Nobody Knows Me
I'll give blood to the nurse
I'll let them know
what's in my purse.
It's got my medicine.
Nice tits nurse.
It reveals my sin.
Battle and bombs.
And the steel guitar strums.
To stars and snow storms.
January 08, 2010
January 07, 2010
Old Poetry
January 11, 1998
Two beers on an empty stomach
Two beers on an empty stomach
has me singing, stretched out in the hammock.
Next to the stream and under the trees
listening to the wind shaking the leaves.
Looking high into a blue sky
No need to worry, no need to ask why.
Beauty in and all around
A birds song fills the air and the rushing waters sound.
But when I awake, I brush off the flakes.
For it is February, as my cold heart aches.
Chinese Restaraunt
12-9-2005
I was looking at the dead man's shoes.
He wore a size 10 1/2 DD. He wore dress up shoes.
The kind you polish, with thin shoe strings, and the extra piece of leather over the toes.
Maybe wing tip shoes, whatever they are?
I don't know. He wore Rockport walking shoes. All black, two pairs almost identical.
Then he wore some dress up slip on suede shoes.
Shoes you might see on a cruise dinner night but I've never been on a cruise so I don't know.
The Rockports he wore the most, the cruise dress up loafers he wore the least.
His size is too big for me. I wear a 9 1/2. So then I turned to the coats and I found an all wool tan coat.
It was only $3. Roxana, my coworker, think it is too big but the clerk said it looked really nice on me.
I think both of them are correct.
I'm wearing it and I feel good in it. I'll just move the three buttons over to tighten up the front. I'm eating at the China Restaraunt.
That's the name, China Restaurant.
I'm listening to Handel's Messiah. I think, which ever one sings Hallelujah!, Hallelujah! Hallelujah!.
The owners are Buddhist.But the Christmas Carols continue. Now it Silver Bells.
I'm listening to Silver Bells and served by a Buddhist waitress who has a unique beauty.
Subtle, soft, as if a servant. She calls me sir. I wonder if she keeps a journal. Is she this submissive sexually?
I wonder.
Can I ask her that, no.
My vegetable tofu soup is $4.25 less than a value meal and it serves two. Now it's Ave Maria.
It really is about satisfying the customer.
Tomorrow I go back to the Senior Center thrift store and write in detail about the dead man's shoes. Where have they traveled. And this coat, is it from the same dead mad?
I really think so.
The coat seems completely proportionate in size and soul to the 10 1/2 DD shoes.
I really want to buy a Tsing-Tao beer but I need to turn in photos from the basketball game.
The Austin Packers lost to Mayo. Do the Chinese eat a fortune cookie after their dinner?
I doubt it.
I felt authentic in the meal, but the Christmas carols and fortune cookie skewed the Asian experience.
November 03, 2009
Poetry
when you're wasted
at 1 in the afternoon
Go and find yourself a loaded gun.
You find yourself a rabbit on the run
And the silence gives to the blast
and stillness
blood freezes on the snow
North of Lyle, MN
right off the tracks
reddish, orange sky
the sun was setting
One farm was in the distance
and in the other
was nothing.
11/3/2009
Nate
Rabbit hunting
There was a loud bang when the rabbit exploded from the snow covered brush.
There was a soft breeze when death told the rabbit hush.
- march 2001
11-26-2001
November
Here comes winter.
Slumber into white.
Rain to ice to snow.
Eyes watering, gasping for air.
Breathe through your nose.
Will it stick?
What's the weather?
You remember the winter of...?
Rusty red pick-up,
among dead leaves ,
glistening from November rain.
November 01, 2009
not yet
I'll wait for you
you, waiting for me.
To find home
Having never been there
Those red lights again
Guess my intention
Got more to share
than a friend
Gonna run out the back door
Gonna be forever more
You photographed the coffe cups
October 31, 2009
Don't go thinking I didn't try.
Don't go thinking I didn't try.
I drove 80 miles an hour
to see you
in a darkness
where you check your lights
thinking, "I don't have my high beams on"
but you discover you do
And October snow
stuck on the road signs
and what I thought was 30 was 60
and at 80 miles an hour
I saw the deer in the road side ditches
And I think they looked at me wondering
"Who is she?"
And I imagined hitting one of these deer
and at such a speed
I would pass through it like an archers arrow
And stay the course.
the night, the road, it all curved
and I raced my Cavalier
and I stayed the course
Knowing you would be asleep.
I stayed the course away from home
in room #143 at the Austin Motel.
I stayed the course knowing I would be closer to you.
Knowing I would pass near you.
I didn't eat,
I pissed in a grocery bag
saving time
blazing past the deer
I wanted to be with you
I want to be with you
I want to be with you
You know that word?
"Be"
To be always
with you
and I motored on,
and time slowed as I passed you
and I began composing
how you are the red flashing lights in the distance
Is that you?
Of course.
Inhale and exhale
fade in, fade out
Don't you go thinking I didn't try
But trying is fucked
next time I won't try
I will be.
October 20, 2009
I hear ya Freddy
Who wants to live forever?
Who dares to love forever?
forever ceased yesterday
love was a fabrication
and love is lost to loneliness
out here
for reasons unknown
seeking a meaning
in a church
in pills
with the doctor
and in books
exercise they say
eat healthy
with a spoonful of sugar
the medicine will go down
forever will come
I hear ya Freddy
When Love Must Die.
October 15, 2009
Rain
When I leave
I leave a garden
the kind that comes back
as soon as wild onions
as sure as the rain falls on ice
and wild roses in the ditches
can't be burned to death
raked, seeded or sowed
that's me in the garden
the worm in the carrot
underground
the flower before the tomato
until I drop and rot
before I leave
I'll give my seeds to your garden
no such thing as a weed
pull what you like
with confidence
water if you wish
but trust the rain
rake me under
where there is me no more
and I am the radish
the wild rose
with a spoonful of peanut butter
seated before the children's choir.
July 03, 2009
Haiku by Jannel, my amazing daughter
Jannel, age 12, writes poetry in the form of haiku.
Outside the window
water bubbles from a rock
big black rock is mossy
Children play outside
swings are going back and forth
people walk around
Walking dogs at park
little puppies very cute
dog shakes fur around
Great truck rolls in
it's for watering flowers
truck meets with other
Dragon fly is rushing by
Cars in parking lot
many cars are parked in there
brick furniture truck
No one on the lake
the lake looks very pretty
geese are swimming by
- Jannel Howard, age 12, 2009
June 29, 2009
MJ
I saw Michael Jackson with Dirty Diana at Lyle Liquor on Thursday.
He had the California burger.
She had wings.
They were sharing a pitcher of Miller High Life.
The Twins were up 6-4 against the Brewers going into the ninth.