“Hey Adam”

”I forgot to clock in and I forgot to clock out last night”

Momentary outing at behest of another inspires moment
Of reminiscence
A youth mispent on others
A lifetime for some
Spent starting at ubiquitous faces
At walls covered in marked-up dollar bills
And various defunct band stickers

Now here i sit
Watching younger versions of self
A pitiable lot
I wish them more
Than i have made
For myself

Gravity has found me
Too old to do
Left sitting at the bar
Watching the young fill shoes
i didnt know i’d stepped out of

Too small kitchen, too many bodies
All too familiar sounds assault
And here i sit
Watching the world grow younger
As i alone
Age away

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved

“Charly”

Thats the thing about being white trash
After a while
You just expect that none of your friends will live to see 40
You still grieve
But after a while
It doesn’t surprise you
Anymore

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved


“Tuesday”

Lets go to a park
Said i
With images of late afternoon picnics
But i failed at specificity, and so
Here i sit, in a swing
At an empty playground
Wondering how best to eat my sandwich

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved.

”Smoke & Tobacco Free Campus”

Signage on door of Dr’s office
Youth waits up front for grandparent
Cigarette in hand
A tiny rebel
With a tiny revolution
In her mind she is Joan of Arc
It seems
One cannot exert freedom
Without infringing upon that
Of another

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved

“Momentary Oddities”

“My ex was crazy”
Said repair technician
“Crazy, and a real witch
I think she cursed me and that’s why”
Lists of past poor choices
“You’ve got to be crazy”
He continued, motioning with some pronged device
“To believe in that stuff. Well she was.”
I suspect he missed the irony, but
For want of quiet, I bit back ego and nodded dumbly

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved

“New and old again”

It seems I’ve been here-before
But this city is strange to me
New buildings and new sheets
To forget what was
To begin again
A new generation of doe-eyed optimists
A new god

Old smells buried just beneath the surface
Of thinly painted visage
Of smiling maws
Welcome familiarity in aging faces

A tippped hat to local ghouls, who nod
in recognition
Here we are
Again

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved.

“To the spider hiding beneath my potted plant”

I’m sorry
To have startled you
But
You were remarkable
And I,
Too eager to admire

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved.

“The return”

Once, i
Swam the deepest of oceans
Fearless
Building monuments to failures and
Celebratory toasts for the damned
We ran
Through fields of mystery
Dodging dangerous figures
Some within
Some without
Yet i
Have never felt alone

Though older now
They still call to me
Those oceans
As my cathedrals have fallen
To disrepair and dust

It seems
There is yet work to be done
So i
With arthritic hand
Carefully place new bricks
In the shadow of what was
And in hope
That if i build them tall enough
You will see it
And we
Will return

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved

“Concupiscence”

To say
That i have need
Implies a weakness, frailty of skin
Yet
It is not the flesh that binds
But something ineffible
Something
To which even poets cannot ascribe
Titular statements
Only pale reflections,
Unflattering,
Imperfect,
Human, but
Beyond

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved

“For now”

Late night cigarettes and
Midnight coffee
The smells send me to another place
Another time
When your hand was just there
And a smile ever-ready
Where shadows danced only for us
And the stars sang a tune only we
could hear
Where cows became kings and
Crickets became explorers of great reknown
Where the world turned only at our request
Another place
Waiting for a return
It seems
We must wait a bit longer

© M. Black, 2020 All rights reserved