WRITTEN WORD IS A LIE
By Mikel K

And, once you get them reading, you better have something to write…



JULY 2009 K POEMS


The title to this book is taken from the PIL song, "Rise."
Special thanks to Mr. Lydon for being so good with the written word.

Poet Mikel K discussing his poems with someone on the internet:

Millions of people like my poems,
they just haven't read them yet.

I enjoy the transparency and straightforwardness of your poetry along with the sweet goodness that shines from your spirit. From the <3, Karin~


I have been reading, and reading, and reading your work...
and I am blown away!
--Jen Jon Clarke

I dig your poetry a lot. You spin some great tales in those well chosen words: a great ride.
--Just Cathy


Do you really want The Pulitzer? do you want to have to curb your thoughts and words because you have your eyes on the prize? you know as well as i do that you are the voice of the people..the real people...not hearts and flowers bullshit...rhymes and rhythm and mental masturbation...fuck that...you have an audience who digs you NOW...id love to see them do a warmly insightful portrait of you at the pool or the local walmart, or perhaps share a pavement sandwich with you and Roman? Ha...does the average joe get a vote? You dont want what they've got..but recognitiion is always nice...so you have my vote..."You da man!"..
--Melissa Holtan


I love your work. It makes me go, YEAH, that's right! It also makes me laugh a joyous kind of laughter that comes from my belly!--Siege Sullivan



Mr. K, On any given day, in any given poem, you are The Greatest Living American Poet. You often surpass Bukowski, you eclipse Walt Whitman, and you make Billy Collins look like he was writing for a class of kindergarteners. Don't die before they all know what I know.
--Theodore Sandburg

Think of a sweet title from a Billy Joel song

She is like a little kid
sometimes
soft in some places
hard in others
resists going to bed
when she should
wants to eat white bread
instead of whole wheat.
She is stubborn about certain things
that I'll keep private here.

I like to watch her sleep,
there is a serenity to it;
a great beauty about her
as she lays curled across my bed.

I miss you, too...... and I know why, and I'm going to tell you why even though you probably wouldn't ask:

I miss you because I loved you, I still love you. Although we did not work out as a couple, we had some pretty great times together. We laughed and joked and had amazing pillow talk. I think we tried pretty hard to keep it together. Love doesn't stop because one person tells it to.

I miss you because it still hurts to think about us. It hurts as badly thinking about the good times as it does thinking about the bad times.
I think that the good times far out weighed the bad times.

I miss you because whereas you didn't understand my dislike for guitar picks, the guitar picks have now been replaced by a never ending appearance of black hair bands. Every time I pick up one, I miss you a little bit even though I am scowling.

I miss you because you were warm in bed, even when you had it freezing in the room.

I miss you because no one sneezes as loudly, laughs as loud or snores as loud as you. You were a big presence and left a hole in my life that will be hard to fill.

So, there. I miss you, too, but I know why.

C

What kind of pets do you have?

What kind of pets do you have, and what are their names? Do you feed them expensive pet food, or do you buy them the cheap stuff? How often do you bath the dogs? Have you got any unconventional pets, like, say turtles or snakes or ferrets? What do your pets mean to you? I realized the other day that my pets are better well taken care of than the homeless are in my town. Is that right or wrong? Why do our pets mean so much to us? Could we live without them? Could they live without us? What do we mean to them?

I have two dogs Morisson, and Bundy. Morisson is a lab slash hound, who came to me as a runaway(he is a free spirit, who also ran away from me, about 15 times in the beginning of our relationship.) He is the most loving dog in the world. He seeks affection from any and everyone who visits me. He loves to be petted. He loves snacks. Bundy, my other dog loves snacks, also. I feed both of them a vanilla yogurt/vegetable broth mixture that I freeze into ice trays. The dogs LOVE this. They also love bananas, frozen, and room temperature. They will gobble down most fruits, also, apples, watermelon, peaches, pears. They do not like lettuce or celery. My friend, Lauren, makes biscuits for dogs that are delicious. My dogs love her biscuits, also. (www.BIGDADDYBISCUITS.com)

Bundy was a hand me down. He is half rottweiller and half lab. It has been a challenge living with Bundy. At first, we were roommates because I moved in with my oldest boy. Bundy and I were at the house a lot, together, and he started following me around. I really didn't want another dog, but I have found that, mostly, I don't find my pets, they find me. Bundy is a great guard dog. He is VERY loud when someone is at the door, and I believer that that rottweiller in him, would kick in if someone kicked my door in.

If someone busted into my house, they would also find my turtles, Rue Paul, and Prynce. I know that Rue and Prynce would be no good in stopping intruders from walking with my laptop, but they do provide me with endless entertainment, constantly kissing each other, and chasing each other about their aquarium, one minute seeming to be in love, and the next seeming to be involved in a domestic squabble of some sort.

I love my pets, and it seems that they love me (even the turtles.)
I will write about my cats, Kobain, and Jaggar, at a later time.

Leslie says, "Came upon your poetry by accident, through a friend of a friend. I am suitably impressed, and would like to keep up with your appearances and writings."
My ear is still clogged
with swimming pool water,
my bills are still due,
and you are sleeping in my bed.

Sometimes I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator, and I can't remember why I am standing there. On occasion, I tell myself that this could be the onset of Alzheimer disease. I saw a man die of this, once, and I really hope that I don't go out that way. I'm not sure how I hope that I go out. Dieing is probably not easy no matter who you are.

Thankfully, this morning, I have been, once again, blessed with the precious girt of life. "Thank you Lord for letting me see the new day, breath the air of a new day," are the first words that I try to let loose from my lips when I wake up each day. I learned that prayer in jail, the last time that I was in jail. I used to go to jail way more than I should have. My good time party habit extended far beyond the good time party; it entered the realm of blackouts, and jail cells.

I was Catholic as a kid, and heading to church, every Sunday, with my parents, I had the Our Fathers and The Hail Marys down. Now, with the party over, locked in a Georgia jail cell, yet one more time, I decided that I had to pray, but I had forgotten how to say The Our Father; I had forgotten how to say The Hail Mary.

There was a guy in a cell next to me in that small jail in Georgia; he had been in that jail cell for awhile. He had been in that jail cell so long that the guards had started giving him extra biscuits in the morning, and extra meat at night. This guy had been in that cell so long that he was part of the family, so to speak, at that jail.

"Do you pray?" I asked him.

"Yes, I pray," he said.

"What do you say," I asked him.

He said, "Every day when I wake up I say, Thank you Lord for letting me see the new day, breath the air of a new day."

I was kind of shocked that he hadn't recited an Our Father, or a Hail Mary to me. I had been conditioned to think that there were only certain things that you could say to God, only certain prayers that you could pray, but, you know what, that prayer worked for me, and for 17 years I have been saying it, almost every morning when I wake up. It starts my day on a happy note,

and, still I can't remember how to say The Our Father, or The Hail Mary.

I like to let freedom ring some other way

As far as I know, all three of my kids lived through last night.
My parents instilled a healthy fear of home fireworks, in me,
when I was a kid.
They were constantly telling me how you could lose an eye,
if you were not careful, how some other fellow might not be careful,
and you could lose a finger. Probably because of this,
I don't really care for fireworks,
either the kind that you set off at home,
or the kind that cities spend big dollars on.
I would rather wait for Santa to come down the chimney.

There is always something waiting to kill you

I don't drink anymore, but I still eat,
and I like to eat, but, now, the eating
is going to kill me, just like the booze
was.

If we pulled the trigger

There were three sisters in the family,
but one of them shot herself. She left behind
a boy who is now ten. I think how sad she must
have been, when she pulled the trigger,
and I think how sad her sisters, and her son
must still be, and then I think how sad my
family would be, and your family would be
if I/you/we pulled the trigger.

I'm too tired to stay up, this morning

The dogs stand to each side of me,
begging for attention.
They don't care that it's five a.m.
One of them has his head on my thigh,
as I sit in front of this computer screen.

Sometimes, I am alert at this hour of the day,
good for a couple of hours of typing on this laptop,
able to knock out a poem or two,
but I don't think that is going to happen, today.
There is a warm body laying over there in my bed,
and it seems stupid not to crawl back into that bed with her.

What I'm not having for dinner

I wish that I had bought soy sausage,
the kind that I so enjoy; but I didn't
so I will have to enjoy something else.

Certainly better than crawling

She calls and tells me that she is running behind.
She usually runs behind, but at least she is running.

Fireworks are a distraction

I don't care about fireworks,
but I do care about freedom.

A one night stand

I don't believe in forever,
so I take it one day at a time.

I'm really not sure

She tells me things,
that she wouldn't tell you;
at least I think that she does,
or maybe she tells everything
to everybody.

I love

I love taking naps in the afternoon.
I love holding my grandson.
I love talking to my kids on the phone.
I love listening to Tom Petty,
which is what I'm doing right now:

"You take it on faith, you take it to the heart."

Not selling Christ at your front door

Patterns of sadness follow us even when we have banished them
from our existence. They wait at our front door, silently knocking,
for an opportunity to come in.

The series is tied at

The dishwasher competes with the dvd player in the laptop
The dog competes with the cats.
The sun competes with the moon.
The taxi cab competes with the bus.
Cotton candy competes with corn dogs.
Music competes with movies.
Coffee competes with Jack Daniels.
Jack Kerouac competes with the "beatniks" who he made.
Star Wars competes with Spock.
Cars compete with bicycles.
Teachers compete with their students.
Cops compete with criminals.
Lawyers compete with their accountants.
Doctors compete with their mechanics.
Satire competes with reality.
You compete with me.

New neighborhood

We are destined to not always be happy,
just as we are destined to not always be sad.

I have lived long periods of sadness;
happiness is something new to me.

Feelings are fleeting

I will feel one way, this morning,
another way this afternoon,
and, still, another way at night.

Stillness

My coffee, this morning, like the love that is offered me
is not sweet enough, but, still, I drink of one, and partake of the other.

Bite my neck, baby

I want to watch the last episode
of The Vampire TV series,
find out whose neck gets bit, by whom.

My promise was patience

I awoke, this morning, aggravated
because something "promised" to me,
was not delivered.

Promises, to some people, are things
that they mean to have kept in relation
to themselves, only,

and I am a very me, me, me type of person,
sometimes consumed only with what has been
promised to me, and not what I have promised.


I'm not really suffering

I'm drinking my hot tea, tonight, with soy creamer
because I am out of milk. Worse things have happened
to me.

I don't much eat ice cream anymore, because I am diabetic; but I might want to try a little bit sometime. The problem is I don't know which type to try, which brand, which flavors. Can you hook a brother up, here, with some information: ice cream info. What do you buy, which ice cream do you think is the best?

After a long work week

She's kind of boring today,
we watched a movie,
and then she picked up a book,
and, now, she is asleep.

No strip teases, no wild sex;

geez.

Bong hit equivalent

I just learned that, "Why'd you do that?"
means that she doesn't like the plate of food
that I fixed for her, which is fine.
Fixing food for a woman is an experiment,
an ongoing experiment, where the results
are always in doubt, but when she smiles
at what you have fixed, and finishes all
of it, you get a feeling like some fellows
do when they hit a bong.

Cat and foot

Jaggar bit me as I was making my coffee this morning.
I don't know what was up with that, but it hurt.
I thought about kicking him, luring him into my foot
with the flashlight beam of light, but then I let it go.
When I turned around to walk to my desk with my coffee,
Jaggar was sitting there, laughing at me.
As I walked by, I kicked him.
I didn't kick him so hard as to hurt him,
but I kicked him hard enough to send the message
that this is one foot that you shouldn't be messing with.
I doubt that he got the message.
I will just have to be more careful about where I put my foot.

