Collapse

Collapse

Collapse is a noun
that makes it sound
like a singular event
it was
it went

or something in a future tense
yet when you admit it
you’re in the thick of it
it is more the
tick tock of dominoes
spiraling
out of sight
out of mind
it might

……

4:05 a.m.December 7th 2014

© David L White

Poem for the road

Poem for the road

Two years to the day
we last cracked a joke
I went out to 
slap your knee
and tip some corn,
shoot a goose
rob a grave,
go on the loose

but damn if that
joke we cracked
didn't spill
all over me
some wild tears
and ghost feathers

and some of
the meaning is
missing
everywhere
I look

…..
10/29/14
© DavidLWhite

Molly by the Sea

Going Nowheres

Coconut Wine

First Recipe

Them (of me)

Them (of me)

Call your dogs m/lady
send the children away
for I am going' home
nowhere yonder over there
where last I saw the sun
haloed 'neath that rainbow sky
past my eyes frozen looking there
past my skeleton fingers
reaching there
past where the jackals
carry my dead flesh
past where the worms leave
them (of me)
in the dust I will be home
leave us alone

---
there is no door
© David White 1974

Almost Ready For This

The autumn colors had gotten past their prime
gotten a little muddied and subdued until the
first snow today the startling white color
brings back the greens and golds and
burgundies of leaves and trees
that are not quite ready
for this

Any. Way.

Any. Way.

Do not bother to stop and smell the roses.
It is not the stopping or the smelling
or the roses
any. way.

First, you think you’re stopping
but it’s restlessness and fidgiting ...
There’s a fly. Your stomach grumbles.
Leg cramps. Boredom. What time is it?
Oops ... sorry ... that’s sitting meditation.

And smelling? As if smelling will
capture the rose and bring it home.

What of the other six senses?
The sense of temperature,
of pressure, pain, position in space,
acceleration and the passage of time?

You might think this is just another rose
in just another poem but the usually shy
chrysanthemums are whispering with tulips.

I think I heard your name.
Listen.

...

DLWhite • 8/9/13

Flaming Red Maple

Drippin' Springs

I spent last night in Drippin’
with another man’s woman
we slept in separate bedrooms
he stayed in New York City

I spent last night in Drippin’
south of Austin thirty miles
you know how the truth hurts
when you get it caught in lies

We’d hung out talkin’ dirty
country western sings the blues
drinkin’ beer and Wild Turkey
shootin’ dollars worth of pool

She introduced me to the kitty
the riot shotgun and the dogs
we smoked a couple bowls
and watched teevee
like falling off a log

I spent last night in Drippin’
with another man’s woman
we slept in separate bedrooms
he stayed in New York City

he called her late that evening
to ask her where she’d been
she said out Christmas shopping
and hung up the phone then

I spent last night in Drippin’
south of Austin thirty miles
you know how the truth hurts
when you get it caught in lies

---

David L. White
from Songs for Tentative Guitar
Pilot Press - Austin 1980

Dear Lisa

Dear Lisa

I wish I’d have known you
before you got married
got older and harried and
Harry got gray
cuz the song in my heart
is a hard one to carry
I guess I’ll just sing it away

Don’t take this poem home
to Harry, Dear Harry
it’s no laughing matter
he’ll throw it away
but the song in my heart
is too big to bury
I just I’ll just sing it away


---
David L. White
from Songs for Tentative Guitar
Pilot Press - Austin 1980

Cold Spring

There's no one waiting in Wisconsin
with their arms flung wide
the winters aren't bad in Austin
but I got Cold Spring on my mind.

