Pit Stop Pothole Wit Slop Hobo

A stick in the abyss
In the middle of our street
A pit within our midst
The riddle we must meet

Gaping like a wound
Festering and dark
A hazard to our safety and
One less place to park

Some say it is a pot hole
And easy to repair
But what if it's a knothole
A pit of pure despair?

Some say it is a gateway
A tunnel straight to hell
Some argue for its innocence
And sincerely wish it well

As for me, I do abstain
From judging empty space
I'll hold my tongue and keep the peace
And try to show some grace
 

Gemini Interprets "My Eyes Bleed Coke"

Many years ago, I wrote the following bad poem: 

My Eyes Bleed Coke

My eyes bleed Coke
My bread doth me choke
My gums fairly smoke
I’m about to croak
Ye are ye who be
Ye who see who ye be
Be ye he who sees the sea
She be the she who kisseth me
Me I am what I wish to be
Until a bottle striketh me
Never a borrower nor lender be
But give a dram of ink to Lee
Lee, he be the Count, you see
He who bites the necks of shes
And makes us think of honeybees
Who swarm and have us on our knees
Sticky ichor down me cheeks
The stale, flat Coke, she surely reeks
Me eyes bled it for many weeks
Accompanied by untold shrieks
Sugar in me humour hurts
Cries of pain my larynx blurts
But still the blood she spurts ‘n spurts
One of Satan’s crueler works
My eyes bleed Coke

I fed it into Gemini's image generator a few weeks ago; you see the result above. 

Richard XXX

Now is the summer of our discontent
Made inglorious winter by this climate change
And all the clouds that poured upon our houses
Endless rain and thunder's wrath. 
 

Saskatchewan, Naturally

Where do you go
To see the grain grow
Saskatchewan, naturally
For the birth of Medicare
I need to go where?
Saskatchewan, naturally
For dark sky views
Where should you choose?
Saskatchewan, naturally
To join the RCMP,
Where should you be?
Saskatchewan, naturally
I need potash galore, 
Where can I find more?
Saskatchewan, naturally
If you only relate
To borders that are straight
Saskatchewan, naturally
When you like to wine and dine
In many hours of sunshine
Saskatchewan, naturally

Yes Saskatchewan has all these things
And many other joys it brings
You might think it's kind of scary 
Because it's flat and endless prairie
But that's Sasatchewan--naturally. 
 

Hulking Mad Barbarian

I am the very model of a hulking mad barbarian
When I don't see pillaging I really get contrarian
When I come for you I wield
A bloody axe and iron shield
Good thing this image isn't real
'Cause I have no desire to steal
 

Pitchers in the Clover

Three wee tykes
In fields at play
They made their pitch for lives ahead
Dreams in clover, dare to tread
Where are they now?
No one can say
Perhaps to dust they have returned
A final rest, well-loved, well-earned
The marks they made in history burned

 

Fanfare for the Unknown Couple

Ba, ba--bum ba ba
Pum pum ba ba bum ba ba
Lum de dum ba pum pum pum
ba, ba--bum ba ba
 

Natufian Rhapsody

15,000 years ago
Hungry Natufians
Mashed grain and water to make dough
For family and friends
Set fire to stone and made it glow
Cooked that dough until those stones
Turned red
Served it up sans cutlery
And called the meal flatbread

Man and Horse

Man and horse
A symbiosis 
Animal husbandry's
Ultimate gnosis
Strong back, fleet hooves
Domestication
Foundations of the horse-drawn nations
Bit and bridle, tack and saddle
A riding crop to act as paddle
An equal partnership, we say
But what of horse?
"I say thee neigh!" 


 

Paper Birch

When for beauty do thee search
Look no further than the birch;
Gaze upon it and you'll see
A thin-leaved, deciduous hardwood tree
Sure to soothe the nerves of primates
Seeking shelter in boreal climates
And should you need to recollect 
An extraordinary caper
Take a moment to reflect
Then use birch bark for paper

Sudden Insight

We clap and sing
Happy Birthday
And implore the birthday love
To blow out candles on a cake
They do
Snuffing out the dancing flames with wind and spittle
And the host serves the cake
And we eat
We eat cake, icing
And the birthday sneeze
Surely this practice can't be sanitary

Arnold's Path

A giant straddles the Terminator between light and shadow
Like Atlas, but actually Hercules
A Dutch treat from Austria, caught in a Matrix of illusion
A Julius Caesar, torn between worlds to rule
A Quaid/Hauser, lost in conflicting roles
A Kaminski/Brenner on both sides of the coldest war
A Danko, a Richards, a Slater, a Kimble, a Langston
A Trench-ant master, caught in a Fries frame
Doctor, President, Patron, Hood, and yet always a Self
The once and future King Conan Kalidor
Ahhhhnold, the T-800

Starter Words for the End of the World

XYLEM
GLYPH
MAMMA
IGLOO
OKAPI
FUZZY

My starter words
Betray me in the same way as
Our dreams for tomorrow
The fallen scoop of strawberry ice cream
Melting on the sidewalk at the fair
Sighs in resignation
While the child's tears
Evaporate on her sun-roasted cheeks

(Bad poem by me, bad "art" by Gemini.) 

Gathering Dust

They slept unmoving for months and years
Paper and chemical memories
Slowly and silently buried
Under the grey shedding skin
Of neglectful caretakers
Forgotten until irrelevant
And discarded thereafter
Without ceremony

Bouchers Three

They're Bouchers Three
Oh me oh my
Two of them just swung right by
They came to say hello
We were sorry to see them go
And the strange thing is
It was Sean Woods' birthday
 
(sung to the tune of The Wizard of Oz cartoon opening theme)

Yet No Reply

The call, it came
Sans question mark
And so I answered
On a lark

Yet no reply
Came back to me
I never left
They didn't see
 

DC Boardwalk

One might toss some jacks; caltrops for kids
Bounce ball on boardwalk
Grab jack
Second ground, grab two
And so on
Bonus points: ball colour
Perfectly matches wall colour
Ghosts peer through obsidian panes
Nails squeaking against glass
But the kids don't hear
They've reached tensies
And Harpreet has one chance to win
She scoops--she scores. 
Time for ice cream--the wall inspires Neapolitan
"We're all out of chocolate strawberry vanilla ice cream" 

Muddied Metaphors

Life isn't always perfectly pretty
Sometimes there's mud in the water
In poetry as in life
Green needs brown
Words need structure
But sometimes those structures fall apart and you get a horrible mess but hey
There's still life in it

What a Time to Be Alive

That one prophetic conversation
I can't shake it from my mind
1992 or 1993
After the fall of the wall; the end of history
"What if this is as good as it ever gets?" 
Maybe it was

Maybe the real end of history is chasing us now
Like a comet diving in from the Oort cloud
We see it coming
We can't stop it

And that's it--
Lights out forever

Threads

Black threads under our collective skin
Spreading insidiously through our careless flesh
Threads of envy; greed; hate
We live in one skin
Though we are billions
But the infection spreads

We are close
To being overwhelmed
Awakening sluggisly
Too slowly
Too late