Trust is a funny thing

"People who normally kept their doors open and welcomed strangers stopped trusting their own neighbors."--From a newspaper article about the slaying of a serial killer

Trust is a funny thing;
it is humorous how quick it slips away
when people are faced with something
as simple as death.
Maybe my next door neighbor,
who I have known for 25 years, is a serial killer.
I won't borrow sugar from her anymore.

Powerless

Minor league players brag about the booze they consume.
The pro knows what he is dealing with, and keeps his mouth
shut about his drinking when his lips are not on the glass,
or the bottle, knowing full well what he is dealing with.

I hope they bought food with the money and not crack

At work, we often put what we call a starter dollar in the tip jar. It seems that a dollar attracts other dollars, and if there is nothing in the tip jar, that is exactly what people tip you. Yesterday afternoon, someone stole my starter dollar. This is the first time that that has happened in the six months that I have been working as a barista. The theft felt weird, not as weird as when someone kicks in your back door and steals two laptops, but weird none the less. It was a violation, of some sort, albeit a minor one. I figured that this person needed the dollar worse than I did, said a prayer for them, and just went on about my day pouring coffee, and making iced lattes, and blended drinks. Later in the afternoon, someone took three dollars out of the tip jar.

Dream on

I had the weirdest dream last, night,
only bits and pieces of which, I can
remember. There were dinosaurs who
could swim in it. Then I had a dream
where my mother begged me not to buy
an old beat up car. I looked around me,
and all I saw were old beat up cars.
I usually don't remember my dreams,
so it is weird that I remember bits
and pieces of these dreams. Somewhere
I read that you should write your dreams
down, but I'm not going to do that;
I have too much other writing going on.

What would I do if I was a caveman?

I start my day swallowing pills,
pills to keep me sane,
pills to keep pain from consuming me.

Sometimes you have to break the mirror

Sometimes I look at a fire hydrant,
and I wonder how many dogs have pissed on it.
Sometimes, I look at a fire truck
and wonder how many fires it has arrived at.
Sometimes, I look at a donut shop,
and I wonder how many donuts I would eat,
if I let myself eat all the donuts that I wanted.
Sometimes, I look at a pretty girl,
and I wonder why she looks so mean.
Sometimes, I look at a book,
and I wonder how the hell the author
ever got the book in print.
Sometimes, I look at you, and I see me,
and that just won't do.

Kissing turtles and a cat with yellow eyes

The turtles are kissing,
and when they are not kissing
they are exploring the new water
that I have just poured into their aquarium.

Jaggar, the black cat, with intense yellow eyes,
is by the front door, seeming to stare at Bundy.
Bundy is half rottweiler, but I think
that Jaggar could take him if it came down to that.

Jaggar should be dead, and I think
that he knows it. He was found near dead
next to his dead mother in a McDonald's
parking lot, and was nursed back to life
by a vet.

Near death experiences can make a bad ass of you.

Happiness is a warm poem bang bang shoot shoot

I am not a novelist.
I am not creative enough
to be a novelist,
or, at least, I can not sustain
creativity for the length
that is necessary to write a novel.
There is no money in poetry,
unless you are Billy Collins,
or you were Charles Bukowski,
or you teach poetry.
I don't want to be a fireman or a cop;
couldn't be either at this stage of my life
because of my age, and physical condition,
and couldn't have been either when I was younger
because of my passion for getting drunk, at that time.
I could go on and list all the things
that I don't want to be, which is everything
besides a poet,
so I will just accept my lot in life,
and move on happily.

Every once in awhile you've got to give up a smile

There are three things that this house of mine cannot be without:
coffee, Stevia, and Trader Joe's brand Soy Milk Creamer.
I will eat rice, and noodles for weeks,
if there is not much cash about,
but I have to have money for the above three things;
and I have been blessed, so far, to always have money for them,
although I do recall a several day period, several months ago,
where I was out of coffee.
What a dismal time.

A little bit

Jaggar, the anti-social one,
the one who will bite you,
if you try to pet him,
has started sleeping on my bed,
and, sometimes, when you accidentally
brush your foot against him
in the middle of the night
he will scratch you, and sink
his teeth into your feet
ever so lightly.
I think that it is progress
that Jaggar is sleeping on the bed
with me, although I am paying
a bit of a price for it, for it is nice
to see an anti-social cat reach out to you,
even if it is only a little bit.

The big time

This guy once said that he wanted to "manage me,
here's my number, give me a call."
I thought that I had "made it," that I had arrived,
that the big time was surely, now, only moments away.
I called the guy, left a nice message,
and never heard back from him.

I have to admit that two days after I put it in a bag with the rest of her things, and placed the bag on the front porch with a note saying, "Don't knock on my door, I'm asleep," that I miss her toothbrush sitting next to mine in the bathroom. Now, I would never tell her this, because I am through with her, and telling her this would send out the wrong signal, would be an admission of weakness of some sort, and when breaking up with a woman you can't be weak.

When I was still drinking, women broke up with me; they threw me out of the relationship for things bad that I did, like being violent, or like being a deadbeat with no job, who somehow figured out a way to get him a buzz.

I was a drunk.

I was a happy drunk until a certain part of the evening. That part of the evening was mostly the part where I entered a blackout, and had no idea what I was doing.

"Studies show that e-mail relationships can get far more intimate, far faster, than in-person relationships. Often there's been so much buildup that the actual meeting is a letdown."--Nicholas Boothman

"In 1727, Helen Morrison, a spinster in Manchester, England, placed the first lonely hearts personal advertisement for a husband in the local weekly newspaper. In response, the town mayor committed her to a lunatic asylum for a month."

Off Limits

She has her definite boundaries,
but if you want things kept private,
it's a quandary, because the rules
for her, don't apply to you.

D.O.A.

You lead with my chin,
pushed me into the ring,
two decades after I had retired.

I'm not Satan, I'm a father, baby

She tells people things about you
that you don't tell anyone, things
that don't make you look good,
things that have people looking at you
suspiciously, like you are Satanic.

Count to three, and then go up and speak to the person.

Run, run like hell

What's up my sleeve?
Comic relief and, maybe,
a Mercedes in the future,
because I want to "ride through
mansions of glory in suicide machines,"
to quote Bruce.

What's my angle?
My angle is that each day has to have time
for the word. If something, or someone,
is consuming the time for the word, then
that something, then that someone has to be
eliminate.

Who do I want to kiss?
I want to kiss someone who wants to kiss back.

"If you're determined to find someone to love, it's absolutely imperative that you make time to meet new people."--"How to Make Someone Fall in Love with You in 90 Minutes or less," by Nicholas Boothman

Some notes from a book on love

Where can you meet the person searching for you?
Is she standing right in front of you?
Will you have to go to Dublin, Ireland to meet her?
My mom was born in Dublin.
What if there is no person searching for you;
then what do you do?
Eat cold pizza, alone, until the day you die?
I want to fly; I want to see what is over the horizon,
yet I am also very good at staying at home.
Who would feed my dogs, if I was away all the time?
Who would tease my cats, and hold my turtles?
Do you need someone to hold your hand?
Then open it, and offer it, don't keep it closed,
and to yourself.

We have incomplete information says the voice mail that some 800 number left. This disappoints me; I was hoping that the voice message would be from some major babe saying that she loved me. Time is running out to find a muse for this poet; all the soul mates seem to be taken.

I am too tired to kick out any great literature. I need to take a nap, and then return to the keys. The dogs are napping already; I'm going to join them. There is something that I want to write about that occurred at work, today, but I can't think of it, right now. Perhaps when I am done with my nap, it will come to me.

Muse won't you come to me, come to me, come to me.

When I'm laughing, you can't see that I cry

They didn't let me talk them out of math.

When I was a kid, my parents hooked me up
with a kid from the neighborhood who played
piano who was going to teach me how to play
piano. After a couple of piano lessons, I decided
that playing Cowboys and Indians in the front
yard was more important than learning how to
play piano, and I, somehow, talked my parents
out of me having to take the piano lessons.

I'm in my early 50's, now, and I don't play
Cowboys and Indians, anymore, but every time I hear
the piano introduction the the song, "Imagine,"
I wish that my parents had not let me talk them
out of piano lessons.

Gimmee gimmee shock treatment

Once a band has broken up,
I don't care if they ever get back together.
They, rarely, get back together for music,
or love, they get back for money,
and, I know that money is essential,
but, to me, music seems greater than money,
though it has long been controlled by
mean mercenary bastards.


How pain affects being a father and sushi consumption

I'm supposed to have sushi with the kid,
tomorrow, around noon, but, logistically,
it is going to be tough, because I have
to get a swim in before one. Now if you
had ever told me that I would blow either
the kid off, or sushi, for anything I would
have told you that you were smoking crack,

but, I have this lousy arthritis that has hit
my legs from my knees to my hips, and if
I swim, I am not in great pain, so when
confronted with pain I make way different
choices than I historically have. I mean,
nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever come
between me and my kid, and hanging out with
him has always been a priority, and sushi
is God, a God-given food that I have always
ingested whenever, and wherever possible,
but pain, I have sadly learned is a great,
great motivator.

Somehow, I will fit the three things in.


Something that came about when I thought that I would be asleep

Sleep just wasn't ready to envelope me,
just yet, so I turned on the light,
and headed back to the computer.
Too much caffeine can do that to you,
and when you work at a coffee shop,
the opportunities to overdo the caffeine
are infinite.

I'm not sure if this is a poem or not,
the line spacing is weird. Maybe I am
supposed to turn it into something other
than a poem. Who is the judge of this?
Me? A Ph. d poetry professor; a muse of
some sort?

I need to buy butter in the morning,
and ketchup, and lemons.

In heaven there is no beer

I will die, and nobody will have heard of me,
and what is worse is that not many of you
will have read the thousand of poems that
will die inside of this laptop.

Everything is free

When it was my turn to face the cashier,
and have her pick up my things
off of the conveyor belt, I said to her,
"Everything is free today."
She looked at me, and said, "Do you have
a coupon."
I said, "No, I don't have a coupon.
Everything is free for me, everywhere I go."
I only had three items, and she busied herself
ringing them up.
"That will be $4.01," she said, which was
about $3.50 short of what the bill should have been.
When I got home, I looked at my receipt
and saw that the young lady had not charged me
for my canola oil.

The house may be a mess but keep the poems coming

Sometimes, you have to head to the keyboard
before you take a piss in the morning,
before you fix your coffee,
before you feed the cats and dogs.
Sometimes, it burns inside of you
and you have to let it out, immediately,
or you will lose it, and that just won't do.

Something other than penis envy

For years she told me how she loved my cock,
how she worshiped my cock,
how it gave her great pleasure,
and she moaned and moaned as she rode it,
and as it gave her orgasm after orgasm.
I broke up with her, and she sent me an email
saying how little my dick was.

A good reason to eat less or smash mirror

In one mirror in my bathroom,
I look thin, then I turn around
and look in the other mirror,
the full length one in the door,
and I look fat.

I really ought to take the mirror
in the door down.

Usually I wake him up from such dreams

Earlier tonight, my dog Morisson was having nightmares,
as he slept on the floor near me. When Morisson has a
nightmare, his whole body shakes, but it is guts and legs
that shake most violently, and he makes near screaming
sounds that are surreal and scary.

Animal Planet

The animals did not get up with me
the second time that I decided that
I was not quite ready to go to sleep.
The cats are still asleep on my bed,
Morisson is asleep at the foot of my bed,
and Bundy is asleep next to the bed.
Around two a.m. I am on my own in this abode.

He was very charming on the computer screen

We met in Montreal, eight or nine years ago,
for three or four days, and no major sparks
flew, mainly because she lived at the top of
of the country that we were to return to,
and I lived at the bottom of it.

