Long Lost

How strange to see you again old pal.
We have gone on quite some time without much conversation.
Time is rolling onto our faces skinning us like hunted animals.
Treating our emotion like it always does, unconcerned, forgetful old time.
Cares little for us.
Still holds our hearts.
Stomps mightily on days and nights.
Is the capsule we all will escape in.
Strange to acknowledge you again.
In between bites of sandwiches, dinners, sport, birth, death and everything common.
It is you that knaws holes into our world.
Your cold knock on the frozen window or the hot heat in the August drought.

Ygyuyu

When for instance you tiptoe around
I hate that.
If you have forgotten this
Remind yourself it is fine,
just fine to offend
without malice.

"Cheap Machine"

Out on the corner a box still holds the daily papers.
For now.
In the hallways of hotels the vats of ice cubes rumble
For free, for now.
At a convience store the microwave is free (if you buy something)
and is always filthy.
Dirty free machines
expensive innovation in their day.
Soon to be costly or extinct.
For fifty cents you will pay for cheap stuff and bitch minimally
nothing will stop this charging for services.
We the cheap machines lose.

"Four Corners"

Pulling into a four-corner address.
One store and a bar.
You stop at the sign. note the crossroads.
Four way stop.
As you notice some settled here.
On four corners.
Broken down doghouses in backyards.
Here like any city, is a whore, a drunk, preacher, mechanic.
These ones are noted for their residency.
Others mostly go unnoticed.

"A Night Out, With Music"

Now was not a good time, not that there ever really is. We sat and watched the kids play their songs and about two songs in I realized that the singer was using two or possibly three microphones. I leaned over the table and asked my wife what she saw and heard. "He has an echo because of the two microphones," I said "Why? he isn't good enough for one" then all the sisters and girlfriends of the band gathered at the middle of the club. There they snapped photos and cheered on the steady grind of the boys on stage. I sat thinking that young men should not do this, even though in my younger days I had commited similar fouls against good taste. Still playing some forty-five minutes later I realized my stomach was getting queasy and my ears were being unreceptive to the dull music. My wife and I went out for a breather; the humid night air tore into me. Her beauty was all I had left as inspiration at that point in the night. Soon they were done (not soon enough) and the next group took the stage. These ones I had studied throughout the night as they snickered at the other groups and were generally dressed for attention. Now I know that writing this about the other band makes me as guilty as the snob punk band but I waited to write it all down. As they assembled on stage my worst fears were confirmed, the foolish looking guy with the make-up was the singer. Worse yet was that he was wearing some kind of leather cover/wristband that extended the full length of his forearm, my first impression was that it was a falconers perch.....then later I figured any bird with a brain would just as soon shit on this ones head; enough of that now. After the obligatory showing off period by the guitarist they began to play music. This was not as bad as when they stopped and began calling us motherfuckers, it seemed then that perhaps that was a falconers perch he was wearing and maybe we were supposed to be his birds. Now I was reminded of the reason I had quit this sham the last time.