Tim Schaefer's Blog, page 26

MASTER OF MY FATE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads/Wednesday Word Challenge
The lonesome moon roams the streets
searching for mad love
in all its myriad forms
it's image reflected in the gutter splash
that peppers my trousers
as a fancy horse-drawn carriage blows by.

A calypso drumbeat seeps
from some nearby edifice.
The crickets sing along.

I duck behind a shop
to drain the snake.

Memories of sinning in the alley
thrust
bang
bite
come flooding back.

I'm so uncouth
I laugh
slurring my words
it's only life
I'll just go back again
and take it on the chin.

Drifting along
weaving this way and that
muttering curses
into the dying night.

I am the master of my fate
but where are my subjects?

The moon climbs rapidly
in its umbral sky.

A poem swirls round
in my head
edgy and cryptic
teetering right on the brink
of beginning to stink.

It's about walking  up to
the precipice
 looking down
deciding to back away
and fight another day.

Yes
I believe in mad love
in all its myriad forms
one's only leverage
in a broken world.

A cock crows.

A street sign says
69th Avenue
and I know I'm getting close
though can't remember which
of these lawns might be yours.

This one looks fine
for a little nap
and a snooze
I know you will  find me
and make me your famous souffle.

Ahhhh...

Let the dogs come by
with their pee "drive by"
just as long as I 
can be here
on the street
where  YOOOOO LIIIIIVVVVVE

Burp.



Written for Kerry's Wednesday Word Challenge at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.I had the honor of providing a list of 20 words to be used in a poem. I managed to utilize all twenty of them! Please follow the link above to get in on the fun.

SERIOUS STUFF

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

I saw this late night TV show
about tantra
and sacred sexuality
with this truly intriguing dude
of the severe 
Hungarian features--
long straight hair
and hot bod
who says as a tantra instructor
he's had sex
with anywhere from a thousand
to two thousand women
(he lost count)
all in the name of divine energy
and liberation
of course.

They toss around words like dakini
(female embodiment of enlightened energy)
and polyamory
(all right, if you must know, pigs--it means promiscuity)
and they showed some actual tantra going on
(it's SEX--okay, pigs?) 
and oh...my...God
these folks are new-age 
to the point of self-parody.

But this is serious stuff, folks--
and I, of a long-standing
Buddhist/ Hindu persuasion
am not here to make light
of any of it--
but I think we just gotta laugh
at ourselves sometimes and
 the lengths we will go to
and the ways in which
we try to dress it up
(like putting lipstick on a pig, pigs)
when all it's about
or has ever been about
since the day we left the garden
is just getting laid. 

ANOTHER POEM

It was a dark and horny night
dirty diapers and the Doppler effect
were in the air

Damaged child
with his Tinker Toys
don't make any noise
fighting the storm of surprise
under the guise
of normalcy

Who have you been
for lo these many lives
and how many people
are crying quietly inside you?

He heard a dog panting
felt its hot turd breath
on the back of his neck
the dog proffered his paw
and introduced himself

All relationships
involve sacrifice
and just as Paul Simon
has surely suffered for his Art
we look at the world
and discern discordant landscapes
a woman's mountain
a man's molehill
If only I could remember
your memories
but I'm stuck with my own

Diplomacy 
on an international scale
is what's required
we'll send Olive Oyl
with an olive branch
and if that doesn't work
we'll send Popeye
to sock you in the eye

We've trained with the best
we've paid our dues
or you would not see the stellar
lip-syncher who stands before you today

Back off boogaloo
I've got no use
for pretentious retorts
you're certified crazy and
there's some kind of shit
some kind of madness
in the way you've chosen
to live in this world

Blue smoke
echoes of ourselves
reverberating through time
I'm setting off for someplace
east of the sun
and west of Rangoon

