Last Poem I'll Write

No More Poetry

I am done. I am through. I am feeling so free'd
I might paint; take a walk or a nap; pull a weed.
Either way, I am finished. A free man indeed!
No more counting or tapping the beats on my knee.
No more searching for words that might say what I need
To be said. You know what? I'm all through. Can you see
What I mean? I can write but I won't. I'll be me
And just sit, read a book. Be a veg. Watch TV.
There's no money in it so it's not about greed.
I'm no good at this stuff and it makes my brain bleed.
So that's it. I'm all done. I've begun to be free.
I'm not kidding. I'm through. Just quit reading this screed.
Go about your own business and please leave me be.

Two experimental poetic forms

A Cadae (3.1415):

You ask me:
Who?
I answer back:
Why?
Leaving things unsaid.

A Fibonacci (1/1/2/3/5/8):

You
Smile
And frown
Both at once.
How do you do it?
And why does it trouble me so?

Poem 3

Running on Empty

Ol' Jackson Browne had sung a song that said
"In '65 I was seventeen…"
We're of an age, JB and I. Not dead
As yet but near enough. I was naïve.

I knew that soon the "olds" would die and we
Would sail upon a Sea of Love and Peace.
The Beatles sang to me: "You won't see me."
I thought for sure my joy would not decrease.

So Camelot was strong and Truth was "cool".
I left the arc of the new age to those
That had the time to spare and cared to rule.
Their life was poetry and mine was prose.

Now nearly fifty years since then have gone.
I think my life's been good. I'm not ashamed
and fairly free of deeds I wish undone,
with fewer sins for which I could be blamed.

My one regret I now declare I see:
I let my brothers set my course for me.
I'll say to readers born in '96:
You cannot leave it all for them to fix.

Mike's Poem 2

My Kitten Zane

A thinking man might see from watching pets
A lesson he will need to learn again:
My young gray cat repays the food he gets
With lessons on the art of play. Young Zane
Will fetch a crumpled wad I toss; it's plain
To me that when he hunts that simple toy
I throw, he thinks it is the real McCoy.

He stalks, he runs, he bats. He wrestles. It's fetched,
Presented at my shoe as prey. And yet,
No living mouse survives the hunt so wretched.
"It's paper, Zane, not food. Besides, it's wet!"
Who teaches whom? And though he's just a pet,
Those yellow eyes are locked on me: Um, dude?
I hunt. You don't. How is it misconstrued?"