The Art of Smoking Bees

The Art of Smoking Bees

I gave up tobacco and marijuana

and started smoking bees.

The trick, you see, is in the drying.

Sun dried bees are best,

honey bees or bumble bees,

but never yellow jackets.

Wasps just don’t smoke right.

I crush my cracker crisp bees,

pack them in my pipe,

mmm, tastes like honey.

I Ching Readings of a Struggling Poet

I Ching Readings of a Struggling Poet

Obstruction

An abyss stretches before me

The precipice rises behind

Obstruction on the path ahead

Temporary retreat- Wait

A friend rises on the horizon

Look within

Influence (Wooing)

The attraction of the resting and the joyful

An image of a lake, warm air rises

To mountain peaks above

Holy the firm

The influence is in the neck

Perseverance- tomorrow we wed

Possession in Great Measure

A fire burns in heaven

All is manifest

The wheel of karma turns

The path before us set

Possession lies in great measure

I ready my wagon

My Good Friends Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Jesus Christ

spoiler alert: this poem isn't very good

My Good Friends Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, and Jesus Christ

Down at the old bar, you know the one,

the dive on the corner of Old State and High,

I met a man, he drank a light draft beer,

and played pool throughout the night.

The patrons flocked around him,

they knew him not, though many thought they did,

“Aren’t you one of the Capaldi boys?” and,

“Didn’t you play ball for Cardinal High?”

The man was not, and did not, but they loved him anyway.

You should have seen the way they stood there,

thoughts of booze and sex no longer on their minds.

Then he came towards me, empty mug in hand,

I slid a beer across the bar, “That’ll be three twenty-five.”

He laid a five down on the counter and I went to fetch his change.

As I dropped the coins into his hand our fingers briefly touched,

I gave a start and drew away, suddenly ashamed.

Every wrong I’d ever done was right out on my sleeves,

but his eyes met mine and he smiled warmly back at me,

and then I remembered what I have always known.

Gypsy

Gypsy

Gold rimmed eyes

stare back into mine,

so long, that I forget my name.

How wonderful it as,

as these forms rise and fall,

awareness alone abides.

A hand reaches out,

strokes smooth brown hair.

How wonderful it is, indeed.

My Heroin Girl

My Heroin Girl

My heroin girl sits in an empty car in a parking lot of hell, waiting.

It's been three days since her last fix. Three days of shit and vomit and pain, fistfuls of sleeping pills each day. Finally the devil answers her call. He climbs in and kisses her full on the mouth, but she knows it doesn't mean anything. It's just the lust and the drugs and all the numb fucks. He brushes her tear stained cheeks. I'll take care of everything, he says. Spoon, rock, and water…He drops the cotton in the mud, draws the dope up through the filter. But it’s not that she can’t do it herself; she just loves the way he does it. How he pulls her in close, traces a finger down her vein before he sticks her with the needle. Her blood rushes in, mixes with the drug. He pushes the plunger down and she shivers. The warmth spreads across her body. The red haired one prepares his own fix. All else forgotten, they surrender to their shared sedation. The pupils of those emerald eyes shrink to pinpoints. Her breathing slows. Slower and slower. Overdose.

My heroin girl stands on a silver beach a thousand miles away. When she closes her eyes she dreams of two white faced boys. Goddamn junkies, I can't get to her vein. The steady roll of the ocean against the land replaces their voices. She sits in the sand and looks across the horizon, a lifetimes passes. The voices grow louder now. She's not going to make it, one says, but Mercury rises. The beach begins to fade and she stares up at the paramedics. She cries. If she closes her eyes, she can almost hear the ocean.

My heroin girl, in heaven dreaming of hell, in hell dreaming of heaven.

summer salamander

sleep summer salamander

the fire in your belly

quenched now

by the milk of the moon

sweet love's poison

sleep summer salamander

dream of autumn's trees

the moist forest floor

the call of the creek

sleep summer salamander

winter soon approaches

dawn breaks

a water newt wakes