Raven, Raven

I channeled my inner Edgar Allen Poe and binge drank myself into unconsciousness;
with all the sorrow in the world, what else can you do?

my mantra was “Raven, “Raven” as I downed another dark liquor

I was fortunate to be blessed that evening 

with such a connoisseur of the late night scene

who acted as social director; a social tsarina

until slipping into a stupor she needed help carrying

courtesy of jack daniels or johnny walker

or one of his brothers

we never did come to a consensus on whether

you can be resigned to fate but can you resign from fate?

the answer becoming drowned among the ice and glasses

verifiably lost at sea

bobbing along heads barely above water

with no known coordinates that the navy or coast guard could search

the absurdity of it all

yet we continually re-enlisted 

now spilling out into the dark twisty streets 

back alleys of ill repute 

the home of the city’s nefarious 

but to be fair, we’ve all had our moments of indiscretions 

moments when we look back and try

to look the other way

Professor Snob

grew a beard but it wasn’t a good looking dark one
‘twas sandy blonde brown grayish mishmash

not menacing or authoritative 

more like a skid row on my third bottle of wine today

fashion - if you could call it that

not sagely like a chinese master’s

quoting Confucius or Tao Te Ching passages 

just stringy and unshapely no matter how I tried

to groom it, broom it, shape it

so fuck it

now it’s more gray

like an old salt’s beard

off the ship and onto the docks

it looks right

not one of those snobby uptight ones

Professor Snob I’m not -

- eggheads that live in a textbook 

or in books of poetry written by long dead poets

who nobody reads anymore

and their books are musty smelling

the pages are crumbling; the book’s spine

is broken and has arthritis 

you find them on a Saturday morning 

at an outdoor library sale in Georgia 

in a beat-up cardboard box for 50 cents

and they are overpriced at that

but you buy one thinking you might

get SOMETHING out of it 

so you take it down to a bench by the lighthouse 

by the rocks and water

and with open mind peruse through it

but after a while you give up on it

tossing it into a trash receptacle 

that’s ready and waiting for your deposit 

Arizona Canyon Blues

Arizona riding burrows down down down
strumming a guitar in desert dust G flat

cacti play a song for me, a sad song

white headlights peek down from canyon high above

tryin’ to catch the south wind in a bottle

if not for you here, I’d be there

hair like gold bars

wearing some kind of indian print dress

you said you don’t know but before you go
farewell I say, “we hardly knew ye”

you said goodbyes out the darkness

as you were leaving leaving leaving

have no fear I thought to myself 

there’s another tomorrow tomorrow

its mystical sky known only to the galaxies of the universe

but now the full moon is full

coyotes howl on cue sitting on big brown rocks 

go ahead, walk right out of my circle

I’m sure you got your reasons

guess I wasn’t the one you wanted

think I’ll dig a hole in the sand and hide

where only the stars can see me

scorpions have crawled into my soul

stinging stinging stinging