SCREAMS

SCREAMS

Ants go crawling in your sink,
I shudder just to think.

You live in a basement paradise,
your heart a pool of shattered glass,

Your blood as cold as ice.

The forms of fallen, handsome men,
clip you by the shoulders,
imploring you to dance.

You love new strangers every night.
To you a game of chance.

You clutch your crust of bread and water
and gamble with the endless night,

The mucus coats the stairwell,
With screams of bitter fright

Devils of danger dance in your dreams,
widening your eyes into oceans,

Each night you rise to scratch that itch,
With a strange new magic potion.

You trickle down the gridiron like a melting witch,
Like a grilled cheese on the griddle,
Leaving me to ponder you.
As some new sacred riddle.

Honey child, please hear me.
How your spiny nose it grows
With every passing lie,
Drunk on spineless stories
Expensive alibis.

While i swing on the vine like Tarzan,
Like a pendulum in your dreams,
Your time's all spent in merriment,
Bold and fruitless schemes.
Like life itself you have thrown me,
Still and all, deep within I know,
You're my responsibility.

Toss away the faithless men's attire
Throw a log onto the fire,
It's time to face some facts.
Arm your self with a can of Raid,
Clear your sink of the ants.
Tonight I shall move in,
To keep you from rash acts.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This is a new poem based on an earlier poem I found among some college writings. Hope you will enjoy.

I MEANT TO WRITE OF SPRINGTIME

I MEANT TO WRITE OF SPRINGTIME
                      (FOR KYLE)

I meant to write of springtime, but winter seized my pen,
And froze it to its bosom like some long gone kith and kin.
The crocuses were buried by an avalanche of ice.
I meant to write of springtime, I tried not once but thrice.
And each time I was thwarted by the vigor of the sleet,
That all my best intentions lay splintered at my feet.

I meant to write of summer, but got swallowed by the whales,
That hunted me like a wanted man in the shoals and in the shales.
They tasted me, then spit me out, my flesh not to their liking,
And I lay half dead on my pale sick bed, flushed and fever hiking.
I tried with what was left of me to recline upon the sand,
And play the game that Fortune staid had laid upon my hand.
But sure as wind sweeps the prairie and sure as man is dust.
I blew away in a flash as ash and never again would Nature trust.

I meant to write of autumn and its blaze orange as it burned,
The autumn a window of color but not for long I learned.
Too little rain, a scorching sun, dimmed all the colors fair,
Then autumn like a banished child vanished into air.
I meant to write of foliage and lovely country churches,
But it all turned into rubble, just another of my fruitless searches.
No matter where I rambled the colors were the same,
Destroyed, downcast, and destitute, I gave up autumn's game.

I meant to write of winter, but found nothing kind to say.
December is the month of death and holidays that do not stay.
January's always jinxed and February's no fun at all.
I meant to write of winter, but the grave to me it called.
And though I felt like heeding, I braved the winter through,
I could not write of springtime until it brought me you.
For you are every reason for the seasons as they turn,
You are every welcome hearth in winter and every fire that burns.
You are every crimson leaf in autumn, every summer beach.
And it is you I cling to when the spring seems out of reach.

Now I write of springtime in all its glorious flowers,
Lying on the beach in summer, whiling away hours.
Now I write of crisp fall nights and winter with its icy snows,
I am at peace with fallow months and the need we have for those.
And if you vow to keep me warm, perhaps one day I'll write of storms,
The reason for man's suffering, in all its rich and varied forms.

I meant to write of springtime, but winter seized my pen,
And froze it to its heathen breast, like a bitter icy wind.
The crocuses were buried beneath a foot of snow.
I meant to write of springtime but each time was thwarted though.
I knew not for sure what springtime was before I felt your grace,
Your beard upon my trembling neck, your lips upon my face.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IN A NUTSHELL

IN A NUTSHELL

In a nutshell, I am leaving,
Though I know not how or when,
But gird your loins for battle
As below I do descend.

Back to the muddy ground for compost,
The tattered earth for recompense.
Back to the muddy ground for freedom
And sweet forgiveness for past sins.

In a nutshell lives the soul of the squirrel,
Who hunts and gathers for the winter,
Counting up the days and weeks
With a bevy of acorns puffing his cheeks.
Life arduous and precarious,
Surviving by wit's end, dodging the speeding cars.

In a nutshell his life is nasty and brutish
And quite a lot like ours.
The dreary, draining life of men
Who rise each day to labor to support their starving kin,
Only to rise tomorrow to do it yet again.

In a nutshell I am leaving, by grace or by divine design,
As downward I do slow descend
Like a coal miner trapped in his deadly mine.

Back to the muddy ground for compost,
Nourishment for the worms.
This world has been a gracious host
And now it's someone else's turn.

In a nutshell I am leaving, but do not cry for me.
Just dodge the squirrels as you drive.
May peace be yours, and tender mercies.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED