Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Breakfast at the Villa


Apollo is beginning
with a plastic appetizer
the meal
a cutback sleeve of
a five gallon bucket
fashioned to house
a large dog’s dish.

It is his.

We know this because it
has a large red A on the side
unlike his brother’s
which has a large red R
for Rocky.

They have access
to all the amenities.
These pedigrees
needn’t
bend down to eat.
Gracious NO!

This clever design
keeps their dishes
at shoulder height
a comfortable level for dining.

The cook is late
and Apollo being
extremely advanced
for a bull mastiff
unlike his rather vocal brother
who is whining
doesn’t voice his disdain
but instead has
brought his bucket
to the front overlooking the ponds
and will diplomatically
start
alone.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Getting Out from Beneath the Rubble


I’ve been putting it off long enough.
Yesterday I took a step towards
stirring the crowd.

I found
and relocated some
rather important tomes.
I made progress.
I approached the mammoth
and tried to saddle it
the tonnage clear
roping not an option.

Intent on putting my plan
into gear
I sorted through
the who does this belong to
the what
why and how much
dust had accumulated
reasoning that the one inch pile
could stay
but everyone else
had to go.

I don’t care for slackers.
Most of them left quietly
the days of debauchery over
they were corralled and herded
towards the car
and loaded into the trunk
next stop the LIBRARY.

The connivers next to the nightstand were next
unread in over six months
they were out of there
replaced by the next have to reads.

Then I marched upstairs
to look at the schemer pile
next to the sofa
that seemed content
to stay put.
No threats or
hysterical comments
voiced from that group
so I relented and gave them
another six months to collect
interest, which seems to be at a premium these days.

I think I will issue a press release
or have a PBS show featuring them.
You know, revive interest in the classics
get them on Oprah’s must read list

In the meantime I have
been evaluating and editing
a new
beast that I’m taming
set in Hawaii
(not mine) saved
on a flash drive
but I’m going to
have to ration myself
after all
there is more to life
isn’t there?

Hold on
I think I have a book on that
somewhere.


Monday, August 29, 2011

Habilitat's Last Saturday Poetry Slam




http://www.viddler.com/explore/habilitat/videos/43/


Featuring Connie D. and the Residents of Habilitat

Habilitat--the place of change

Habilitat--changing the hardcore into the responsible for

Who Do You Want To Be?

Brownie Bites


Rich dark chocolate squares
evoke Grandma’s warm kitchen
mouth watering memories
heaven’s triple sweet reply
to snotty little cousins.

Gratification
is eating a chewy baked
treat and cooling off
with your friends under an
red low flow fire hydrant.

Shrewd brownie judgment
demands that you sweep up crumbs
if you don’t want ants
sharing your picnic basket
or hitching a ride back home.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

End Times

Human trafficking
cacophony surpasses
chirping myna birds.

Yellow sun rises
behind filthy mock dwelling
rooster crows three times.

Street rules prevail now
no apparent religion
only hungry dogs.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Blue Horizon

Blue bottle grouping
silent float on the water
pushed in by the tide
Pink and Blue gas-filled bladders
appear old warships full sail.


** Tanka

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thirty Balls


Thirty Balls

give or take
that’s how many
I took
with me
to the Koolau Golf Course today.
Eighteen made the return trip
to wait until the next round
where if they are blessed
they will escape and find a new home
flying left
when they should’ve gone right
taking a sudden detour
deep into the lush green vegetation
dark with plovers pigeons,
cardinals and common myna
chirping on
about the many different
species of
earthworms and the sudden
onslaught of
U.F.O. Sightings
reported
in their neck of the woods.

Hawaiian Birthing Stone

 
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Monday, August 22, 2011

Grasshopper

 
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Enabler 101

Definition of ENABLER:
enablers are people who by their actions make it easier for an addict to continue their self-destructive behavior by criticizing or rescuing.
one that enables another to achieve an end; especially : one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior (as substance abuse) by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior




Slam Poetry shows
up at Habilitat in
the Fall. Shut my mouth.

A survivor speaks
Letters to a Prisoner
amazon.com

Denial loses
taken over by rebels
gets new perspective.

Conquer addiction
drop the victim at the curb
it’s a new classic.

Watch Olelo in
September or October
Connie D. returns.




Sunday, August 21, 2011

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Sleeping Beauty



I write
because
the truth
is a
sleeping beauty
likely
willful
tomorrow
picketing
against
me.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Obsessed

From Mohonk New York

From Mohonk New York

Obsessed
since I quit
smoking
the scale
persuades
I promise
to have a
short memory
.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

K.I.S.S.


Keep it simple stupid
I say keep it short stupid
I’m getting gray
waiting for
the film
to finish
the sheets need to be changed
my dogs are howling to eat
I have a life too
Keep it short.

I need to do my workout
go to work
load the truck
and wash at least three loads of laundry.

The winds are MORE than EIGHT MILES AN HOUR
on the WINDWARD side of the island
GET a new ANEMOMETER.

Time is running
its marathon
and I’m lagging behind
I’m in the thirteen minute mile group
and I can’t understand
why you keep talking
because I can’t breathe
because I’m pudgy
and out-of –shape
And I’m going to DIE
maybe not today
but soon America
Keep it short.

Say what you mean
Mean what you say
Keep me interested
Keep it short.




Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Bufo Toad

 
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Making Headlines

I’m calling Ripley’s
I’ve heard of walking the dog
but I can’t believe
what I just saw this morning
I can see the headlines now

Unleashed cat walks free
pet trails behind leashed Shih Tzu
captivates neighbors.

Monday, August 15, 2011

WHITE


White wedding
Dress
Veil
Doves
Rice.


White chocolate
Coconut
Whipped cream icing
Ribbons
Balloons.

Soap
Bubbles
Robes
Wine
Towel-wrapped
Geese
Origami
Paper
Snowflake.

White
Face
Paint
Threads
Magic
Lies.

White Noise
White light
Mushroom clouds
Sand
White caps
Ivory
Moon.

Chalk
Lines
Crayoned
Plaster
White
Knuckled
Outlines.

Ghost
White mothballs
(Death’s perfume
sealed
in cellophane.)


Saturday, August 13, 2011

Marco Polo


Marco Polo
is a new guest
he scurries around
the perimeter of the fish pond
foraging
for remnants of trout chow
trapped between the rocky crevices
sharpening his claws
on neighboring plants
and fruit trees
papaya, coconut
orange and
lychee
tumbling
now into a pitcher plant
another new arrival
from Borneo.

Poor Marco,
traveling to this oasis
took a lot out of him
he’s so thirsty to explore
he hasn’t read the warning signs
little does he know
who his host is
that the table is being prepared
for an exotic rat stew.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trWzDlRvv1M

Friday, August 12, 2011

Blind Faith

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use." - Galileo Galilei
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche


Blind Faith

is
hoping
to catch one
fish for dinner
in a polluted
reservoir so you can
feed your scruffy family
of five, expecting that one fish
will multiply into plenty, plus
too, persuade them into thinking its God.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Consequences

We
all need
to face the
I-Told-You-So
the bouncing bad check
snorting white powder costs.
The medicated food chain
bloated size eighteen appetite
the rash rolling click of a blind mouse
trust placed in who packs our parachute.


**Etheree

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Good Morning America!

Good Morning America

Good Morning Starbucks
Venti Me!
I’m going for the bypass tomorrow
I woke up today and
all my size twelve’s turned into four’s
and I can’t get the zipper UP
I may need EMS to resuscitate me
from this god dammed war
that’s killing all of our boys
and I’m asking MR. President
what is it all FOR?
I want OFF this rollercoaster
I want Opie and Andy
to call I LOVE LUCY
and tell her that
marrying RICKY is a big mistake
that Ethel is a cow and Fred is really a cereal killer.

Good Morning America
I need a ZEN moment
a place to exhale all the garbage
from my black lungs
coughed up in the trenches
of foreign wars
that I can’t afford
because my credit just went down the tubes
and needs a banker
a little gold to back me up
prevent my guts from being
blown up in the chopper
in a bombed out country
that hires kids as mercenaries
What the hell is it for
Mr. Senator?

Good Morning America!
Stop the bullshit
the crying
soap opera
raging
about the streets
of London
Don’t you see that
we are all in this together?
We need a plan
we need Mr. Spock
to beam down
and give us the logical
answer
before the Alien High Council
sends us to a frozen prison planet
because no one here is INNOCENT.

Good Morning America!
Let’s toast our Statue of Liberty
one last time before China
calls in her note.
Before the polar ice cap melts
the earth stops resettling and
before Voyager reaches its final destination.

Good Morning America
Today is the day
we resurrect GOD
meet those ancient aliens
who designed the giant stone monoliths
that litter the planet
like an ad for air travel.
Refrigerator magnets
to foreign collectors
from a far off galaxy
who will surely
look up in their ancient texts
calculating the odds
of contracting the human infection
inoculating the crew
for their close encounter of a shitty kind.

Good Morning America
Wake up!
We are being consumed by a sinkhole
a malfunction in the earth’s crust
sliding, suffocating
obsessed and arrogant
and our time is running out.
Pardon me
Excuse my partisan ass
Mr. Speaker but
America is pissed
off and we were wondering
when you people on Capitol Hill
will get up off your rich collective butts
and DO what you were elected for
which is to speak for the PEOPLE
because we are tired of swallowing
your sovereign AGENDA’s and we’re not going to finance them ANYMORE!



Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Geography Lesson

From the front of the class
I can see the chalk smudges
on the back of her dress.
Two white hand prints

cross her parallel shoulders
and a longitudinal eraser mark
stares at me from her angular derriere.
That’s what I’m thinking, when she asks me

to recite the exact latitude
and longitude of Honolulu, Hawaii
the correct answer being
21° 6' 35" N / 157° 31' 51" W

I grin back and as far as I can tell
the equivalent of that
has absolutely nothing to do
with the location

of the chalk marks on her dress
and relatively everything to do with
last night’s homework assignment.
So I do what any red-blooded kid would do

I grab my crotch
make a face and
I ask permission
to use the restroom.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Congress

Words pour from their mouths
like water from a faucet
making promises

until we need them.

Until we realize they’ve said
something they shouldn’t have.

Sealed with government approval
they caw, squawk and eat away at our resolve
taunting us
stabbing us over and over
with our own
deceit.

Their black beaks
daring us to
stop them and
see
before
they mushroom
into a dark cloud
before they grow bigger
and transform into something else.

Scavengers fixed to gorge on the placated
at the table of procrastination
and donkey white lies.

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