three-legged race at that picnic place
and all we know is that when this is over
we’ll really jump in the sack.
**
Off they go. Headlong. Headstrong. Young and nothin’ stops them.
Home they come. Burnt and jaded, blue jeans faded, and nothin’ll be the same.
That’s the story, again and again, the search for glory and the prodigal crash.
And ask yourself, when the pup comes back with its tail between its legs,
what if I tried to fly with these clumsy paws? Who would catch me, sweet?
Who would patch me up?
**
Focus breaks down the second the sound
of the keys in the lock of the internet turn,
keys clicking through the linking of her obsessions,
embarrassed sessions of nothing she’d like to tell.
But everyone knows her well – so no surprise waits inside
for history’s menu. She’ll clear her cache and rewrite it,
she thinks, kidding herself. She’s just a kid
with a much too powerful toy.
**
The editor awakes before you do,
and is already inspecting the way you make breakfast,
the temperature of the shower, the lateness of the hour.
Shouldn’t you have been awake by now, you ask yourself.
Shouldn’t you have been different than you are?
Every minute of every day. Who’s to say
the words would be better if you gave them time?
**
And then he came along,
an ivory-billed woodpecker
with something to prove.
Sat on the bar and told me his tale,
just for the price of a bottle of ale.
And I’m not sure who to believe.
Everyone else said he was nuts,
but the bayou never looked the same
after he explained
the way it all went down.
That’s why I moved to town.
I never looked back.
Packed up my bag and went down the levee.
No, I never looked back.
**
If I was a writer other than the writer I am
I wouldn’t sit and writhe here and wonder
what letters would come out of my pen.
But I’m the writer who’s a survivor
of living in editing hell.
So I’d be a liar if I put down a line here
that wasn’t quite ready to fail.
**
Funny. I’ve been here before.
I think I’ve dug a hole exactly this deep with a different shovel.
I dug three holes just like it, ten feet apart, with three different shovels.
If I recall correctly, the next step is
to clamber out of the hole
and blame someone else.
So let’s get on with it.
**
Just freeze in one place. That’s one way to deal with it.
Back up to see if you can escape. That’s how a cat would react.
Fluff up your feathers to appear as big as possible. Size might help.
Bark as loud as you can. Sometimes that’s the trick.
Strategies. Strategies. We get so stuck on them.
**
The wisdom of the barn, so long from where I live now.
Yet a horse taught me to bow when I walked that path.
May I remember his quiet grace as I kick at my stall today.
