I want to publish a poem

During the month of April(National Poetry Month) my running buddy, the Skeeter, and I challenged one another to write a poem a day. Challenged is too aggressive a word. We cajoled one another to create focused work in an art form I am admittedly not the best at. Skeets on the other hand has been writing songs and poems since as long as I've known him. For me it was an act of actually working to write something. I didn't want to just dash off a dirty limerick, once driving back to Topeka from Texas with El Skeetman, Markle Farns, and my brother, Cockroach we entertained ourselves in between games of Mattel elecronic football, Markle told the girls at Soap Creek he was doing a test marketing for Mattel, with suggestive limericks. It was less than 10 degrees outside and maybe 38 in my Toyota. The road from Graford to Topeka was one lane and slow. Luckilly it wasn't bright sunshine or all of us would be wearing dark glasses to enhance the telling of the tale.

Somehow that brings us back to the first of several poems I plan to post. I present them for what they are. About this first one, Richard Brautigan was one of my favorite writers when I was younger. His stories and poetry were things I could understand. He said a lot with few words. The news of his passing, alone in a field, next to a tree saddened me. When he was happy...he was a blast to read and think about


for richard brautigan


last night after decades of dormancy
I found myself dreaming of Babylon
there were 2 outs, 2 strikes, 3 odd balls with the score tied
in what might be the last at bat of the game

just as suddenly I pulled the car to the shoulder of the road
awash with the colours of the rainbow
and at the very least spritzed with a sheen of oil on wet black hole asphalt
flashing lights of neon tolled loudly
sizzle-ping, sizzle-ping
TONIGHT ONLY, ALL-NUDE, ELVIS WRESTLING
over and over and over again
brought to you by the Tri-County Kiwanis & Sheriff's Posse
most proceeds go directly to offset costs of future
fund raising

on our backs, hidden from the world
in a copse(thank you Count No Count) of trees deliberately planted by the city
with a secret candy coated center
no visitors after ten p.m.
curfew strictly enforced by too few
undisturbed
on my right is an obsession never to be realized
but dreamed of often
on my left
her best friend and confidant
who for me will someday be that
and more.
That now, nearly forty years then,
not one of us knew even a smidgin of what...
our lives would grant us
what was ahead
lay in store
cliche after cliche
built upon over used images and
then some and excetera
anymore than we could have counted
the number of stars overhead
even if,
we weren't higher than kids should be on a school night

I turned to her best friend and kissed her chastely on the tip of her nose
I turned to her
and did the same
in that, the single best moment of a lifetime
I found myself dreaming of Babylon

and the ball swoofed by me, strike three
I saw it all in super super slo-mo replay vision
I still think if I could have just turned slightly and let it hit me
got to first
but Babylon was calling

and I wanted to count the stars until we got it right