And I don't owe this silly world a thing
but maybe another poem

OPEN WINDOW (excerpt from Darwin's Moon)

the cars
rumble past
and from their
open windows
you hear cackling
or cussing
or some kind of rap crap
an angry young man
shoutin' bout
bitches and hos
with his finger up his nose
I'm tired of hearing
the angry young man
through your open window
don't care if he's black
or white
I've been that guy
the rallies
and the marches
righteous indignation
like you wouldn't believe
students commandeering
the dean's office
and getting dragged
out by their heels
do you know
how that feels?
there was Haldeman
Erlichman
and Dean
and student bodies
lying dead
on the campus green
hey
at least we stood
for something
bedsides gangsta worship
all the angry young men
who don't know
what they're mad about
every generation sees
them come and go
you don't live
in the ghetto
and the only thing
you have
to complain about
is your pants
are falling down
cuz they're too baggy
and I'm tired
of hearing the
angry young man
railing
through your open window
you think you've got
something to prove
but in truth
you've got nothing to lose
but your youth
so convinced
that you'll always be
the malcontent
but I'll tell you what
it all comes to naught
and a house
in the suburbs
in the end

ON THE CUSP

Oh how I loathed
Kate Smith
with her black sequined dress
with what must have been 
a really tight girdle
underneath

SCREECHING
When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain
on our little TV 
every day at 4

and that diminutive version of me
seething
I was ready for some damn rock n roll
but we were right on the cusp
and it didn't exist yet

And Ma would say
(through an alcohol-induced haze)
that someday, son, you will see
that love is just the way she sings it
so when you find a girl
a really NICE girl
you will commit to her
(until she's a shrill and ill-tempered hag?)
and properly channel your lust
but only when she doesn't have a headache
are you getting all this, son?

And I told her Paulie had said that
there weren't any nice girls anymore
and that that was just an act
because they were horny too
and she said go to your room

But I didn't mind because
there were some magazines 
stashed away there
that seemed to show that Paulie 
had a pretty good idea
of  what he was talking about

EVERY STINKIN' WORD

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Why do they have to put
every STINKIN' word
in the English language
in the dictionary
when
if you know how to read
you already know what
a cat
a table
a tree
a bird
or a turd is
(1. A piece of excrement.
2. A contemptible person.)

It's just a ploy
to sell you something big and fat
at a hefty price
(like a front row ticket to a Wynona concert)

Like that bag of potato chips
that's only half full--
it's sold by weight, you see
but they could have put them
in a smaller bag
if they weren't trying to rook you

Like the half page of fine print
beneath that satellite TV headline:
TWO THOUSAND
FIVE HUNDRED
AND SIXTY-FOUR CHANNELS
FOR ONLY $19.95
sakes alive
you'll spend the rest of the day
 trying to figure out
what you'll really pay

Deception runs rampant

A sad commentary
on our human condition
the profit motive overshadowing  
all sense of decency and fair play
as we shrug our shoulders and say
that's just the way people are

So many turds floating around
in the human gene pool--
there oughta be a sign regularly posted  that says:
"Pool Closed For Cleaning"

WELL I'LL BE DAMNED...TIMOTEO'S BOOK IS OUT!

d'Verse Poets Pub

HEY KIDS!  My book: Darwin's Moon (A Memoir of Pain and Glory in Poetry and Prose) from ALL CAPS PUBLISHING is now available on Amazon.com  LOOKY HERE.

Or if you can wait a few days, I can send you a personally signed book. Email me a note to: timschaefer41@Gmail.com and we'll get 'er done!

The cost is $9.00, plus a small postage charge.  CHEAP!!!

Cheaper than
a twelve-pack
or
a bottle of wine
both of which
you'll only piss away
and have nothing
to show for
'cept maybe a hangover
but poetry
once you have it
in your hands
is forever!

Please read Marian Kent's review NOW.

POMPEII LOVE

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

One day
In Pompeii
they were right in the middle of it
rutting like dogs
and then the explosion
the eruption
and not the one that
they were working towards

talk about a buzz kill

hold that pose
forevermore
(page thirty-four
of the Kama Sutra)

Life is about 
keeping it all in perspective
so when your day
suddenly dumps on you
bigtime
you can thank your lucky stars
that at least it's not a day
like that one day
they had in Pompeii 

THAT SINKING FEELING

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

icebergs come

in all shapes 

and sizes

they have 

blonde

brunette 

red

or jet black 

hair

and the common 

denominator 

is that 

they are all out 

to sink your dingy

CATNAP

d'Verse Poets Pub

Makes me

wonder

how I

get

any work

done

at all