Last night, she told me that she loved me.

The internet does weird things to people;
you fall in love much quicker there
than you would if the person was really there
to see how being a great writer does not stack
up to being a great lover, or a great human being.

In order to move on with your lives

It is hard as hell to not respond to
the one that you want to respond to,
but, sometimes, it has to be done
if you are going to get from here
to there, get away from being stuck
with where you were, putting up with
what you were putting up with,
dishing out what you were dishing out.

Someone else will come along for her,
and someone else will come along for you,
and you will probably both find yourselves
committing the same mistakes that you did
with each other, with the new person,
but neither one of you will be aware of it,
because you won't know what it going on
in each other's life;

that is just the way it has to be
in order to move on with your lives.

I miss you, Mikel

I'm talking to people who I don't want to talk to
because I don't want to talk to you
I'm talking to people who I don't want to talk to
because you wouldn't follow my rules


GirlFromUpNorth [12:21 A.M.]: i miss you mikel
Wordmanmikelk [12:21 A.M.]: why?
GirlFromUpNorth [12:21 A.M.]: i don't know

They always miss me, but they never know why,
and all I want to know is why; it's very frustrating.


I've never met a girl from Louisiana

I've never met a girl from Louisiana,
I've been told that are hot,
but I know a girl from Atlanta,
who moved there, and I can tell you
that she is hot, hot, hot, too.

Don't need no red hot Cajun momma,
when I got a girl from Atlanta in my arms.
Don't need no other Southern woman,
when my Atlanta baby is...

(To be finished, maybe.)
--Mikel K

The Golden Rule

Send me not to Purgatory.
Send me straight to Hell.
I'm going to wind up there anyway;
oh well.

Everything's a sin,
and while I'm breathing the air,
I'm a sinner;
I really have only one rule in this life,
and that is to never be late for dinner.

I love everybody?

I love everybody,
but I can't find a job.
I love everybody,
but I can't pay my bills.
I love everybody,
but my kid needs new shoes.
I love everybody,
but everybody is starting to look at me
like I'm a slob.

I believe in God.
I want to go to Heaven,
but I don't know what I'm gonna do,
if things don't start to get better.
How about you?

Have you got a job?
Can you pay your bills?
Does your kid need new shoes?
Are people looking at you like you are homeless?
If so,
what are you going to do?

I believe in God.
I want to go to Heaven,
but I don't know what I'm gonna do,
if things don't start to get better.
How about you?

--Mikel K
K Poems Music Unlimited


Because I feel it
I'm reminded, this morning, that love is better than anger
It looks better, it feels better, it will help you live longer

Nobody is more Irish than me

I was born in Connecticut far across the sea
from Dublin, and County Cork, where my parents came from.

An infinity of possibilities

There is nothing: no reason, no seasons,
there is only an infinity of possibilities
running about and, sometimes, colliding.

More than anything else

I have no idea what I am talking about,
and yet I talk. And talk; and talk.
You hear me on the bus babbling away, loudly,
as if any of it matters; nothing matters, really,
any more than anything else.

Most funerals are attended by no one

We will never own anything,
we will go kicking and screaming
to the grave,
moaning and groaning about what
you have done.

It's the way of the world
for some to own, and for some to be possessed.
You called her a slave,
and, yet, you often undressed to feel her pleasures,
told the Priest nothing about it in the Church on Sunday.

No stupid replies to this one, please

War will never be over.
Animals will never cease to be murdered,
so man can feed.
Love will never work out perfectly,
for most of us.
Your car will always break down.
Sundays will always be filled with churches,
and I've said all that I have to say, for now.

Rider on the storm

I called, and nobody answered;
must be ghosts.

Don't conform me into jello on a plate

Some people say love only occurs in the dark,
and that it's over once the kisses have ceased.
Some people say that love can't occur
past a certain time in your life, usually
when you've been burned more than once or twice.
Some people say that all men are the same,
but I refuse to fit into that mold.

Certain things

You just left, and I miss you already
though the scent of you still lingers
and the imprint of you is still warm
in my bed.

You just left, and I feel like you have been gone forever,
like it will take an eternity for you to return.

You just left, and, already, I miss holding you,
hugging you, kissing you, looking into your eyes
and asking you "why," when you say things that I know
you won't give me an answer for.

Certain things are better off left unsaid,
like, "you are my woman," like "we are going to last forever."

I want to

I want to write the words that make your crying baby smile.
I want to write the words that make your blues turn to bright yellow.
I want to write the words that make you think,
hey, maybe I don't have to have another drink
I want to write the words that will change the world from mean to kind,
I want to write the words that will keep you from going out of your mind.


Can you imagine if the butterflies turned into bees, and bit you?

I used to love to walk,
now walking is painful.

What we have here is no longer a failure

Momma, I can't take it, anymore.
Momma, I can't fuckin' take it, anymore.
Momma, momma, momma, I can't fucking, fucking, fucking take it.
Momma didn't answer her door.
I stumbled down the street, still on the path that I was on.
If I had knocked on her door a doctor, a lawyer,
anything but a drunk punk, she would have welcomed me with open arms.
Momma, I haven't talked to you since I knocked on your door,
and it's thirty five year later.
I figured it out. I figured out what was wrong,
and, now, I got kids of my own...and they open their door to me,
whether I'm smiling, or crying.

Question the song

Was the grass ever greener down in Paradise City?
Was the answer ever blowing in the wind?
Did Maggie May ever hear a word that he had to say?
Did he really drive his Chevy to the levy?
Did he really wish that they could all be California girls?
I could go on with this for days, but I won't; you get the idea.

When you are doing whatever

It is better to have sleep engulf you than fear,
better to be sleepy than paranoid, snf I want to say
that it is better to to have a gun in your hand,
when you need it, but I'm not going to say that,
because you know when it is best for you to do whatever.

Without me and you

I'm starting to think
that the world doesn't need me
to change it,
and, I'm starting to think
that it doesn't need you, either.
The world will be just fine,
without us; always has been,
always will be.
We feel so large and secure,
sometimes,
like what we do matters,
and it does, in a minuscule kind of way,
but let us not overstate our importance,
and always remember
that Mother Nature will be fine
without me and you.

Sand in her bikini

I'm glad that you are happy and that i am sitting here alone
listening to tom waits make me sad.

Poet Mikel K discussing his poems with someone

Millions of people like them,
they just haven't read them yet.

Tell Tom Waits for me

Tell Tom Waits, for me, that there's no boys back home
to tell anything to, there's no boys back home for anything;
I drank them all away many years ago, and now that I'm sober
it's just all too clear that what that fellow said about,
"You can't go home.
You can't go home,"
is true,

especially after spending most of your lifetime alone.

I'll never look good in a mini-dress

I know you want a skinny old man;
I'll try to put down this candy I got in my hand.

Law and Order

You were court-ordered to swim across the sea,
and the judge took a private plane.

The cloning process

If you could steal my imagination, would you
give it back to me, when I needed it?

I don't care

I don't care about baseball.
I don't care about t.v.,
all that I care about is the way
that you look at me.

I don't care about Reality T.V.
I don't care about Fox News,
all that I care about is that
you talk to me.

I don't care about Michael Jackson,
I don't care about Dick Cheney,
I just care that you care about me.

I don't care about no M & M's
I don't care about no McDonald's
I just care about you.

I don't care what time the clock on the wall says it is
when I am holding your hand.
I don't care if it is time to go to bed when I am stroking
your back,
and I wish that the alarm clock would never go off,
in the morning, when you are spending the night with me.

All alone with me

Am I having fun yet, I asked me, and only me,
sitting where I was, all alone, and I answered me
in the affirmative: I was having fun being me,
just me, all alone with me.

Boys who used to ignore you

He cast aspersions at your virginity, told the whole class
that the quarterback had had his way with you under the goal post,
and, now, boys from the baseball team, who used to ignore you,
are now asking you out.

I'm neither a rambler, nor a gambler

I'm a stay at home kind of guy.
I like to travel, but I don't like
to stay gone for too long; I got dogs
I know who will be missing me.
I like hotel rooms, but I don't want
to stay on the road,
I like to turn out the lights at night at home.

Lulu

Have a great day Lulu
is what I just text messaged
my family and friends.

Lulu means I love you.

Happily up a creek without a paddle

I'm rudderless until 3 p.m.
except for, most likely, a swim.
I've had my coffee,
now I'll have a tea,
make sure that everything is awake inside of me.

Just Fine

They decided that to cure her fear of water,
that they would throw her in the water, and she drowned.

They decided that to cure her fear of horses,
they would make her ride; the horse threw her
to the ground, and kicked her to death.

They decided that since she was scared to drive,
they would give her the keys, tell her to get in the car,
and go. They found her at a red light, dead;
she had had run the light and hit another car, head on.

They left her alone, and let her proceed at her own pace,
and she did just fine.

You never never know

I'm falling down, falling down,
falling down, just when I thought
that I was going to be standing tall.

Ain't got no chocolate Jesus,
my American Girl has gone away,
all they got to say on the radio
is that Michael Jackson died with needles marks in his arms.

Isn't sad how a man at the top
turns out to maybe have been at the bottom,
and isn't that what Bob Dylan, used to say?

Maybe, then, I am not falling.
Maybe, I am where I am supposed to be.
Maybe there is a solution to having this arthritis go away.

One air by and for the people

I care about silver,
and I care about gold,
but I also care about air
that our grandkids won't be able to breath,

but I'm just a pawn on this chessboard,
on this chessboard of life, and my moves
don't make any difference to the overall game,
and, though they don't know it, even the kings
are beat.

Will God damn us for eternity?

Will you walk me down to the garden,
will you lead me to the poison,
will you hold the fruit out to me,
and make me eat it?

And when I do, God Damn it,
will God damn us for eternity?

What's my Cialis moment?

I'm trying to think of something
clever to say.

Is that a good thing?

You re like a broken record,
or a cd that constantly skips

Fill in

I want you in my arms,
even if it's only temporary.

But you take you with you wherever you go

Get on the bus, and roll to a distant city
where no one knows you, and the girls are pretty.

Burn your bridges, forget about your past,
the hold that the bottle has on you just can't last.

You'll be a new man once you get there, without a care;
drunk tanks won't open their doors for you anymore.

A segment of my morning

One dog has his head on my lap,
and one cat is playing with my foot,
and not trying to bite or scratch it,
which is very unlike him.

Ignorance is not bliss

I'm looking for a woman who adores me,
one who can't ignore me.

Even on your city street

If you are quiet, you can hear her whisper
in your ear, the sea so far away.



Always staying in today

I haven't cried in over a century.
I haven't lied since I met you,
wait that's a lie: I once told you
that I didn't love you.

I went to the zoo, and saw the trapped animals,
and thought how that love doesn't have to be so
difficult, can't we just cut through the bullshit,
be man and woman together without the approval of
the church and state?

I don't need no one else.
I was in this place by myself,
when I met you all that changed,
you rearranged my thinking.

I think I'll love you until tomorrow,
always staying in today,
always staying in today, yeah.

No love No umbrella

I'm going to tell you
how to live,
and you are going to tell me
how to die,
and I am always going to ask you
the reason why
you left me on a sunny day,
and didn't wait until it was raining.

Let's play in the sand

You're still sitting on the fence,
I'm waiting for an accident to happen,
accidentally, and, incidentally,
all this didn't have to happen,

we can program our minds for happiness,
we can set our heads on failure,
you were once a stranger,
now I can't shake you off
like morning sleepy head.

Make me smile won't you,
hold my hand won't you?
Make me smile won't you,
hold my hand won't you?

