Whiskey Ice Cream Social

pour dark liquid over
my butter pecan,
the yellowwhite

spirals off into
my drink
more swish
than a clink.

The young girls dance
and never touch
old men or old whiskey.

Bourbon is best
served to the dying
even if they don’t
know they are.
#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem
https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

Sunday Morning (me and Jesus)

you were waiting
on the bus,
it was Sunday morning
and I was waiting
on Jesus come.

I was dreaming
of cornbread,
you were dreaming
of New York City.

Sunday morning
and you were waiting
on the bus

Boy selling newspapers
Jesus selling cornbread
On the street corner
at least so the headline said

It was Sunday morning,
you eating cornbread,
we’re on the bus,
me and Jesus

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

I am Not

a clever poet
if I say I am sitting
on the hearthstones
writing this poem
then I am.

Only I’m not,
I am, as almost always,
in my comfy
high, overstuffed, wingback,
feet up on worn
beloved foot rest.

An ottoman,
only that seems
somehow pretentious
and I prefer
to pretend
I am not.

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

If I Went

Sailing down

the highway

I would need

a pirates chest

of medicines

And soon a

forwarding address

for my pharmacist

Though I could roll

my old Kia,

windows down

rosary blowing

in the breeze

Because this atheist

believes in coincidences

and I believe

I could make

it to New Mexico

before it

or I fall apart

I could sail.

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

The Hump

I am old
and ugly
and fat.

At thirty
I noticed
a hump.

Golf ball sized.
my doc wanted
to remove it

I asked if
it might kill me?
“no, but its unsightly.”

Uninsured, I saved up
twelve hundred dollars
and made an appointment.

By then, it had grown
to a baseball.
“inpatient” more money.

Now, I have insurance
it’s a grapefruit
but I am old and ugly
and fat.

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214
#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

The Dog in the Yard

and dirt in the grass
or otherwise
and worms and snakes
nobody sees.

All in church
on Sunday morning
with termites
in the basement,
rats in the attic
rats in the pews
but that’s where
sinners belong.

Beans rattle on
the stovetop
ham deteriorates
in oven
its not
Thanksgiving.

And it all caves
in on us.
#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

The Checkers

sit atop the mantle clock
in the bookcase,
we have no mantle.

A cardboard box
with plastic stamped “coins.”

At 4 am the house is up.

Except for a headache
feeling like a brainfreeze
behind my eyes,

on a day like today,
I would invite
them to play,

except they are playing
makeup with mom.

#Poemfortoday #poem #poetry

1/2

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

In the Pizza Shop

little girl trails her mother
a shaker of parmesan cheese
clutched between her small hands,

occasionally licking the top
of cheese collected there

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness.../dp/0578734214

I Have Been

to John Stretch,
I have seen
the vultures,
I have climbed
the dry levee.

There is no lake,
no river:
only an island,
if you can have
an island without
water.

I have been to John Stretch,
the vultures know
my name.

At the End of the World

there shall be more
sugar cane growing
out of the black
Black earth.

The mobile homes
and shanties
watch as the big trucks
rumble right over the edge.

When they don’t come
back everybody goes
to the red cinderblock
chicken house
and eats all
the fried chicken.

Because at the end
of the world
there’s nothing else
to do.

https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

By the House with the Patched Red Roof

the bird dog slopes
across the back yard,
rolls and scrapes his back
in the dry grass,
looks at me at fifty paces,
sniffs the air
and wanders over
to the horse pen
and out to the bucket shed.

The red rooster watches
in the shade
of an overgrown weedbush.

from
https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

Suzanne Robinson has persuaded me to stop publishing each new poem as I write it so she can try to find publishers for me and my work, so I will be posting poems from my last published collection Written in Darkness, Cajun Mutt Press (2020)
https://www.amazon.com/Written-Darkness-Anthony-Watkins/dp/0578734214

On Flaghole Road

the sounds of my mind
and one rooster
who thinks I should be
waking at one
in the afternoon.

The breeze blows quiet,
cooling the hot
January sun.

1/2
#poetry #Poemfortoday #Poem

Biz de bir kere sevinebilseydik.
Çiçek açmış ağaçlar gibi çıldırasıya.
Kimbilir belki bir gün sulh olunca
Biz de deliler gibi seviniriz,
Ağaçları ve baharı taklit ederiz
Renkli bez parçalarıyla donatırız şehri
Renkli ampuller asarız pencerelerden
Kimbilir belki bir gün sulh olunca
Biz de çatır çatır çatlarız binbir yerimizden
Ağaçlar gibi.

✒️ Bedri Rahmi EYÜBOĞLU

21 Mart Dünya Şiir Günü'müz de kutlu olsun 💐
Şiir ile kalın sevgi ile ❤️
#poem #poems #poemsofmastodon #poemfortoday #life

The Sands of Navarre

Used to blow
up into dunes
several times higher
than a man

And nestled far
too close to the water
was a row
of ragged block houses

The metal roofs pitted
from the salt
in the air
the sliding doors
always silted shut
from the blowing sand

In the winter
when all the tourists
went south to Tampa and Miami

I would come north
and rent a cottage
for cheap and enjoy
the cold gray solitude
of walking the windy
sands of Navarre

#poetry #Poemfortoday #Poem

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

I Will not Sleep

in the death that is old age,
though my body gives way.

My feet and my eyes
may fail me,
but if I can know,
if I can sense the life
around me, I will live.

I will be alive, awake
as long as I can
know I am here.

Even though the time
will come when those
who are young,
will think I am dead
or as good as dead
and ignore me.

For their youthful life
I will understand
as I once was the same
but I will not sleep
the death of old age.
1/2

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem
another one

The Last Time

we had money
we bought waffles and pancakes
and three dollar coffees.

I bought new shoes
that were shiny and wore cufflinks
when we went to
the great little Indian restaurant
that is now closed.

You were the pearl earrings
I bought you,
and we drove to
New Orleans on a whim

1/2

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem
Yellow Underneath

And the paint is yellow
on the walls, even
where it peals away
it is yellow underneath
except the living room
that is lime sherbet green,

And there are no bugs
in the house or garden
the pest control man sprays
everything with poison
to keep us safe,

And everything
is brilliant green
and closely mown,

And the neighbors' kids
play the music too loud
at the pool party,

1/2

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

Lord Give Me Strength…and a Machete

Somewhere in the Andes
strangers share coffee
before hacking each
other to death

Somewhere in the mountains
Of Peru
strangers drink coffee
before being hacked to death

Somewhere in the Andes
I sit with a stranger
And drink coffee.

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

Upon this Walk

the hope and the glory
of abandoned paths
through the pines,
beneath the oaks
down the long empty streets

to a new day
a city where the sun
shines gold and casts
blue shadows across the crosswalk,
shading the pedestrian who goes there.

#Poemfortoday #poetry #Poem

But I

some people wake at seven
hit the snooze
and at seven-fifteen
they drink their coffee,
wash their faces
and fly to the office

But I wake
at two or three
make my coffee
read emails
play solitaire
and walk the dog.

At five I make a big breakfast
and a second pot
and go back to bed
with a belly full
of sausage and coffee
to wake at seven.