More Attempts at Creativity ...

Anarchy at 54 (Free Verse Poetry)

The faded letter A

ringed by a circle and

tattooed on his forearm

no longer speaks to

or for him.

He would cover it with something else,

except no one sees it anyway.

He traces the ink with a calloused finger,

sighs,

laces up scuffed Doc Martens,

and steps into the morning chill.

For Mindy (Free Verse Poetry)

We borrowed the magic of those nights.

The skyline – lit like a promise,

the windows dripping with sweat and condensation,

the bass mixed with the current of the river

moving the floor beneath our feet,

until the insistent dawn

spilled over the Ohio River.

I can still see you

counting out your bills at closing time.

Your smile warming through the bar haze.

The Waterfront was a temporary family –

fleeting and makeshift,

but it was enough.

Some things don't need to last forever

to mean everything.

Rest easy, sweet friend.

The Pin Trader at Disneyland (Free Verse Poetry)

"Trading pins" she whispers,

not to anyone,

"is really just borrowing

other people's memories.”

She sips Jameson from a Minnie Mouse flask,

As she watches the families float past.

Their temporary joy is a permanent fixture

in a kingdom where no one notices

that she has nowhere else to be.

Bart (100 Word Prose Poetry)

Each night,

Bart would duck behind the bar,

with a half-empty bottle of Tropicana,

and top it off with Stolichnaya.

I'd watch from the service well, pretending not to see.

He was a God behind that bar.

Six-foot-three, movie-star teeth.

Remembered every regular's name,

and what they needed to forget.

He eventually got fired

by a manager who did too much cocaine.

But then that manager got fired too.

So now Bart's back.

Working as my barback.

Stacking the glasses that once danced in his hands.

Sometimes he stares at the bottles,

fingers twitching,

like they remember the poetry of the pour.