The fireflies rise like dust from a dirt road,
like hot ash from an untended fire.
June is contraband, ill-gotten time
to be squandered like prize money.
...
A child is not picked up after practice.
School is over. Nothing left but the
late afternoon, ungraded activities....
soccer, band, chess club. No more
...
the sun pulls a kilroy
over the trees in the east.
sluggo wakes a lonely boy
in his dumpster house
...
I need to hang out with a smarter crowd.
So many words I have read but never
Had the pleasure of hearing spoken aloud.
...
I know that nine oclock
after the traffic and
before the heat is
the best hour.
...
Smokers
they are
the margin notes of city life
details optional to any story
they are
the dragon guardians of back porch beer kegs
fiercely discharging smoke thru pursed lips
they lean
in garage doorways
reading folded papers
they sit
on the office building stairs
next to melting snow
pulling unbuttoned sweaters tight
discussing whatever a lit match
might stimulate
they worry
and sometimes even talk
about their weight, children, sex life...
and then
dismiss it all in the brief cease-fire
life will honor with smoke-filled lungs
they are
luckless front porch anglers
fishing with no worms and no hopes
I like your poems Don. It's encouraging to find a poet of your calibre on these pages.
To the writer: Liked your poem 'I Know...'. Feel, however, that poem might better conclude with second last stanza, which I find both witty and truthful. Present conclusion seems to add nothing the poem might do very well without.