A small amount of time

I won't see you in the morning,
and I won't see you
in the afternoon or night,

and, somehow, that just ain't right;
it seems like you should be with me
every morning, afternoon, and night,

but we both know that our love
is not invincible,
though, on principle, I'd like to think
that everything lasts forever,
because anything short of forever
is just such a small amount of time.

Fool or addict, and does it matter?

I had a really good time, last night
never left the house
didn't wind up in a fight in a bar,
didn't wind up in the drunk tank,
waiting to face the man in the morning.

Was I just a fool
was I just a fool
to drink for so long,
or was something else going on?

Build a following

Make a million people smile,
make a million dollars,
make it so they can't live without you.

(For Art Linton)

But then again some friends stick with you

His name is unmentionable,
when it used to fall off my lips so easily.

That's just the way things go
on this road that we all are on;
sometimes friends desert you,
sometimes friends drop you,
sometimes friends wander off without you.

White Flag

I'm not lying when I say that I would be dieing
without your love,
push come to shove I'd quit everything but you.

Where's the head?

I couldn't find a urinal
relieved myself where I
found myself,
now I'm facing a tribunal,
for pissing on myself.

Government is mostly an illusion,
an intrusion into your actions
and thoughts,
when you wouldn't have hurt anyone anyway;

the man on the hill has to keep you still,
or you might wind up being his neighbor.

Fake it until you make it.
Fake it until you make it,
bake bread in your own special way.

How do you feel?

There is no verification.
There is no authentication.

Do the pretty fish have health insurance?

I didn't notice it, but a small child did,
and fussed about it to her mother, alerting me to it's presence.

If I had noticed it, I would have fussed, also,
to see a several hundred gallon fish tank, in the emergency room,
filled with many beautiful fish.

I wonder how many of the people who are here, tonight,
come here because they have nowhere else to go. Here
they get a little bit of attention for awhile. Someone
checks their blood pressure. Someone puts a thermometer
in their mouth. Someone holds their wrist while checking
their pulse. It is the only attention that they will get
all day, all week, and, maybe, for the rest of their lives.

--Mikel K

Lack of insite

I don't understand it,
maybe I'll never understand,
maybe it will always frustrate me
dammit.

Hey hey my my, when you're alive,
you mostly feel like you're never gonna die,
and when you're dead no one knows what really happens
though there are lots of theories, and postulations.

And my my hey hey, I feel like today is going to be a pretty day,
and when you have that to say, things mostly turn out that way
Because what you program in your head is what you're going to feel
when you get out of bed.

Someday you will regret all those tender moments missed

What you are, and what you would like to think of yourself as
being are not equal. The world doesn't care what you are up to;
everyone is too busy looking at themselves to look at you,
so hold hands, hug, kiss like there will be no tomorrow.

I'm thinking about cooking some eggs, frying them, actually, and putting them between some flour tortillas. I'll add a dab of mayonnaise, a little bit of hot sauce, a smattering of lettuce, and some diced onions; won't that be a good way to start my day?
Often, I eat oatmeal, which is probably healthier, but I'm out of oatmeal right now.

I don't have to work today, which is really nice. My favorite days are my days off. I love having to be nowhere at any particular time. I'll swim around noon, and take a Yoga class tonight, provided that my arthritis will let me.

I just finished drinking a hot tea with milk; it was yummy.

Almost every morning, I prick my finger to draw blood, and then I put a drop of blood on what is known as a diabetes test strip, and then I put the test strip in a small meter that tells me what my blood sugar level is. I do this before I eat, or drink anything. The dogs often stare at me while I do this, wondering what I am up to. The cats could care less; the turtles are oblivious to the process.

Maybe it's to early to write, maybe I should crawl back into the bed, close my eyes and go back to sleep.

The dogs and cats are still asleep, that's often a good indication that it is too early to be up; the animals have a great sense of night and day.

Number one in the mirror only

You say you're a shooting star
but I see where you are
you're where you've always been
a really lousy friend.

You wanted to get from A to B,
who knew that it would be me
who handed you the key
I miss you less than you miss me

because I see where you are
You're not a shooting star.
You're where you've always been,
a loser and a lousy friend.

In your misery, you always sought sympathy
from me,
you're a really lousy friend
you'll be lonely and miserable until the end.

Blah blah blah.
Blah blah blah.

Art Linton: he more than gets by with a little help from his friends
By Mikel K (Poet)

I met the nicest guy, last night; in the weirdest place of all for me to meet a nice guy: a bar. He looked like a school teacher, or maybe a journalist, but I knew that he was at that bar to sing in a rock n roll band. I didn't know what to expect, other than that his drummer, and his guitar player were top notch players, and that his bass player came highly recommended to me by his drummer.

His pre-song banter was interesting:

"This sure is a small stage," he said, with a smile, looking around at the men, and musical equipment, crammed on the small, small stage with him.

"Do you like my Jimi Hendrix t-shirt?" he asked the audience. I bought it at Target, he said, rolling the store name over his lips, making the discount department store sound like a posh French boutique. We've all made that joke about Target, before, but coming from this guy, on that stage, it seemed funnier to me than it ever had to joke about shopping cheap, and calling it high class at that department store.

I wonder if Hendrix had lived would he have found humor in his image being sold in Target's men's department. Maybe not, but, once the man on the stage started to play, Hendrix would have had a smile on his face in appreciation for what was going down in front of him.

"I've got two new records out," said Linton, "and this first song is off of one of them, it's called. "Little Red Telephone."

Sometimes a band, and, sometimes the man singing in that band, take a few songs to warm up, to show you what they have got, what they are capable of, but Art Linton and Friends, hit a groove right from the first note of this first song; in fact the band hit such a groove that I put my pen down, took no more notes, and just listened to an amazing night of music.

Art Linton is an incredible story teller, and he tells a different story in each song that he writes and sings. His voice goes from raspy in one song to choir boy in the next; one minute he and his friends are
doing something that sounds like Lou Reed, and the next they are doing something influenced by The Beatles.

I don't know what flavor of the month that the record labels are looking for now, but if they want a flavor that will last and last, they really ought to look at and sign Art Linton and Friends, and if you are looking for a band that rocks, and a singer who rolls, and roll, I really suggest that you seek out Art Linton and Friends when they next play live, and check out the Art Linton c.d.s, "Enemy Lines," "Time Heals All," and, "Fool For You." The cds are as much fun, and are as exciting as a live Art Linton gig.

Go see Art Linton live, and then take him home with you!
You can check out some Art Linton videos by entering his name on You Tube.
and Mr. Linton can be found at www.myspace.com/artlinton
Check I Tunes to purchase Art Linton cds.

Peace, and love, baby!
PS Time Heals All is Mikel K's favorite Art Linton song. What's yours?

Wait your turn for satisfaction

Bundy used to get insanely jealous
when I would pet Morisson. Bundy would
put his head between Morisson's head
and my hand, and try to steal the action.
Bundy doesn't do this as much, any more,
he has developed a patience, and ability
to wait his turn to get his head rubbed.

I call this immense progress.

If we could walk with the animals

Monkey, the stray cat, who I feed every morning
allowed me to pick her up, this morning.
Both cat, and I, were tentative about it,
but a quick hug, and a back rub went down
without anyone getting scratched, or hurt.

Monkey is no longer scared of my dogs,
Morisson, and Bundy. Each morning, cat and dogs
sniff each other out, as the dogs head to
take care of business, and the cat heads towards
the bowl of cat food that I have put out for her.

The dogs have learned not to chase Monkey
across the lawn, and Monkey has learned
not to hiss at the dogs and wave her paw at them.

Peace and love is certainly the way to go.

I'm thinking

I am thinking of going to Yoga, this morning,
to the open practice that occurs on Sundays.
I have not been to Yoga in about three weeks;
the pain of my arthritis has been keeping me
away. The pain has receded a bit, the last
several days, and I think that, today, might
be a good day to do some basic asanas and see
my Yoga friends.

Bread or bombs, baby?

If a third or a fifth of the amount of money
that The United States Government puts into
preparing for war, were put into education and
health care, I bet we would still be ready to
beat the shit out of our "enemies."

America seems to need an enemy.
Yesterday, it was Communism;
today it is Al Queda,
tomorrow it will be big bad bunny rabbits.

America has an armaments industry
that is insatiable; it needs war
for profits.

Can't we cut back on a few $15 billion helicopters
and reduce the amount of money that our children
have to borrow to go to college, and make sure that
ketchup is not a "vegetable" in our younger kids'
school lunches?

Can't we cut back on the amount that the people
who make weapons for war make, and make sure that
every American can see a Doctor?

It seems pretty simple to me.

A toss up

Balloons blow up,
do you throw up, frequently?

This is not a love poem

One thing you deserve, for certain,
is some ice cream and some disappointment;
I anoint myself scooper of the chocolate fudge,
but you will have to find the disappointment
that you say that you deserve.

One thing is for certain
what good are friends
if they can't be there
when things are uncertain.

I'm creeping around on my hands and knees,
trying to figure out these things that you say you believe
wondering what is really on your mind, what you have up your sleeve.

This is not a love poem.
This is not a love poem.

Say

I am less concerned about being a Superstar,
than I used to be. I would like to be successful
as a writer; i.e. pay the bills with the words,
some day, but I am not really in a hurry for
all that to happen. Most days I feel quite
comfortable right where I am at, a man who is
available for his daughter, if she needs him.
(I am available for my two older boys also,
but they seem to have figured things out,
and don't depend on me like they did when they
were younger, say the age of their sister.)

Pills

I just almost swallowed my morning pills
thinking that they were my evening pills,
then realizing that I did not take
my morning pills this morning.

Occasionally, I do that, but I
don't freak out; I've been told
by my doctor that if I miss a
round, just pick up where I would
have been, and don't take both
rounds at the same time.

Why you would want to know any of this, I don't know

Busting loose salted, roasted peanuts in the shell
is something that I really enjoy doing, and, of course,
I thoroughly enjoy eating them, too.

Add, to that a nice cup of hot tea with milk,
or the occasional cola beverage, and I am almost in heaven.

At the house, I also enjoy the occasional peanut butter
and strawberry, or raspberry, jam on white bread,
though I am careful not to keep this treat in the house
too often, because I am capable of downing a whole large jar
of peanut butter, and a whole loaf of white bread in one day.

When I'm out, I did sushi, especially the $8.95 for all you can eat
sushi bar that exists not to far from here.

Food is fun.

I am showing my age

My son did not know who Walter Cronkite was,
nor did one of my younger friends.

Say hello

Monkey, the stray cat who I feed did not head straight for
her food, this morning; she headed straight for my dogs to
say hello to them; strange how a cat who used to run away
from the dogs, now finds them more interesting than her morning meal.

It's chilly in July

It is mid-July, and I just turned the air conditioner off
because it is too cool in here. What a blessing to have
a lower power bill, this year.

Weird weather

It is 62 degrees this morning, here in Atlanta, Georgia. This is amazing for a late July morning, is it not? Should we look at this chill, as a blessing, or further proof that the earth is out of balance?

Chirping birds

I haven't heard bird chirping outside my window in awhile. I don't know if it is because it is July, or if it is because I have not been listening for them. Are there birds chirping outside your window?

There's a new kid in town

Sometimes, it appears as if there is nothing new, or worthwhile, to write about; these are the times that you have to dig deep, and, often, looking into your past is a good thing to do to find something to write about.

I was in a Catholic School through fifth grade, and there were transitions to be made moving to a Public School. In the Catholic School, we were taught to stand up when we spoke to the teacher. In the Public School, I got laughed at, by the other kids in my class, for standing up in this situation. It took awhile, and a few erasers zinging off my head for me to learn the new behavior that I was supposed to exhibit.

