MARQUEE

MARQUEE

I put on quite a dinner party, I cooked the finest roast.
I even washed behind my ears, ever the gracious host.
I basted well that hallowed flesh, a cavalcade of words.
When I woke my verse had gathered dust, alas, no one had heard.

Left alone in the morning after, the smoke had risen to the rafters,
And I slashed my fingers to the bone, here at my writing desk alone.
Though I sat and bled and bled, still my words remained unread.
Was it that the readers lacked the time or that my couplets did not rhyme?
Was my one and only consolation the empty promise of tomorrow,
Left to my scholarly poverty and my beautiful sorrow?

I even asked a few wise souls, what do diners want these days?
My words were zero calories and quite form fitting,
Would they rather I made bouillabaisse,
Or something to be consumed at a single sitting?
The ones I asked diplomatically either did not know or lied,
Or wondered why I cared so much if my magical creations died.
But I ask you art for art’s sake folk who dare to even listen,
What’s the point of making your art your solemn mission?
What if you made a roast and it rotted in the fridge?
Would that fact not trouble you or hurt you just a smidge?

I put on quite a soiree, like a silver moon it glistened.
And I took to the foghorn of Facebook, begging folks to listen.
I pulled out all the Scrabble letters, polished ‘til they gleamed,
And careful not to hope for much, laid bare my fondest dreams.
Perhaps I was a Debbie Downer, too much a pessimistic Paul.
Too broken from the Parkinson’s, too enamored of the funeral pall.
All I know is a lot of nothing and yet I think I’ve learned,
This blogging game’s a lot of pain for diminishing returns.

But all was lost at quite a cost, to self esteem and my own damned ego,
If I were a TV show, I’d have been canceled more than a year ago.
And if I were a singer, I’d be dining alone at the table,
Singing at half filled nightclubs and dropped by his record label.
And if Google ever finds out my dirty little secret,
Why, they’ll be the first to cut the cord,
Brandishing their cyber revolver as if it were a sword.

I put on quite the lavish show, my name on the marquee,
‘Til the Scrabble letters spelling my name in glass,
Shattered in pieces in front of me.
I may be back or I may not, we’ll see just how the numbers crunch.
Perhaps I am having an awful day, just got my undies in a bunch.
But I just cut my hand on a Scrabble shard and it’s left an ugly scar.
And I cry out in my deep dismay, wondering where the readers are.
Those damn Scrabble letters still have me in their dreadful midnight hold.
And it’s only I that can decide if it’s time to play or fold.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

HUMAN DRAIN

HUMAN DRAIN

I am fast becoming a human drain,
Soaking up the kindness of others,
A stopped up rancid human drain,
And if I truly had my druthers,
I’d go elsewhere to ply my sucking trade,
Can someone please tell me,
Are leeches born or are they made?

Alan Harper can manipulate backs,
But all I’m good for is stepping on cracks.
In this household there’s one and a half men,
I have lost one half of who I was,
It’s up and left me just because,
And all the king’s horses and all his men,
Cannot make me whole again.

I am alas a hapless human drain,
With cells dying off in my hapless brain,
The cells that fire the movement sweet,
That fuel the muscles of hands and feet.

And so I’m always spilling drinks,
I stumble a bit too much methinks.
A mishap waiting on the stairs,
That giant sucking sound is me,
Draining coffers unawares.

The health insurance bleeds me dry,
Leaving nothing left to spare,
I drown in the bills for a myriad of ills,
While I sit and wait for Medicare.
I make too much for Medicaid,
It’s the same old tantrum and tirade.

I know Merle Haggard said it best,
And now the phrase sounds borrowed and trite,
But if I can make it ‘til December,
Everything will be all right.

And now I’m stealing from ‘ole Merle,
It’s a mixed up crazy misshaped world.
If he wants to sue, he’ll have to get in line,
I haven’t the pith or the patience for original rhymes.
I am, after all, a human drain, working overtime.

I used to make a decent living,
Though I’ve never been a rich man,
But I’ve never been such a pauper
In such a patchwork land.
Where paying one’s own way
Involves a cunning sleight of hand.
I am a human drain,
Made of detritus and quicksand.

I am alas a human drain,
Art won’t pay the bills,
And poetry alas is dead,
There is no gold in them thar hills.

I just have one question,
Then I’m off to ply my sucking trade,
Can someone kindly tell me,
Are leeches born or are they made?

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

EVEN TEARS EVAPORATE

EVEN TEARS EVAPORATE

Every dragon has his day, and every beast its prey,
And though the lessons come too late, even tears evaporate,
Exploding into the morning mist, like a clenched and homophobic fist,
Like a prism for a paper weight, adjusted too in rainbow hues,
The sadness passes as it must, into evening’s pixie dust.

