Poem for Yesterday Today

Jawbone of an Ass

This shit will rot your brain
This mass media thing selling
Multi media masturbation
Promoting a different kind
Of Onanism

It seduces your intellect
Until the only thing
A brain is good for
Is predicting the plots
Of silly sit-coms

(Forgive my slathering
The dentist got angry
When I ordered composite
Instead of amalgam
And shot my face full
Of pain killer)

They want me on that couch
They need me on that couch
Watching anti-mysterious who-done-its
Finding commercial advertisements
More entertainingly clever
Than the repeat programming
Constantly, annoyingly, more comfortable
And familiar than my own left hand

(The subway smells like
Roach spray
I guess it could be worse
Because even with all these distractions
Even with all these restraints...)

I feel a little more lucid
A little more here
A little more with it, man
With that little, tiny bit
Of Mercury
Removed from the back
Of my Jaw

New Work

Feeling really out of sorts lately. I am trying to figure out how to proceed with my "second act". I've given my self the freedom to do nothing, to loaf, to be lazy, to miss dad, my childhood, my youth. I nap a lot. I love to cook dinner for my wife, my family and our friends. My mom actually let me take her out to dinner on Easter Sunday. She let me pay and everything. It was amazing.

One constant has been the poetry. I am trying something new, a lttle new for me, just going ahead and free writing and maybe trying to figure it out later. Or maybe not figuring it out at all, ever. I put together things from here and there inspired by this and that. I even composed a verse in my sleep one night. I'm going with it. Here's something:

When things fall down
When things collapse
When April feels like October
Wet, cold, and dark

When I miss you
When my world ends

When worlds collide
When cars go crash

When you deny
Your denial
Like a crack of the lash

Paranoia of perfection
Image in the bathroom glass
Is not mine, not me

My wind chimes sing
Of wind and rain
The hardware on the flag pole
Clangs now and again

Busses and trucks hiss
And whoosh
People hurry by slicker-ed and umbrella-ed

When lives diverge
When language
Will not serve
When cruel seasons
Binge and purge

Another cold spring.

Loss

I keep losing and finding
The same 10 pounds

Letting the days go by
Is just like it sounds

Leaves bud on trees
Street buskers sing

Without you here
It doesn't mean a thing


Missing you today Pop

Love markie

HUMANA

Reunited: Jennifer-Scott Mobley, Mark Ransom and Steven Rahe at Saturday nights post-show Gala at Actors Theatre of Louisville for the 33rd Annual HUMANA Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, KY.

A whirl-wind to say the least, we touchd down Friday morning and promptly hooked-up with Steven who works in the Education Department at Actors Theatre. We proceeded to see several plays including: Ameriville, Hard Weather Boating Party, The Tens (as the ten minute plays are lovingly called) and Under Construction.

Though this festival has been around for years and is very highly regarded and respected, it took us this long to make our way out to see it. We will be back. It helps to have a good, old friend living across the Ohio River in New Albany, Indiana to house and entertain you.