Behind me was a kid who would slap my head, every time that I stood up, and on other occasions that he deemed fit. One time when he slapped me, I turned around and told him that the next time that he slapped me, I was going to hit him. He ignored my warning, so the next time that he slapped me, I turned around, climbed over his desk, and cold cocked him. A fight ensued, that it took the teacher awhile to hear. When she did discover our little brawl, she sent both of us to The Principal. When The Principal heard my side of the story, he let me go back to class, and the other fellow got in trouble.

Weird the things that you have to go through, moving from one type of school to another. This little fight, though, weirdly enough, gained me respect among the other kids in my new class. I guess the kid that I fought with was a bit of a bully, and a trouble maker, and the other kids respected that I stood up to him. Weird, also, the way you gain respect in a new school. Those kids didn't care that I made good grades; they cared that I had cold cocked the bully.

I soon started sitting down when I talked to the teacher.

What a blessing

I visited my grandson, last night; he was a little sleepy head, but it was still good to see him. He is growing by leaps and bounds, and his hair is still wild. He is much more aware than he was, checking things out very alertly. What a pretty young man that he is. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

I am powerless

The dogs and cats are asleep, and one of the turtles;
I should be asleep, too, but, sometimes, there are just
times when I can't pull myself away from the computer
screen; even to pee. It's sick really; do they have a
12 step program for Face Book?

"My name is Mikel, and I am powerless over Face Book."

If there was such a organization, I should probably join, but
I wouldn't, because I am in denial. I don't wind up
in the drunk tank, covered in blood and puke, when I am
strung out on FB. I don't lose friends(I make them.)
I don't black out(I do zone out for hours at a time.)
FB is not contributing to me flunking out of college,
or getting into bar fights. FB is not causing me to drive
drunk.

Therefore, I am clean and serene.

I need ear plugs

"Don't eat peanuts," she said, "Eat almonds,"
and I cringed a little. I mean, almonds are
o.k., but there is nothing like a big ole,
and, "fattening," as she was saying, roasted,
salted in the shell peanut.

"Don't drink milk," he said, "Drink soy,"
and I cringed. I mean, there is nothing like
milk in a hot cup of tea; soy milk in tea is
rather blasphemous.

I might have to stop listening to these people.

An easy pick up

I need to jump off of Niagra Falls,
or climb the Empire State Building.
I need to do something new, and bold;
there is only so much that you can write
about your dogs, your cats, and your turtles.

I need to get out of the house some,
maybe stare at some strippers,
watch a cop bust a crack dealer,
watch a fire,
go to a pet store,
a grocery store,
well, maybe not a grocery store
I don't know if there are a lot of poems
inside a grocery store
unless I am going to write about women
pushing children around in their carts,
or celery just lying there on a shelf
waiting to go home with you.

Eating mostly kills the muse

I'm about to give up on the morning pursuit of poems,
fry me some eggs, put a little mayo, and lettuce on them eggs,
stick them eggs between a tortilla, and that will be it.
Once I have eaten, the muse is dead, there will be
no more poems this morning, and that may mean that there are
no more poems today.

Not right now Morisson

I'm certainly not doing that
I say to the dog
as he parks his ass on my hand,
somehow he has gotten my hand
from his head to his ass
and is working that ass
on my hand
like some stripper
who is also a whore might.

I don't mind rubbing the dog's ass
every once in a while
but it takes time to give a dog
a good ass rub
and I don't have that time right now
I am seating in front of the computer
trying to see if there are any poems in me
this morning.


I rarely drink more than one cup of coffee, in the morning, these days. I used to drink a whole pot, but making my coffee Melita style may have helped me cut back. I don't find myself so tense, these, days, on less coffee. Drinking coffee in front of my computer screen helps me cut back, also. Usually, when I'm involved with something on the monitor in front of me, I wind up with a third to a fifth of a cup of cold coffee in the cup. I do not drink cold coffee, and that includes ice coffee; can't stand it, though I am an addict to hot coffee.

The thermometer on my computer screen says that it is 67 degrees outside. My, my, my...the computer screen also says that it is July 22...my, my, my. I have my air conditioners cut off, and that gets one more...my, my, my.

The arthritis that has been crippling me for over a month, has, for some reason, abated. On Sunday, I was able to go to Yoga practice, and actually practice. I was able to walk the dogs around the block, and the dogs, and I, had not been on any kind of a walk since the arthritis hit, and I was able to ride my bike to the club where I read some poetry, pick up my music stand, and ride it back to the house. The first two of these things are minor miracles, which I am greatly thankful for. I really thought that Yoga, and walking the dogs were things of the past. I think that swimming is what is responsible for this great transition in my existence. Swimming is the one thing that I am able to do no matter what is going on with my body. I can be in great pain, but once I hit the water, my body reacts like it is a spring chicken.

Bicycling has been, and still is, easier than walking; the only problem with it, being getting on, and off the bike. I have completely fallen, one time, getting on the bike, and I have almost fallen an enumerable number of times, both getting on, and off, the bike.

There is an old saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I guess that I am making lemonade. I had help, I believe, from Jeanne French, who prayed over me when I was at her husband's, Frank, Art Linton gig, last week. I felt something powerful, something click when she was praying with/on me. Any of you who pray, please pray for me, will you? And pray for my kids, and family...and pray for yourself, and your families...and let's all pray for everybody in this crazy world that we live in...Amen.

Do we really have to win all the time?

It won't be what I want; will it?
It is never what we want: is it?
Sometimes, you just have to settle for consolation prizes,
be content with coming in second or third.
You can scratch your head, and wonder about it all,
but you can't change it.

And with that, I am going to go swim.

Should you categorize someone who you don't really know?

I woke up feeling shitty
because I stayed up late talking to a lady
who is pretty and smart.

I had weird jiu jitsu dreams;
my instructor had moved on from the mat
and now owned a restaurant and bar.

I am amazed by how you can experience jealousy,
and anger in a dream; I was asking a young lady
for her phone number, when a guy better looking
than me budded into the conversation, and she
wound up blowing me off.

They say that you are supposed to record your dreams,
so that is what I have done here.

What do "they" have to say?

"They" tell me that anger is depression turned outward.
I never much thought about it, back when I was often
angry, and depressed, and, back then, I never much stopped
to listen to what "they" had to say. Advice is funny
like that; you don't much hear it when you need it.

Poets are regular people

I'm going to fold some laundry,
which, I know, does not seem like
a very poetry type thing to do,
but it is, because poets need folded
laundry, also; which can serve
to point out that poets are just
regular people: they eat peanut butter,
and fry eggs, and all of that, except
for the eggs, if they are vegan.

Good Bundy Good

Bundy has gotten very good at coming to me
when I call to him while he is savagely barking
at the mailman, through the door.
I think that he likes the praise that he receives,
and the pats on the head that he gets, almost as much,
if not more than, he likes to bark at the mailman,
and bare his teeth at the only person who comes to our door
wearing a uniform.
This is certainly progress, for there was a time,
when Bundy would completely blow me off
in favor of baring his teeth at the mailman.

The inevitable place where some of us reside

It is easy to slip back into feeling nothing,
easy if you let yourself go back to that place
where you have been before when love hasn't worked out.

Knowing what a monster love is, should we keep trying,
trying to find that perfect place that only exists for
a short time?

Why you left me alone

I know why you smile
I know why you scream
I know why you fart
I know what you dream
I know what you eat
When you seem abstract,
I know what you mean
I know why you decorated
your house the way you did
I know how much you love
your kid.
The only thing that I don't know
about you is why you left me alone.

Who is who?

My brain is shutting down for the day,
but not without duly noting that one
of the sexes come to criticize, and
the other sex comes to inspire and uplift.

I'll let you figure out who is who.

I guess there are an infinity of choices

The swimming pool was mostly empty, today,
because the temperature was close to eighty degrees.
I wonder what all the swimmers do, when they don't swim?

Rant

Some people watch Soap Operas,
we chat on the internet,
they don't see how we do what we do,
and we find their behavior foreign.

Where does a good looking girl
with a brain find sudden release,
from all the men who just want to bed her?

I'd wed her, but I don't believe in
the institution, and neither does she.

It's Thursday, I might get my car washed,
but I don't have a car, and the car wash
doesn't wash bicycles, or feet.

So, I'm available

So, I'm available, would anyone like to have coffee,
coffee accompanied by conversation. We could get a
real world look at each other, and see if what we have
said on the internet matches up to what we say in reality.

This is lame.
Bye.

It's better this way

It's better that it ended
before it really got started;
what she wants
and what I want
don't even nearly collide,
and the longer that you flirt
with each other,
the longer that you
tell each other that you
are just friends,
the longer that you look into each other's eyes
and see beauty in the world,
the more it's going to hurt
when whatever it is finally
explodes.

Alone is better than being with the wrong one

I am back to being alone
most of the time
just me and these dogs
and cats and turtles
who never desert me.

I'd like to find someone
who would never leave me
alone; do you think that
that is possible.

The dogs like it when
I am alone; I spend more time
here with them.
The cats could care less;
that's just how they are,
and I don't think that the turtles
are even aware of my existence
except for when I lift the top
to their box, and drop food in.

I'm a real ice cream eater

I really want some ice cream, I mean, I really, really
want some ice cream, and if I had ice cream in the house
I would eat it. I would eat all the ice cream in the house
whether it was a quarter of a gallon, a half gallon, or a full gallon.
That is the kind of ice cream eater that I am. I eat, and I eat,
and I eat ice cream until all the ice cream is gone, no matter
how large or small the container is that that ice cream is in.

It did

I've got knots in my stomach.
I am going to take Yoga
for only the second time
in over a month.
I hope that this arthritis-infested
body of mine cooperates.

Who is jealous and who is not

It's always the ones who say that they are not jealous
who turn out to be the most jealous.
I tell them up front, that I am jealous.
I don't know if that makes any difference,
in the way things feel, but at least I can say I told you so.


Where no direction sometimes leads you

It seems we are not what we were
and I don't feel any different.

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Sage advice

Don't ever date a woman who is not willing
to commit, especially when you are not wanting
to commit, either; it is a recipe for disaster.

Senseless

I think that I could get her back.
I could beg, I could plead; I could
be rational with her, but the thing
is that we are going to break up
some day(we both know it) so why
extend the pain. Why not suffer
a little bit now, and avoid a lot
of pain later.

Does that make any sense to you?

Jesus is just alright

Someone said, yesterday, that Christ is the only thing perfect. Christ is not perfect. Christ is an illusion, a cruel manipulation,a puppet, a pawn used by centuries of conmen to subjugate the people, to extrapolate cash from the mass of man and women. We could argue Christ until we are blue in the face. There are as many versions of Christ as there are people arguing, or discussing Christ.

The inevitability of certain conclusions

The buzzer has just gone off on the drier
signalling that it is time to fold coths,
but I don't feel like folding cloths,
later in the day, the clock on my desk
will say that it is time to go to work,
but I have a feeling that I will not feel like
going to work, someone just broke up with me,
I do not feel like being broken up with,
but what can I do?

I love you baby

I like the really hot ones, at first,
but if it turns out that they don't have
a brain and or a personality, I drop them.
What good is having a really good looking girl
on you arm, if you can't talk to her;
sex is just sex, after all, and a lot of the
really good looking ones are worthless in bed.

I used to have this fantasy about finding
"a rich girl." You know, a gal, with enough money
for both of us, so that she could do whatever
she does, and I could do what I do, and neither one
of us would have to worry about running for the time
clock. This guy in high school used to tell us that,
"There were no free lunches." He was right.

"Love" is a weird word. I think that maybe it is
an easier word for younger people to feed into,
than it is for me, though I will never stop looking for it.

