Glass In Hand

c.2020 Rod I’ve

All rights reserved

Glass in hand

A middle-aged man

Southern Comfort is my conveyance

To never-never land

100 proof

Snow on the roof

Old dog on the rug

Frankie Stein & His Ghouls

Doing the ‘Frog Frug’

Been here nearly twenty years

Outside Cleveland, far east

Battling the beasts

Busted up

A rusty old truck

Rod Serling, my sire

A writer, a thinker

He caused me to tinker

With language plays

While Hendrix shouted ‘Purple Haze’

I’ve had my days

Up the scale toward a bell ring

But scoring was not my thing

No prize at the county fair

No one could believe I was there

Housewives and old men looked scared

When I rode in on my motorbike

Smoking and choking

From 1959

Tip the glass up

I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse and Mickey Mouse

America, America

God shed his grace on thee

But there’s a kick in the teeth

To bring relief

For a poor poet most unlikely

The one I call ‘me’

Chasing my dog in the street

Run Rover, Run

We’re headed toward the setting sun

This cowboy with his six-gun

Just fell off the saddle

Watch me whip my self-esteem

Like the whiskey in my bloodstream

Into a froth of bold intentions

My certificate of honorable mention

Just before the day was done

I tripped on a stone

Went face down in the road

Neighbor, neighbor, if you please

Help me break this complacency

I need a fix

An acid trip

Visions sprung from a whiff of cow dung

Sitting on a hay bale with my guitar

Pluck for luck

The words are stuck

Deep in my throat

Like Pepto Bismol colored pink

I kneel over the bathroom sink

And relieve my drink

Too much

Too bad

How many glasses have I had?

Guilt is not something I feel

With my phone in hand

And words to spiel

Here’s the deal

Jim Morrison wrote Rock classics on a brown paper bag

So drowsy doodles 

Don’t make me feel bad

I’m so glad, I’m so glad

To spit out stanzas

Like gravel and grit

In the dust

Martin Wilkes Heron, from New Orleans

Mixed up this concoction

A sweet, noxious potion

Supreme, extreme

As a kid I never cared much

For this drink from down south

But with the years adding weight

I have changed what I say

Now this brown cocktail

Makes me mellow

A lyrical fellow

Ready to read, write and choose

What comes next with the Blues

Like Robert Johnson with his plectrum

I sit composing

Lines of fire

Twanging those suspended wires

Across the fretboard

Riffs and seventh chords

A deal with a dark horse

Riding into eternity

Crossroads and and an old soul

He never saw many sunsets

But no one will forget

Certainly not this wordsmith

I salute him with my gift

Another poem birthed

From the sting of sun

And the taste of earth

Rolling, rocking

Bottle near empty

Yet I am singing

Let the night pass while I refill my glass

Till I fall on my ass

They’ll find amusement someday

In what I’ve written

So let them laugh

Written on my iPhone SE