Forty (40)

I woke up today and it was

twenty years from yesterday.

I knew it was twenty years

Because the music gave me a headache.

I slapped a kid for teaching me

to battle rap - he rapped about

pimpin’ out my wife and sister.

When I pinned his tongue ring to his chin,

He cried and ran away.

My court date is next week.

There is really no upside to 40.

But I’m still very immature

so maybe there’s still hope.

I Googled “Cure for 40”

The top answer was “50”

Fucking Google.

After a little more research I found out

“40 is the new 30.”

That didn’t sound so bad

Until I asked a 30-year-old what he thought…

“Cha right” he said “Dude yer old.”

Then he skateboarded over my foot.

Fucking Kids

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This is another poem for my Chapbook exclusive to d'Verse.

Middle Aged White Poet

I finally figured out how to format my chapbook "Rough Around the Edges" for Kindle and it is available on my Amazon Author Page here. It is only available in Kindle format at this time. If you do not own a Kindle there is a free Kindle Reading App for Mac, PC, Smartphones and Tablets available for download here. I intend to publish print copies in the future if there is a positive response on Kindle. 

I am posting the poem "Middle-aged White Poet" from the chapbook as a bit of shameless self-promotion. This poem was originally conceived for the Velvet Verbosity 100 Word Challenge earlier this year, however, it has since been reworked and edited beyond recognition. If you follow my blog you will see that about half of the 28 poems premiered on my Blog in some draft or partial form. The other half are original to this publication. The poems are presented sequentially to represent some of my life's experiences. 

This is my first stab at publication and I am basically winging it. If you do decide to pick up a copy please leave a constructive review on Amazon or a comment on this thread. I am interested in how to become a better Poet & Author so all comments are appreciated (including critical ones)

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Middle-aged white guy writing poetry

It’s not pretty

But I really love it - I always have.

A word nerd since my early teens

John Lennon Imagining,

Bob-Dylan-Thomas, Lizard King

Blew my mind with poetry

And it’s never been the same for me.

Let it be Lord, let it be.

And right away I could see

these dudes were inside my head.

They said the things I’d I wished I’d said.

They understood and spoke to me

with innocent experience

iconoclasts in past and present tense.

Feelings so intense they circumvent

my conflicted disobedience.

Feelings from so deep inside 

that sometimes even I don’t realize

the blood stains on the page are mine.

So why not me, Lord, why not me?

Because I was born without a pedigree -

A white suburban refugee where

we never mention child-abuse,

and we always get the right to choose,

and never ever get refused service for not wearing shoes.

So I turned my cap back to hide my bald spot.

My angst is in my pudding cup.

But don’t tell me I didn’t earn my seat

and I don’t have the right to speak

and be heard if I wannabe.

Word.

I’m just an aging word-nerd who knows what

it’s like to hurt and not be heard.

But proud enough to stake a spot out in the crowd

and use my voice to shout it out

and tell my story loud enough

that anyone who gives a shit can sit and listen to another …

Middle-aged white poet

Failure to Communicate

Some men you just can't reach. 

You just don't listen boy.

You leave me no choice.

So you're gunna get what we got. 

                                                          

"What we got here is failure to communicate."

Those wild blues eyes 

disguise what's not there.
No surprise you're dying 
those lies are tearing you up inside

"Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."

Real Toad are putting our favourite movie lines to work in a poem unrelated to the line or character. So hard to choose but in the end I had to go with my man Paul.

Domestic Bliss

I’ve been tricked into domestic bliss.

Behavior alteration with

Soy lattes and strawberry whips

Pavlov’s dog could not resist.

An upward mobile Stepford man.

who salivates at Starbucks cups.

Florescent yellow pee flows freely

in the sweet spot where the beautiful

people glow and flutter with utter disdain.  

And God forbid I give the kid

a damn hamburger

or raise my hand in anger.

So I smile and wave and walk the line

no matter what it is I crave. 

I trade my whiskey laugh for a golf clap.

Attend south-beach-high-fiber-low-fat-candle-parties.

I volunteered for social circumcision

in the missionary position; where only

momentary indecision and the

cesarean incision stand between

me and my vasectomy…

Have you met the new-improved

extremely made-over version of

who I really ought to be?

Five pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight

Beaten into a state of reasonable complicity. 

But this is the time of my life.

Just ask my wife.

And on third blue moon when the stars line up

We steal a moment to ourselves 

and put the rules up on the shelf.

And for those few stolen moments

we allow ourselves to be overcome by ecstasy.

And nothing so sublime as this ever could exist

without the painful sacrifices  of Domestic Bliss.

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This is one of my poems from my chapbook I just finished editing today. I pulled it out of the closet for the the D'verse second birthday. I am just fumbling around trying to navigate my first upload on to Kindle Amazon. Anyways happy birthday guys!

Bang Bang Bang Crash

Today at D'verse Poetics we are dipping into a summer with Claudia:

"Fata morgana – chimera – mirage – summer heat illusions – you name it, a blend between reality and a short drift into that blurred space that dizzies our brain a bit on days when scorching heat hits heavy from a cloud-less sky–"

I only missed our return to Anglo-Saxon roots form with "Bang, bang, bang, crash" alliteration (more here). I tried to combine the two. I took at trip back to my summers growing up  in northern British Columbia where we did a lot of  Banging and Crashing!!

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Moonshine by moonlight well after midnight we howl
like madmen and make the ground shake.

Crashing our cars and careening off fenceposts
loosing our lunch for the love of the chase.

Wild whiskey weekends at remote country lakes
with stock cars and shotguns and sexy ex-girlfreinds.

We're kids from the country, we have cow-tipping fun.
Rednecks run rampant  - we always say Ma'am.

Sunshine soaked summers with tears in our ears
and we Bang and we Bang and we Bang and we Crash!!!!!

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