Man overboard

I went swimming, today; it was not a good swim,
perhaps I had swam myself out, earlier in the week,
and should have stayed home today.
I was sucking air, right from the first lap,
and it went downhill from there.
I had to share a lane with this lady
who kept swimming by me.
Every time I stopped to take a breath,
she would swim by me.
She must have swam 10,000 laps to every one
that I swam.
Then this gorilla joined us in our lane,
without asking, he just plunked his large ass
in our water and started moving up and down the lane.
That was more than I could deal with.
Looking back on it, I should have stayed
and made his swim miserable by always getting in his way,
by slowing down, or stopping every time that he came up
to pass me, but I didn't think of that until I left the pool.
He was probably the excuse that God sent me
to get out of the pool.
It wasn't a good swim day.

Girl Sought(and this one would be just right)

You know , sometimes, I dont know why,
But this old town just seems so hopeless
I ain't really sure, but it seems I remember the good times
Were just a little bit more in focus

But when she puts her arms around me,
I can, somehow, rise above it
Yeah man, when I got that little girl standing right by my side,
You know, I can tell the whole wide world, shove it,

Hey, here comes my girl, here comes my girl,
Yeah, she looks so right, shes all I need tonight

--Lyrics from the song, "Here Comes My Girl,"
By Tom Petty, and Mike Campbell

Girl sought(and this one would be just right)
the one in the song.--Mikel K

It's all about me

It's all about me; really it is,
no matter how hard I try to make it
about you, it always comes back to me,
my wants, my needs, what would make me
feel good.

Great philosophical, and religious, writers
have told me that the way to a great self
is to get out of me, and to get into you.

I woke up this morning not sure how I felt;
I was leaning towards feeling sorry for myself,
but then a friend Im'd me and told me that

"The morning has broken...
It's broken a plate over my head,"

and I realized that someone out there
was probably having a worse morning
than I thought that I was, maybe, going to have
and, suddenly, as I felt bad for her,
I realized that I was in a good position,
and I'm really going to try to care more about you,
than I do me, but it's not going to be easy,
because I am very into me.

If I was a rich and famous poet

If I was a rich and famous poet
I would get postcards and letters
in the mail from people in far away places
telling me how my poetry had made their life better,
how the words that I had written somehow made
the pain of their life somehow less painful,
but I'm not a rich and famous poet,
so all I get in the mail are letters from people
telling me that I owe them money
and that if I don't pay them soon my life will be fucked.

Love can go both ways

Nobody took my temperature.
Nobody put lotion on my back.
Nobody looked in my eyes, today,
and said that they love me.

I feel like I'm missing out,
as good as things are,
I feeling like I'm missing out
I feel like I should be kissing you.

Nobody told me to pick my socks up off the floor.
Nobody told me to stay out of the refrigerator.
Nobody told how to comb my hair.
Nobody told me to shave.

Maybe I'm not missing you,
maybe kissing you has a price
that I can't pay.

My cats suck

The cats are rubbing it in that I have to go to work, in a bit.
They are sprawled out on the bed, looking quite comfortable
Jaggar is especially antagonistic, laying on the black bag
that I carry to work, as if to say, ha, ha, I can rest on it,
but you have to bring it to work.
At least I will bet some satisfaction out of
ruining his comfortable little spot for him when I leave
and pick the bag up from under him.

Murky

I don't really feel like having to work, tonight,
but I have to work, tonight.
I don't really feel like taking a shower, tonight,
before I go into work tonight, but I have to take a shower,
tonight, before I go into work.
I'm wondering if there was ever a woman
who didn't feel like making love to me
who made love to me anyway.
I doubt it, but I can't be sure; that's how these things are.

If only if only

If they are not going to stay,
then they should stay away
in the first place.

If they want more babies,
and you have had a vasectomy,
the two of you should be wise enough
to know, from the beginning,
that you are not a good match.

If you are a nymphomaniac,
and she is almost as virginal
as a young Catholic girl saving it for marriage,
it might not be the healthiest thing
for either of you to lay down on the bed,
and start rubbing each other's bodies.

Of course, there is the problem
that, besides these things,
there are a lot of things that
the two of you enjoyed doing together,

but that wasn't enough.

Some things you just don't ask for

Arthritis makes simple things difficult,
things like getting on, and off, your bike,
things like taking Yoga, and, even at times
simply walking.

There are challenges that you ask for in life,
like Yoga, and, maybe, riding your bike cross-country,
and walking up a mountain, but nobody asks
for regular ole normal walking, regular ole bike riding
to be a challenge.

It'll be like starting over

I hugged the rope in Yoga, last night,
for most of the class. The left side
of my body still does not want to cooperate,
it still just wants to give me massive
amounts of pain. Each class, now, is
somewhat like each class, in the beginning,
a huge challenge, with each move a move
into dark, and unchartered, territories.

Flushed

Sometimes, they drop you
like they drop their eyeliner
in the bathroom of a club,
when they have had too much
to drink, and have been
visiting the little white powder
that they swore they'd never
ever visit again.

And then when they flush the toilet,
it's as if that is where
all these great plans that you had
for your life have gone.

I'm really being overly dramatic
about this, I really am.

You got to grab that inspiration where you find it

Usually, I make the coffee first,
and then I sit down in front of the computer,
and see what I have in me.
But, this morning, the urge came to me
as I was in the bathroom pissing,
the urge to write this poem
that I was scared that I would lose
if I dallied about before getting it down.
I know that you probably don't want
to hear about me pissing,
but that is just how it goes, sometimes.

Like Lennon said, A working class hero is something to be

The dogs want affection, or maybe they want to go outside,
and do their thing, but I am too wrapped into this keyboard,
this morning, to have even started my coffee.

It's noon; I worked late.
I did the work of ten people because the corporation needs
to save on labor.
That was me making coffee, serving coffee, re-stocking the food,
washing all the dishes, wiping down the counters,
cleaning all the glass, sweeping and mopping the floors,
and doing all the paper work that is involved in a closing shift.
What a pain in the ass, really.
When I started the job, six months ago, two people worked side by side
to do this amount of work.
I'm not complaining.
I'm really not.
I mostly like the job, although if the boss reams me, again,
like she did, last week, I might tell her to fuck herself.

Not enough

I don't feel old, except for my legs,
and my legs feel ancient;
actually, they don't feel old, they feel painful,
which is what I am scared that old age,
for me, is going to feel like.

I'll still have to work; I won't be
walking the beach.
I'll be bagging groceries,
like you see those old guys do at the grocery store.
I'll thank you for shopping with us,
but only because they tell me to,
and I need the job to keep from wind up wandering
the streets, alone, and hungry.

I'll probably have Alzheimer's
and I'll be in one of those state run nursing homes;
even my children will get tired of coming to see me
drool on myself.

I guess that I am not optimistic this morning.
I better go take my pills, and see if they help.
The biggest pill that I take is an anti-inflammatory
for the pain in my legs.
It helps, but not enough.

Love is sometimes like a game of cards

It's taken a week, but I've stopped waiting
for her to call, or send me an email.
I'm not really sure of the reason she dropped me,
she might say that she didn't drop me,
that she simply went into a funk, and needed time alone,
but I still got dropped, kicked to the curb,
abandoned like a dog, or cat, that she couldn't afford anymore
because her house got foreclosed on, and she she had to move
and not take the animal with her.

I will survive.
I've been through this before.
I'm 52, now, and when I was eighteen,
the first girl I ever "loved"
started loving someone else
while she was still in high school
and I was off being her loyal man in college.

You win some, you lose some.
Sometimes, you get dropped,
sometimes you do the dropping.

Like the man in the song said, "You got to know when to fold 'em."

She was, perhaps, an American girl

"I've looked around enough to know that you're the one
I want to go through time with."--Jim Croce

If life, or at least love, was as simple as a good love song,
then think how much easier love would be.

"But when she puts her arms around me,
I can, somehow, rise ab ove it
Yeah man, when I got that little girl standing right by my side,
You know, I can tell the whole wide world, shove it."
--Tom Petty

Money is where it's at
not poetry
not love
not children,
that's what some men would tell you.

I had this thought while I was urinating;
it seemed important, so I wrote it down.

Wow

She says where to put the kitchen table,
and he wants to control the couch
and the remote control.
She winds up living in the kitchen,
and he has more than just his tools in the garage,
doesn't even have to come inside for supper, anymore.

They live together, and look good on paper,
a happy man and wife.
The church smiles upon them; there are going to
go to Heaven, as long as they keep putting money
in the Collection Plate.
The State Sanctions the union,
and, at this point, neither one of them can afford
an attorney to break it.

You drive by their house and say, "wow,
it sure must be nice to live in there."

KO

I'm drowning in tears that I've cried
while remembering how pretty you looked
when you sang that lullaby.

My kitchen will never be the same;
I've burned my bed, put all our memories
out in the recycle bin,

someone else can have them,
I'm done taking it on the chin.

The ticket

If I had a voice that could sing,
if I had a face that could bring women running,
then I wouldn't be me.

And, if I was perfect,
I still wouldn't be in love with you.

Modern transportation leads to anarchy,
everyone is going in so many different
directions.

I'd like to buy some pop corn at the movie,
but I can't even afford the ticket to get in.

The last bus for home

Someday, I will walk on a happy moon,
but, for right now, it's just much too soon.

I was raised by The Priests,
those single men taught me about love,
and marriage.

Sometimes, when I hear a Robin sing,
I don't think about anything else at all.

I don't want to around people who own fancy houses,
I don't want to be around people who drive fancy cars.
They'd want me to cut their lawn for free,
and then wash their car after it was dark,
and I was near to missing the last bus for home.

The Virgin Mary has never visited me,
and I think that she had sex with Joseph,
but what does all this matter;
the fifth of the month is coming up, soon,
and I better have the rent money in hand,
or I'll wind up a statistic like those folks
who you see all too often on t.v.

And the dogs growled through the door at her like she was a stranger

Maybe she came by to say hello.
Maybe she came by to put a gun at your head.
Maybe she came by to give you gonorrhea.
Maybe she came by to give you flowers(to place over your grave?)
Maybe she came by to return a book.
Maybe she came by to smile.
Maybe she came by to reminisce,
but, anyway, it doesn't matter;
it's over, and you weren't home.

You can't happily eat an apple homeless

There is no reason to hang out
anywhere an apple is the same
as a pear,

wearing no underwear is just
the same as wearing underwear,
playing tennis is like playing
golf,
it's not my fault, though, if
you don't pay your rent, because
that one matters.

An empty bottle of gin

I have books on my shelves
that I've never read,
like some women have men
who they never believed.

Mr. K

Mr. K, On any given day, in any given poem, you are The Greatest Living American Poet. You often surpass Bukowski, you eclipse Walt Whitman, and you make Billy Collins look like he was writing for a class of kindergarteners. Don't die before they all know what I know.--Theodore Sandburg

And, once you get them reading, you better have something to write...

John Martin, are you there?

I wonder how many poor bastards out there think
that they are going to be the next Bukowski,
that a John Martin is going to come into their life,
tell them to quit their jobs, and just write, write, write.

You've got to have discipline

If I stop, in the morning, for too long
to assess what I have written, it will
cut drastically into my writing time.
When you are writing, you can not get sidetracked
by things like an instant message from
a beautiful intelligent woman
who wonders how your morning is going.

Bundy behaviors

Bundy likes to sniff cats,
and he likes to chase them.
I have not tried to inhibit
his sniff desires,
but I have strongly curbed
his chase them behavior.

He outwits me, though,
when I am not looking,
like, this morning,
he chased Jaggar through
the house, after I had
taken him out to relive himself.

Sue me

In case you haven't noticed,
I tend to embellish.
I exaggerate.
and, sometimes, I outright lie.

