Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 39

Oh Lord, Give Me Not a Simple Prayer

Why do people want a “simple prayer”?

Give me long and complex rituals!

Neither do any good,

but, like solving a Rubic’s cube

offers no answers

but is a fun challenge

(until you get bored with it),

a complex ritual is fun

(until you get bored with it, too).

 

Give me the complex prayer,

one I have to cross myself

seven times and climb up a tower

and say it backwards,

first in a language

I do not speak

and then in English!

 

Oh Lord, Give Me Not a Simple Prayer

 

Instead,

like a mythical Bitcoin,

let me unearth it through

strange and mysterious “mining”

until I find my own golden heaven,

where I will learn

to walk on clouds paved with gold

and to stay within

the great high wrought iron fence

 

which serves two purposes.

first, to keep all the unsaintly folks

from intermingling with us good people,

and second to keep us saints

from wandering off the cloud

reservation we call heaven:

 

dios este día el pan nos da

da nobis hodie

For God knows

I so loved the bread

I offer up my body to diabetes

Dark Rainy Saturday Afternoon

awaken from nap

to mother’s voice

my dead mother

 

and wonder

is she close

after time passed

 

or am I closer

to where she is

than I think?

Warm Against my Thigh and Not Dreaming

I am awake:

I hear my wife

get up and go

to the bathroom,

and then out again.

 

I feel the curled-up dog-

warm against my thigh-

through the covers,

yet I am dreaming.

 

There is a pull-down staircase

into someone’s attic,

not mine, I have

no light, no tools,

but I must go

up and look.

 

A truss is falling

(which cannot happen).

It misses me

and then I see

a garage door

in the attic,

it has windows in it,

I cannot see out.

 

Now I am down

and I see my mother has fallen.

I help her up

 

and the awake me

remembers she is already

dead nearly two years

and I feel the curled-up dog-

warm against my thigh-

through the covers

 

and remember

it is time to go

wake the boy,

the boy who loves

the dog,

and I am not dreaming.

I Am Not Suicidal

In fact

most days

if I could be healthy

I’d like to

live to be 94

 

or 100

 

but some days

I’d like to

die early

not tomorrow

but not too

far away

 

and some days

that just seems

crazy but not always

—

 

Lady Baby Jesus

has angel wings

only they aren’t angel wings,

but look like them,

except hers

 

have a little

good crown at the top

signifying this:

She is the “head bitch in charge.”

 

She pronounces all our guilt,

shakes her little wings

and flies away, muttering

“Jesus is love, don’t give me that shit!”

 

Lady Baby Jesus has a dirty mouth,

but who gonna tell her that?

The Boat He Drove Down Dexter Avenue

Maybe this isnt a poem, maybe it is:

 

He drove a pale blue green car

the color of the water off the beach Destin Florida

with fins that came up to my shoulder.

soft white leather seats

and a soft white top.

pushbutton starter, no keys

and a chest crushing three foot skinny rimmed steering wheel

I wanted to be him

of course I wasn’t

and never will be

I’m the guy in the little green Fiat scrunched over.

Actually I love the little green Fiat. I don’t think I’d like to drive

a big boat like that.

I just wanted to be the guy

who wanted to drive

a boat like that.

they don’t make them anymore. they do make cars without keys without metal keys,

but now it’s all electronic

high security

no beauty

no heart

no class

high price higher “quality”

no soul.

“Boy, if you’re going to do a crime don’t do her a scrawny crime make it big, make it showy!

How do you think I got this boat?”

All Cattlemen Rodeo

All cattlemen show

for Fall rodeo,

dusty cows come, too,

though doubtful

they volunteered.

 

Cute cowgirls in the stands

wait for barrels,

boys with tight jeans

and stetsons

wait for cowgirls.

 

Barbecue

too good to not eat,

all for charity,

I tell my waist.

 

Dirty hat,

sweat stained white shirt,

too old to worry

about girls in stands

or rounding barrels

 

Into bright lights

I scribble against

outer darkness

old drunk tooth

-less cowboys stumble

and teenagers snuggle.

 

Crimping blackening hat,

nodding to all who pass

I fade like this rodeo

into another year.

 

Inspired by the name of a certain Teaching Assistant at ModPo

 

 

50K MS (b)

A world away,

kindred spot,

hurricanes known

by their real name:

Death.

 

cool blue morning

on decaying balconies-

 

plates of Trump

approving Barbecue,

fish that I

wish not to know

of what it approves-

 

there is no struggle

only satisfactionuntilfear

whipped again:

horsedriven

polling places.

 

I am

from here and there

of neither.

 

Count fifty

thousand miss-i-ssip-pis

am home

I do not belong.

 

Refugee

(or cheap motel with Emily Dickinson, Mississippi Gulf Coast)

The brain

tired in its track

runs stops and starts,

though a splinter

through a tree

I persist.

 

Brain tired in groove

willing death

the body lives and struggles-

busted-knuckles-bad-coffee-

hotel-smokers-room-

black-feet carpet-

 

Grateful complaint

urging on turnpike scooped

lives never back in our groove

or not the same,

we go ‘round,

slowly pass the wobble

to stay intrack.

It is the Age

poets die,

rock stars began

to perish long ago

there are no parents

we are the grownups

no one listens to us.

We who have missed our mark wait only

and mark

the disappearances.

Like a counting film

played backwards:

Steely Dan and Ashberry

all at once

Ashberry gave me frank

Frank gave me Lady Day

Steely Dan just gave me Ricky

I guess I can lose that number….