Poetry

I miss my iMac

a surge of power rushes through the tiny wires and microscopic views of binary veins. Now with severed and mangled memory, gone is the synaptic life of my sleek, clean iMac

and with it, the draining jolt comes the certain non-responsive shell of a tool

that now sits waiting for its own value to be questioned and rejected.

It had become my conduit to creativity, now stymied and slammed shut

the brushes were now broken, the strings ripped from their tuning key, and the chisel now dulled.

O for the day that it may be revived or replaced

These apples do not grow on trees, nor do the leaves that pay its barrel bent wages

So I wait; I search. I sell, and I save. I explore, and I hope on one foot, waiting to run.

I miss my iMac; someday, we will be back

and make use of the scattered thoughts and musing of mine and your order

that gives freedom and structure, grace to fleeting memory and thoughts.

(this time, I will have a better backup plan, try carbonite today!)

JTB: 120108:0142

Morning Blows

I have some buggers in my nose; they must have been forming as I slept, I suppose

now they are lodged, entrenched with neolithic purpose

I blow my brains through my ears to see if my breathing clears

freed at last with a mighty blast; my schnoz is free from clogs and nasal casts

Yes, I might rather rest some more, but then my nose would continue to snore.

Thank goodness, morning blows clear the orifice of breath and life.

Let it blow,  Let it blow, let it blow.      JTB(C)

JTB: 013008:2157

GAS  (010608:1741)

it costs so much to be burned

lives and cultures pitted in war

wealthy billionaires distanced from the common person by exponential leaps

to fill the ever-empty tanks of guzzlers and status symbols

yes, there is an increase in the pocket and purse

but there’s also an increase in the power of its curse

let’s look to other elemental powers to push pistons and combust fires

In the meantime, let us make choices to choose wisely our actions

Kiss Me, and I Won’t Tell On You

Along the road, so wild and free

Flowers of white like breaths of snow

I always heard them as, Kiss and Tell

and you, as not tell, they are lovely, just as well.

Now gathered with purple, green, and yellow

The mountain way is paved with kisses now

That DOT mowers threat to trim and to maim

So skip the flowers and just kiss me; how.

JTB: 08022007

Certainty Certainty isn’t Certain, For Sure

I may say I know what I know because it is certainly so

but that is subjective and not always correct; let me show:

Here I might think you think just like I think, but my thoughts are mine

Not yours. I don’t know what you think unless you know I know what you know.

..in progress

(JTB:071807)

Don’t Throw Away My Easter Bunny!  (JTB:041807)

I promise I will not misbehave, as you have told

I will stop my whining, like turkey, cold

I will not fuss or hit or scratch

I know in you I’ve met my match

Please! I’ll do anything you say

Just don’t throw my chocolate bunny away.

I know the rules, I know the chores, I don’t want to do any more

I like being independent as I can and stubborn like my old man’s wife; that is, she shows me how to pitch a fit, groan, and howl.

And that is how I get my way, now, tonight, and in the day.

A Day of Rest (JTB:041007)

A good nap is twenty minutes behind closed doors

Three nights of sleep or seventy-two naps, you take your pick

Calling Sunday the day of rest, now that’s a trick

It’s filled with prayers and songs, and praises

Concerns, death, dealings with diseases

Fears, complaints, trials the one’s hair raises

Tugs for power, and attention and wheels for grease

Don’t get me wrong, it’s first and best.

Hear the Good News, Sunday’s coming, and it’s hardly rest.

Praise the Lord.

DO OVERS?  (JTB:112206)

If I could, I surely would take my mulligan once again

Call it grace, or call it chances, I’d take them back now, as do old friends.

Clean the slate, wipe the code from magnetic plates

Free to try from freshness starts, unburned meals, words of hates

Let’s just open our hearts to was is real

Pray for forgiveness and seek power to heal

New expiration, use-by dates, new reality with new fates.

Rebottled with seals unbroken, not just vain empty tokens

But for the groundhog day of grace, I’d rather play

and learn from the past, I hope, to build a better me and us today.

(JTB:112206)

DO I WANT TO HEAR?  (JTB:082606)

Sometimes it seems not hearing would be good.

Doctors, collectors, and complainers all dropped like wood.

Ignore the world, the truth, the heart,

Stay in silence, un-trained, all apart.

No more blaring infomercials,

Quiet, stillness, peace rehearsals.

But without the choice to hear my hearing, I would prize,

Better take the good and bad and noises, let them rise.

So if I am to hear, let me hear it all

Truth and lies, joys and cries, let the ole chips fall.

So if I will hear and listen, then open my mind and ears.

Give me grace and strength to bare the sweetness and the fears.

Sometimes it seems no hearing would be fine,

But that is the only truth when one’s no-options are on the line.

LITTLE YELLOW PENCIL, John Brantley (JTB:021306)

Little yellow plastic lead pencil

All scattered here and there

Try to escape one if you ever dare.

Three in the kitchen, four in the den

Seventeen in the bedroom, all the better than a pen.

Never have too many, never do without

If I see another one, I think that I will surely shout.

Oh, the comfort of the little yellow friends

A neat and cleaver instrument, with a lead that never bends

How did ancient humankind ever get on by

With my little yellow plastic lead pencil, its ready day and night

Where ever I look or ever hope to reach

I’m never disappointed nor left in the breach

How many different models and advancements will they make?

My love for yellow plastic lead pencils shall never ever shake.

JTB

Mac’s book of poetry, now available | “Down to the River” | Buckeye Creek Press, 2007