Somehow we pull it all together, radiant and just in time.
There is some strange and muted, seemingly random rhyme,
The universe it seems to know the limits of what we can bear,
And like the sun behind the clouds, in the darkness God is there

Take it from one with the foot stool in place,
Peering over heaven’s transom,
Take it from this midnight soul, broken and so damaged
For every soul there is a ransom,
A shining refuge from the ravages.

Take it from one with a hole in his heart,
Sometimes your world’s a hopeless renegade,
Steeped in its own downward, dark parade.
Sometimes your life must stop before it can restart,
Your hard drive missing a crucial part.

Somehow we pull it all together,
Like the magician and his rabbit,
Practice makes perfect the adage goes,
Make happiness your habit,
And wear it as the nun wears hers,
Until the joy in your heart it stirs.

Every dragon has his day,
Make each of yours the Chinese New Year,
Though the lessons come and go too late,
And you sometimes wonder why you’re here,
Manhandled and marooned on an island far away,
A broken rusty compass in your pocket wants to play.
Insistent as the hungry mouse,
Give it the run of your ramshackle house.

Soon you will find that love finds its way,
Into the most protected of rooms.
The ones you thought you’d padlocked and sealed off like a tomb.
Soon you will find a life like no other,
A special good luck charm,
To see the world through Irish eyes,
A’smilin’ as they take your arm.

Soon you will find a shiny new end to your story,
The loneliness replaced with love,
The sorrow with new glory.
The dismantling of the time bomb, the end to fear and hate.
Every dragon has his day, and even tears evaporate.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I CAN STOP ANYTIME

I CAN STOP ANYTIME

Listen here you, I can stop anytime,
Writing my life in couplets and rhyme,

You in my face, waving your fist,
I am always quite ready to cease and desist.

And while I am at it in a fit of rage,
I can kindly dismantle my Facebook page.

I can bury my head like an ostrich in the sand,
Can discard my dreams and my best laid plans,
Can cut the computer cord and blindly set sail,
To the brave old world of yesteryear,
No I-Phone and no email.

Like the Unibomber’s cousin but without all the drama,
More like a monk or the Dalai Lama,
I can stop anytime and set myself free,
From the troublesome bondage of technology.

Without a 12 step program or an exercise bike,
I can stop, I can stop anytime that I like.
But I’d soon have no friends, for they’d all be online,
Chasing down cat videos, saving their time.
Finding a mate or at least a state of grace,
In the hallowed world of Apple,
In the confines of cyberspace.

Listen here you, I can bear it no more,
When was the last time your face graced my door?
I have to wager with a heave and a sigh,
It’s because in this house, there is no free WiFi.
That’s why we meet at this little coffee dive,
On the far edge of town, on the pish-posh east side.
No one else in the world around,
Just you and me with our noses down.
Lost in the Internet gossip and the wallet draining brew,
I can stop anytime, I’m not sure about you.

I can tear down this blog with its readership of two,
I can stop anytime, but then what would I do?
On damp rainy Sundays when the boyfriend’s away,
How would I manage without Castleville to play?

Listen here you, I could go on a rampage,
Fueled by my boredom, egged on by my rage,
And meanwhile my exploits you could read about and boast,
Send me emails in prison from the Huffington Post.
Its big and bold headlines thrill and delight,
And maybe if my rampage is sufficiently vile,
Arianna herself will cover my trial.

But don’t get your freakin’ nose out of joint,
I think I’ve very wisely and succinctly made my point.
In big bold letters in Times New Roman font,
I can stop, I can stop anytime that I want.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Note: I am a big fan of social media and modern technology, (including
Facebook), but am not above spoofing them from time to time.
As long as they don’t totally replace in person human interaction,
all the cyber antics in the world are fine by me!

IN POPPY FIELDS WHERE SUNLIGHT BEAMS

IN POPPY FIELDS WHERE SUNLIGHT BEAMS

My eyes are blurry, glassy even,
Starry-eyed with the vaunted promise of hope.

For nightmares melt to happy dreams,
In poppy fields where sunlight beams,
My life seen through the microscope.

The scope it catches everything, the fearless highs,
The loathsome ugly lows.
Each fiber and each tissue.
The epithelial, the adipose.

The worm of hate and jealousy,
It focuses its beam on those
And then just lets them go.
Into a land of hazy silence,
Of dearly remembered peace and quiet,
Far from the streets of violence,
My inner child takes his kite and flies it.

And maybe it indeed is God I see,
While levitating quietly.
It could be heaven’s nectar that I sip.
Perhaps it’s just the morphine drip.

But I am flying past the judges in their solemn black robes,
Swirling in a land past judgment, past politics and prose.
I am lost to happy, soon to be realized schemes,
And not my usual bucket list of strange and impossible dreams.
Lost in this lovely forest, where the woodsman hums
And his companion bluebird sings.
A psychedelic land of strange, shifting sands,
Where the hot and hazy sunlight beams.