There are winters here in Austin
you don’t need to own a shovel
and no work days you stay home from
on account of the weather

and you wonder why I complain
well, it just ain’t Cold Spring
in the rain

I had a crazy painter lover
from New Orleans Houston Denver
city daughter of a doctor
we go nowhere real soon

she hasn’t asked that we stay friends yet
now that lovers over
it’s okay, I’ve been busy
in a Cold Spring memory

She spent some time at the university
and heard it all but the
Cold Spring memory

A northern high school buddy
climbs a salesman's ladder
his wife makes good lasagna
and they came here for the weather

Next year their daughter will be three
with a British Texas accent and a
Cold Spring memory

Just an hour from Milwaukee
eighty miles from Chicago
are the tourist vista lagos
that I call home

and when I think of Cold Spring
don’t even ask me why
I get those tiny
Cold Spring teardrops
in my eye

So I guess I’ll go to Cold Spring
and buy myself a shovel
and teach their children Sunday School
and forget about I am

I guess I’ll go to Cold Spring
where there are no cops or stop signs
with the weekly farmer socials
at the local tavareen

I can almost feel the breeze
I’ll be writing Central Texas memories

---

David L. White

Pilot Press - Austin 1980

Grateful Walker / this is that

A long legged walker
I expressed pain at
Having checked my steps
Fumbled with my laces

Ananda offers up a title
On creativity by a
choreographer

I am grateful I am
Moving again
I feel the music
Tingling in my toes

Some or much
Creative work
Is not frozen forever
But is a moment
of motion
In motion

This is that

...

DLW
10/23/13
2:47am

The whole bed moves

You there
Fellow traveler
In the dark
(I'm yelling telepathically)
that restless thing you're doing
Seems to provide no relief

One of us needs to meditate
Or move to the couch

I'm no expert on the Richter scale
But these are tremors
Of wake up magnitude

Now bathing in the light
of the refrigerator
I gargle a tsunami
Of orange juice
While surfing internal
Alliteration

Hello mind
Creaky cranky
old friend
Grab your board
Let's ride the waves

This full
blissful
meditation

...

© David L. White
October 13, 2013
2:31 am

Marketing

Put a human face on your cash cow
and the milk will taste much sweeter
Climb on board and ride her home
once you squeeze that teater.

Already

I'm crying already
You're not even gone
Your obituary
On Wikipedia

I cling to our
YouTube moments
In the ever after
Already

...
For Joan Baez

David L. White
October 13, 2013
4:15 am

Saturday Morning Tea

it’s morning me and the steam
of jasmine darjeeling honey tea

a golden hour semi-precious
shimmering ephemera
an eternal momentary in between

this idea that I go on and on
you might easily beat it out of me

rather than argue I would tell you
I don’t know
it’s my favorite bright dark place

I don’t know and
I do not have to know
now and when I do ... I do
simple like that

this apparent void perhaps to you
is not a call that fools rush in

nothing is broken - no need fix
plenty fixed already

it may be back to bed for me
to flow and grab and let it go
to wrestle with language divine
I go on and on ... and on

~~~

the problem is you think you have time
buddha

~~~
9/28/2013
dlw

The Last Frontier

The Last Frontier

The last of the last of the last frontier
stands before you, there in the mirror.
and you will arrive before the rest
the beast to vanquish, beats in your chest.

go quietly there and you will find
a drinking pool deep in mind
and there in quiet, without the fear
sits the last of the last of the last frontier

----------- ----------- ----------- -----------

© David L. White 199x?

Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is Closed

Chorus:
We're tighty, we're mighty,
we're righter than righty,
and now almost everyone knows,
we'll arm or disarm you at the drop of a hat,
but the Garden of Eden is Closed

Verse

Down at the mouth of the Tigris Euphrates,
is an old eucalyptus palm tree,
 this is the place, they say with bald face,
 where God kicked out Adam and Eve

Chorus

We bombed them back to Old Purgatory,
we kicked their ass in the sand,
now our stadium's full
with the red, white and bull,
seems like God's got a flag in his hand

Chorus 

But God and the Devil are playing strip poker,
They both have five aces and very long sleeves,
and you're sitting there, in your underwear,
wondering when you get to deal.

Chorus

Yeah,  God and the Devil are playing strip poker,
while evil is being undone,
you're sitting there in your underwear, man,
this ain't looking like fun

Last Chorus

We're tighty, we're mighty,
we're righter than righty,
and now almost everyone knows,
we'd like to do more for the poor and all that
but not while there's oil in the hose.


----

A 3 chord, country-western style lament regarding the war
© David L. White 2003