It's called poetic license,
or grandiose thinking,
or embellishment,
exaggeration,
or lying.

I don't know what it occurs,
but I bet that every writer
worth a darn is guilty of it.

There is always payback

She is doing to me,
what I have done to others,
dropping me like a hot potatoe.
I know the signs,
because I've been on the other side
of this.
The key is not to grovel.
The key is not to make a fool
of yourself.
The key is to realize what is happening,
and adjust accordingly.
The key is to not head to the corner,
break down, and cry.

Status

Girls like her are always, "In a relationship."
Guys like me are perpetually in the "It's complicated category."

And I need attention

To her, I'm a novelty item
a passing fad
something to be consumed
and then tossed like can of diet soda.
I don't mind.
Bad attention is attention.

Fat boy

I'm getting fat tonight. I can't be happy with just one piece of toast, loaded with butter and strawberry jam, I have to eat half the loaf, covered with butter, and strawberry jam. My weight is killing me, and I'm going to die fat; I have diabetes, and bad arthritis, from carrying around too much fat on these bones. If I could just go to sleep, and not wake up, I wouldn't mind dieing, but it looks like to me, for me, that dieing is going to be a painful process. I'm an alcoholic, haven't had a drink in almost eighteen years, and I was thinking, in the bathroom, a couple of hours ago, that if there was a pill more powerful than the one that I am taking, that I would take it; that if there was a pill that would make this pain go away, that I would be a junky, a pharmaceutical pill addict like they always talk about in those recovery TV shows. I don't do pain well; trust me.

Beware of women you meet on the internet

I'd tell her to fuck off,
but she makes me salivate
like a Pavolov's dog.

I met her when she was a sweet sixteen,
but she lied to me and said that she was 21.

She pops into a little box in the computer screen,
every so often, and asks me how I am, and am I still
writing, and then she goes away.

What Bundy doesn't know won't hurt me

I'll admit it; every once in awhile, I sneak Morisson a snack that Bundy doesn't get. It's not so much that Morisson is my favorite dog, as it that he eats faster than Bundy, and then sits in front of me, and the snack container, with those big brown begging sultry eyes, and just pleads please, please, please with the way he looks at me. So, Bundy is off finishing his first snack, sort of hiding in the living room with it, as he does, to make sure no one steals it from him, and I flip Morisson a second snack. Bundy never knows a thing; so what's the harm?

Note to a friend who is a father,

Dale, I loved the picture of you with your son. I can't believe how much he has grown in the year since I last saw you guys. The picture made me think of my son at that age, how fun it was to have a little man with me everywhere I went; how it gave my life such purpose, how having such an ultimate responsibility was the uttmost fun.
I can't believe how fast those years went by. My son is almost 21. He has a job; I hardly see him anymore, even though we live in the same town. We talk on the phone every day, though, and try to hook up once a week for dinner. Realize that time will fly by for you, too, my friend. I know that you know to spend it wisely. I know that you know to spend as much time as you can with both of your children: the moments with them turn out to be precious and few, once they are gone. Don't let them slip away.

Peace and Love
K

Not all men and women are created equal

I remember him in bits and pieces, like I do most things from back then, like I do most things now. Now, I think that it is my age, or my attention span, I use my brain to write, not to think about what shirt some guy might have been wearing back in the day. And back in the day, I thought about the buzz; how soon could I tied the next one on, and, eventually, how much trouble was I going to wind up in from tying one on.

Most Judges were friendly. The most time that I ever got was two weeks on a dui. where I got in a fist fight with the arresting officer. Besides that, I got a weekend, once. What the charges were for that, I never knew. Some redneck cop at this bar that I used to get drunk in decided that I was Al Capone, and made sure to remove me from the public's eye for a weekend.

Do you really believe in justice? I bet most cops don't.

It's the nothing that sucks

She disappeared fairly completely,
completely, actually, didn't even
leave a diet soda behind in the refrigerator.
I'm trying to get mad.
I want to call her up, and tell her off;
tell her that she did me like the guy before me
did her, complain to her about how it hurts me
as much as it hurt her, and how could she do such a thing
knowing how bad it hurt her.
But I won't.

I might wind up being one of those guys who doesn't make a penny from his writing, while he is alive, but who leaves behind such a huge body of work, that, eventually, one of the grandkids, or great-great grandkids discovers; he, or she finds and old, old lap top in the attic, surrounded by a great number of notebooks, sits down, and starts to read; and then, much like the mother of the guy who wrote, "Confederacy of Dunces," did, takes the poetry to someone who matters, gets it published, and lives off the royalty checks for the rest of his, or her, life.

Scratch that, it becomes like a Kennedy, or a Vanderbilt thing, and the whole family lives off the work, forever, even though the old man who wrote it ate noodles, and rice, all the time, when he was alive, so that he didn't have to hold much of a job, and could be doing what he felt that he was put on this earth to do, which was write.

I'm getting scared. This brilliant looking, and intelligent young lady, the other night, said to me that I was a Liberal, like Rollins, but, recently, all the adds sent to me have been from Conservative Christian Folk. I don't consider myself a liberal; I think that I am very Conservative on certain issues. I think that child molesters, and rapists should be tortured, in public, before they are put to death, and I think that we should all be allowed to arm ourselves to shoot ourselves, because, among other things, I don't want just The Cops, and The Military to have guns.

Dirty dishes, in my own sink, don't really bother me. When I feel like it, or when I really need a fork, a spoon, a knife, or a plate, I will dump what's in the sink into the dishwasher. I'm 52, and I've never had a dishwasher before, except for myself. I was thinking, earlier in the day, how some woman might find this unacceptable.

Well, when she first arrived on my doorstep, looking all pretty, and intelligent, and came inside, she would find a sparkling kitchen, but that wouldn't last for long, because I am tired of playing games with women. It is best that she know that washing dishes is not a priority in my life. I was in the kitchen making coffee, just a minute ago,(now, making coffee is a priority) and I was going to stop to wash the dishes, and I realized that I was on a run on the computer, that the words were flowing out of me like blood from Bonnie and Clyde, moments before they died, and that it would be stupid to stop that flow, interrupt the creative juices, to make sure that the kitchen was clean.

Some assholes are shooting off fireworks in The Park. It is July 25,
Dickheads, not July 4th. My poor dog Morisson is hugging my legs, under the chair that I am sitting on at my desk. Sometimes, I can't stand people; I really can't.

On a computer screen

I don't think of you,
until I think of you,
and, sometimes, I don't think of you,
until you are standing right in front
of me,
but it is always great to see you,
even if you are mostly words
on a computer screen.

For Cyndi Craven

A note to Dr. Gates before he goes off to Washington

There's a school of black that all that is white is bad,
and there's a school of white that all that is black is bad,
and, somewhere, hopefully in between there is you and me.

I dig your poetry a lot. You spin some great tales
in those well chosen words; a great ride.
--Cathy

As long as I feed them they are o.k.

The game's off
I toss and turn
alone,
waiting for the phone
to ring.

The cats and dogs
stare at the t.v.
watching an old movie.

Video

You set in stone, but you got to get someone to come see it.
Free beer: then their eyes are blurry, baby.

Not fair

One of the dogs put a pubic hair on my computer screen.
How else did it get there? I can hear the dog chuckling,
now. He thinks that it is funny, that I have to pick a
pubic hair up after him. Dinner for dogs is going to be
late.

I want to think of some clever line from a rock n roll song
to title this with, but I can't

I am having a second cup of coffee, this morning,
which is a rarity, these days. I used to drink
a whole pot of coffee in the morning, but, one morning,
I found myself yelling at one of my best friends
for no reason, really, and he said to me,
"Mikel, have you thought about cutting back
on your coffee?"
I looked at him, and said, "Dave Lyons, don't you
go there. I have cut back, or eliminated, everything
including drugs, and alcohol, cigarettes, many foods,
one night stands in blackouts with strangers who I
met in bars, nights in the drunk tank, stupid arguments,
and barroom brawls."
Dave just looked at me.
Several days, later, I started making my coffee
one cup at a time, instead of a pot at a time.
I haven't yelled at anybody since.

Would you like to take a ride in my nice car to a fancy restaurant, baby?

Some women want to hang out with you,
and some don't. Some will be scared off
from you because you live at the poverty level,
and seem to be almost happy there.
They don't understand that, for you,
the most important thing is to have free time
to write, and tying your existence to a job
that will let you have a nice car and fancy dinners
just doesn't seem to you to be the best thing to do
with your time on this earth.

Yum yum good

I made the greatest dinner, last night;
I boiled white rice, which I never buy,
(thanks to my pal Katie for turning me
onto it,) and I sautéed falafel, which
I cook all the time(this batch came from
Katie, also.) I mashed the falafel into
the rice, which I had already mashed
margarine(which Katie also gave me!)
and I added this curry sauce to it all.
(Katie didn't give me the curry sauce!)
I never buy white rice, opting normally
for brown rice, so the white rice was
quite a treat, kind of like eating white
bread, every once in a great while, when
you normally eat wheat or multi-grain breads.

Anyway, I'm not sure why I am telling you
what I ate last night, other than that it
was good, and I like to share good with you
wherever, and whenever possible.

God bless us all

Sometimes, when you get around homeless people,
you stop feeling sorry for them, at least I did.
You come to see them as very greedy; it is all
about what they want, and what you can do for them.
The same guy will panhandle you with the same story,
every other day, obviously lying to you; you figure
that he is just trying to catch a buzz, and you wonder
why you should help him get high.

This is probably a bad attitude to have.
I should probably love all people equally,
but I don't.

Everybody needs a helping hand, every once in awhile,
and we should all be availabe to help each other,
but sometimes too much is just too much,
and you have to help yourself.

I pray that neither you, or I, needs help
anytime soon, and I also pray that if we do
that it is there for us.

Taking what they're giving is easier when there are two of you

Normally there is only one of us
on duty, at work; one of us running about
taking orders for coffee drinks,
making coffee drinks,
and, if we work the night shift,
washing everything,
cleaning everything,
sweeping and mopping everything.
I worked a night shift, last night,
and was gladdened and surprised,
to see that my man Nigel was working with me.
Working last night, was like taking a vacation,
it was like a two for one.
It was a good thing, a very good thing.
I give props to Nigel.

My bad

I knew that I should take the dogs out,
last night, before I went to bed,
but I was exhausted, and hoped that
they could both make it until the morning.
Well, one of them couldn't
and he deposited a rather large pile of shit
at the front of the hallway
that leads to the bathroom.
Sometimes, when one of the dogs poops
in the house, I get angry,
but, this morning, I cleaned this poop up,
not happily, but at least knowing that that poop
was my fault.

She's a lot like you(think The Cars)

She doesn't listen
just like I used to not listen.
She doesn't believe in God.
I have always believed in God,
though in my darkest years
I never talked to him.
I am not pointing a finger at her,
just pointing out the obvious,
something to do here at five a.m.
while drinking coffee.

Get off the pity pot, pal

I'm like an old worn out shoe
that you don't want anymore
so you put it in the trash.

Stupid question

Call me;
I want to yell at you.
Do you think that it would work?
Could you get someone to call?

They can never know

They can never know
who will turn out to be
a psycho.

The can never know
when the pot of gold
will explode.

So they wear gloves, at first,
when they meet you.

The various roads that we are on

Mary Jane is looking for her first hit;
I'm trying not to get stoned.
Mary Jane is a song writer;
I'm a guy who used to be down and out.

Janis Ian wrote 17 when she was young,
and she is still singing it, now that she is old

She's had her hit
the road she is now on
is filled with second hand coffee houses
but, still, there might be a smile on her face

Mary Jane is looking for her first hit
I drink coffee, now.

Which baby turns out to be what and why

I am gracious, and I am full of gratitude;
I am lucky to be alive, and I know it.
I could be pushing up the daisies,
I could be sitting in a jail cell.
I could be running up and down the god-forsaken
green painted halls of a state mental institution
brain shriveled from doing drugs and alcohol
for too long/or worse, maybe, still be out there
on the skreets fighting with the other addicts
to get me a bottle of Listerine to get away
from it all once more for just a little while.
Every bum was once a baby, a beautiful baby
with potential.
I'm not sure if all babies are created equal,
if they all have the same potential,
when they are starting out; I do know that they
do not have the same opportunities.
I wonder what makes one baby turn out to be a bum,
and another something that everybody reveres?

All cats are not created equal

Jaggar is laying on Katie's shoes, like he does my slippers; Jaggar is cool, chill, like a beatnik stoned immaculate, until you breech his space, try to interact with him by laying a hand on him; your only intention to pet him, to lay some affection on him, but he is not having it; his guard gets immediately up, he puts his paws in the air, ready to scratch you, snd he will bite you, if you get too close.

Jaggar was found in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant; his chest was caved in, his mother was laying next to him, dead. You will have to pardon him, if he is not the most socially gracious cat; he is lucky to be alive, and he knows it, so don't fuck with his space, please; thank you.

I've been with Jaggar for almost two years, and only recently has he started sleeping on the bed with me. He finds the most far away spot on the bed, every night, and claims it. And should my feet roll near, or on to him, in the depths of the dark night,he will bite and scratch me, letting me know that I have strayed onto Jaggar territory. You wish that Jaggar would be more friendly, would give up some affection; he is the prettiest black cat, with the boldest, blazing yellow eyes, but he won't, not yet.

My great hope is, that, one day, Jaggar will crawl up on my chest, every time that I lay down on the bed, and demand that I scratch his head, and rub his back, like my other cat, Kobain, does, but you know something, I have been around cats long enough to know that not all cats are created equal.
MONDAY, JULY 27, 2009

Non-organic

I'd like to eat organic,
but, instead, I'm eating
store brand white bread,
and generic peanut butter.

Ain't got no veggies.
Ain't got no veggies,
lucky to be eatin' at all.

Maybe someone's mantra from the 60's

I don't want no manipulation.
I don't want no stimulaition.
I don't want no hippies sitting
at the bar.

Turn the page

I'm starting a new book, "The Art Of Racing In The Rain." It was written by a dog; I think that it is going to be a good one. Woof, woof.

What us regular folks know, too

I think that I just hear Axly say, "You're not going to
get out of life alive," in Guns n Roses version of
Knocking On Heaven's Door, which is a great version of
The Dylan Song, by the way.

He echoes what Morrison(The Singer, not my dog) says
when he says, "No one here gets out alive."

That's really all I have to say about this.
At some level, we all know this, us regular
folks who are not huge rock and roll superstars.

NOTIFICATION

Did anyone else get the NOTIFICATION taped to their front door, that looked like either the cops had been there, or the landlord had been there looking to evict you? The notice was MEAN & SCARY looking; I thought that I was certainly in trouble for something, and it turned out it was an ad from some new Wireless Internet Company. What dickheads; I'd suck off the wi-fi at a coffee shop, or steal bandwith from my neighbors before I'd drop a dime on these pukes.
POSTED BY MIKEL K POET AT 10:25 PM 0 COMMENTS LINKS TO THIS POST
Thought before I take a p.m. nap

My dog, Morrison is laying on the floor next to me, at me feet, as he usually does when I am at my desk writing the next Great American Poem. Normally, when I move, from or at the desk, Morrison jumps up, but, this time, he has stayed down, he has stayed asleep. As I look down at him, I think how he will, one day, be dead, and how I will, one day, be dead, also, and I ask myself, then, will any of this have mattered, any of this thing called life, or are we, me, and the dog just small blips on the vast existence of existence and the eternal tunnel of time?
POSTED BY MIKEL K POET AT 2:50 PM 0 COMMENTS LINKS TO THIS POST
Say

Say you won't step on my foot.
Say you won't piss on my flowers.
Say you won't call your God superior
to mine.
Say we can be friends,
but don't eat up all Bob Marley's corn.
Say Santa Claus is coming,
but the price we got to pay won't be alarming.

Say, say, say anything you want;
but, actions speak louder than words.

--Mikel K
POSTED BY MIKEL K POET AT 10:12 AM 0 COMMENTS LINKS TO THIS POST
Bundy is a guard dog

Bundy is a guard dog. He likes to slip the front door open, sit inside it and watch what is going on outside. He is not as bad about barking at everything that goes by, like he used to be. He used to freak out. He used to go crazy when somebody walked, or drove by, especially if the walker was walking with a dog. He doesn't do that anymore. I take credit for that. It has been a long, and hard, road, but Bundy, finally, understands, and accepts, that it is unacceptable for him to freak out.

To get over

I lay transparent in a space that all can see
Inquisitive governments don't have to kick the door in
War is over
War is over
I cry
but nobody listens
they are too busy buying groceries on credit
fumbling for the keys to cars that cost them too much to drive
and those that have cash and those that don't fumble
are seeking as many more touchdowns as they can
ah but why bitch about it
retreat into a Buddhist Monastery in your mind
truly be one with Christ Allah Krishna
kick the homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk in the teeth
and scream at him or her, "Get a job. Get a job.
Can't you see how hard I have it; why should you be able to get over?"

Which search engine is looking out for me?

Should I be loyal to Google
what have they done for me,
besides nose into every aspect of me
hoping to make another billion,
but, oh yeah, Microsoft
now there's a fine example of
a guy who will look out for me.

Who or what do you believe in, and why?

Do you believe in God, or the Tarot Cards?
Who guides your life: The Priest, or Preacher, or The Psychic?
And what about those of you who believe in nothing;
how are your days?

Breath

Even though things are not perfect,
I am in love with the day.
What if I had not woken to see it;
Then what would I have to say?

Nobody Knows It All

You don't know it all.
I don't know it all.
Obama doesn't know it all.
Christ didn't know it all.
Buddha didn't know it all.
Allah didn't know it all
Krishna didn't know it all.
My kids don't know it all.
Their mother doesn't know it all.

Come

Here comes my girl
I know she is coming,
and, this time,
I won't be running away.

New add

She confirmed me as a friend;
will this be the beginning, or the end?

Inside a storm

I was walking in the rain;
glad I was no longer insane.
Men and women in cars next to me
screamed at each other.

What is it that motivates us?

I come here to be alone
It doesn't mean that I don't love you
It is not really a self-preservation thing
I am not a zebra speared and bleeding
but a man who seeks whispers not screams
Can you hesitate for just a moment
and see my point of view
I'm far away at the end of the beach
seeking elusive sea shells
I am alone at the grocery store at 4 a.m.
I am awake in the dark
when you are sleeping
I am never late to work
the few times that I have had a "job."

Clean, clean, clean

I'm up early to go clean the "big house," as Jeff, and I call it. "Clean, clean, clean," is our motto, and then we add, "Money, money, money," to empower ourselves. I went to be early last night, knowing that I had to be up early, this morning. I feel bright, and alert. The dogs, cats, and turtles have all been fed; the dogs have been taken out, and Monkey, The Stray, has had food dropped in her bowl. I think that Monkey is the most appreciative of all "my" animals of receiving vittles. My animals, I think, kind of expect it, but Monkey is, still, not sure if she is going to receive it, so when he does, she is happy as hell. If I move, I guess that I will have to figure out a way to take Monkey with me, but that won't be happening for awhile, so we are all good. I hope that you are good, this morning. God bless us all.

The bean is the boss

Coffee really is a nectar of The Gods,
or of God, whatever the deal is on God,
I know that coffee is King.

Don't let the sugar steal you

I want more, but that will be good,
for this morning;
no need to eat it all, at once.

Better than snorting cocaine

I have started using this curry powder in some of my food dishes;
I find it fun, and invigorating to do so.

She will have no control over me

I'm invincible as long as
I breath in and breath out.

I once saw Bob Hope play through

I'm tired, but I'm not broke,
though you'd probably think
that the amount of money that I carry
is a joke,

O well, I can tell that you're
The Country Club kind of guy,
screwed your customers so that
you could pay ten dollars for an egg,

my, my.


Don't clean you eyeglass with Windex

Some things are not apparent,
even to the heir to The Throne.

Some is good some is bad(a thought on thought)

What we think is arbitrary;
we choose it.
We think yes, we think no.
We think left, we think right.
Other things affect what we think.
Other people affect what we think,
but, ultimately, we make the choice.
I think that I will have a cup of
coffee, and, I know, that that is
always a good choice.

And justice for...

I heard about this guy who became a cop
so that he could ride horses.
He signed up to be a horse cop,
but you can't be a horse cop, every day:
some days you have to get in a cop car,
and go out there and give tickets,
and this horse cop doesn't like this,
he doesn't like having to meet what they call
his "quota."
Is he a good, or bad cop?

While the dogs peed

Somebody got evicted
across the street
nice stuff it looks like
I saw a guy pulling a lamp
from the pile
in the dark the other day.
It's raining, today,
the shit is now useless to anyone;
it will just sit there until
hell passes over or the city picks it up.
Who's the genius that created the process
of eviction; sucks that he got a paycheck
for that.
I've never pulled from an eviction pile.
It seems to me to be bad karma,
to profit of someone else's misfortune,
and I'm not having any part of it.
I've found nice stuff in dumpsters.
Dumpster diving is pure; you save things.

Piece of the story

I'd change my story, if the Judge would let me.
I'll change my underwear as soon as I get out of here.
Lord, if you find the bail for this one, I'll never drink again.
I wasn't born, here, but I'm a Southern Man, and, once again, I'm in trouble.
Jack Daniels used to be my friend, now he only gets me in trouble.

Questions asked while listening to The Country Song

I've got two good hands,
I'm willing to work,
but what if they won't hire me
because of the color of my skin,
because of the places that I been,
or because my body reeks of last night's gin?

A brief glimpse

I've looked over my toaster,
and seen a rat looking at me.
I've stayed at the top of a million dollar condo,
where eggs cost as much as I was used to paying
for a gallon of gasoline.
I've been handcuffed by the man,
I've graduated near the top of my class.
I've been up.
I've been down,
but who hasn't.

Jump on your bed seventeen times to relieve stomach indigestion

Most everybody has a suggestion for this
and s suggestion for that: wear a copper anklet,
one lady said to me yesterday;it will help your arthritis.
I googled it and it seems that copper supplements might help,
but there is no scientific proof that a copper anklet will help.
Another lady suggested squeezing half a lime into water,
in the morning, as a way to help with diabetes.
She said that it helps her control her blood sugar, and appetite,
even though she is not diabetic.
When I quit drinking, there were many suggestions
given to me to help me.
There is a lot of advice out there; you just have to
figure out which advice is really good advice.

Monkey is waiting

Outside, Monkey the semi-stray cat waits for me
to bring her her morning meal.
Yesterday, it rained,
and I wondered where Monkey went
when tears fell from the sky.
I soon found out; she went to my garden,
which is shielded our house's roof,
and made herself comfortable in the dirt,
dirt that used to be my carrot plants
before Monkey came along
and made herself comfortable in them.

I would rather that Monkey is comfortable,
and dry, than have a few scrawny carrots
any old day.


What are you?

I make coffee for money, but I am really a poet,
no wait, I am both a barista, and a poet,
no wait, I am a father, a poet, and a barista,
no wait, I am a father, a poet, a barista,
and more than a friend to my pets.

So many titles, so many ways to define ourselves,
so many roles to play; I am happy with all of mine.