Someone whose face I cannot see, throws his or her arms around me.
Perhaps my father, perhaps my mother, perhaps the Holy Trinity.
Yet everyone is kind to me, no one’s behind me honking at a red light,
Everything’s serenely green and uniformly bright.

My eyes are blurry, glassy even,
Yet I have to trust what they are telling me.
I cannot pretend to have witnessed heaven.
Or to have walked on the water of the stormy seas.

But something lives and must remain,
Once we slip this earthly frame.
I am telling you I know it’s peaceful,
I have held it in the corner of my mind’s eye.
I’m not afraid to slip away into that feathery, velvety sky.

And nightmares turn to happy dreams,
Starry-eyed with the promise of hope,
In poppy fields where sunlight beams.
My life seen through the microscope.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

IMPONDERABLE

IMPONDERABLE

Sometimes life is imponderable,
Skirting the edges of righteous rage.
Sometimes we wait in the afternoon shadows,
Pens without ink on a blank, empty page.

Sometimes our lives are slippery slopes,
Built on false, inflated hopes.
We ski before we take the course,
We take a tumble from the horse.

We rise to ride the rodeo,
Unprepared for the errant bow,
That flies from the quiver of reckless men,
We rise up just to fall again.

We do our best to pay our debts,
The doctors eat our souls alive,
We play the game and hedge our bets,
While their bill collectors thrive.

Imponderable is the oath they take,
First do no harm, the hypocrites.
Then bleed their sucker patients dry,
The cost is less if you quickly die.
But then they throw a holy fit,
Who‘s going to pay for all of this?

Sometimes life is imponderable,
With water rising every day.
And sometimes in our haste to try.
To rise above and touch the sky,
We drown alone in the rushing bay.
Covered with the stench of existent debris,
Flowing from the rebel factories.
And washing up on the distant shore,
Or killing fish on the ocean floor.

Sometimes life is imponderable,
No one cracks its ancient code,
There’s no safe harbor from the storm,
No harmless, warm abode.

Sometimes life is a renegade biker,
Shooting through the stop signs.
While those content to play by the rules,
Get lost or left behind.

Sometimes life is a prep school prick.
Posting Internet close ups of his dick.
A wild, malevolent Halloween trick.
A bully with a big iron fist,
A candle burning to the wick.

Sometimes life is imponderable.
The weight of the years unimaginable.
We are left feeling worried, lonesome, and scared,
Our tempers lost, our nostrils flared,
Flirting with the notion of righteous rage.
Pens without ink on a blank and empty page.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
All RIGHTS RESERVED

BE STILL AND LISTEN

BE STILL AND LISTEN

Be still and listen, a word to the wise,
You are nearer than you think to the pull of the prize,
The pot of gold where the rainbow sings,
The grand hallelujahs, the bells that softly ring.

Nearer each day, to laying down this tired sack of clay,
Nearer to the land where harps of angels play.
Nearer to the final intoxicating wine,
The final bacchanalia, the land of endless time.

The end game where there is mercy and nothing left to judge,
Goodbye to the bitterness, farewell to the grudge.
Nearer to a life well lived that parades before my eyes,
Eternity or nothingness, the final surprise.

Nearer to my dear mother who loved me evermore,
Nearer to the mysteries of what this life was for.
Nearer to redemption, sweet as the scent of the rose,
Be still and listen, where holy water flows,

Be still and listen to a night and day both filled with love,
A pillow as soft as a snow white dove,
A place to lay my head and dream sweet dreams forevermore,
Free from the spell of earthly hell,
And the agony of keeping score.

Nearer to the sound of the melodious horn,
Another day nearer for the lost and forlorn.
To lay their sharp and jagged burdens,
Down by the riverside.
To pick up their bed and to know for certain
The healing there in the Savior’s eyes.

Be still and listen to the penny tossed in the wishing well,
A miracle in the making, a truth yet to tell,
When the flag is unfurled to the end of the world,
The end of the lure of the mighty spell.

Be still and listen, for Arab and Muslim and Christian and Jew,
Are forgiven the hatred and violence they do.
Be still and listen, one to the other,
Formerly the enemy, now the cherished brother.

Be still and listen, for the glow of health glistens,
No more Parkinson’s, no more MS, no more the scourge of cancer,
There are no souls with bullet holes, there is peace and a final Answer.
Be still and listen, restored to the vigor of health,
Where rich and poor, they are no more, and at long last share the wealth.

Be still and listen, a word to the wise,
Be still and gravitate to the pull of the prize,
The rainbow of heaven where the pot of gold sings,
The grand hallelujahs where angels earn their wings.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED