Ash

Creature of smolder,
a dream put out.  Smoking
into the air.  Tickles
the nostrils.

That’s ok.  It wouldn’t
have been my dream
anyway.  Lost heat.
Years-ago lack of reality.

A pile of ashes fittingly
left as a tribute to
something that used to be,
but (being matter)
hasn’t disappeared yet.

Authorship

Forget the slights
about steering the boat.
The choppy seas of
creativity.  Lone
navigator — in this
craft, it seems like
solitude but isn’t.
There will always be
an eye to read.  Even
if it’s just one pair
of pupils.  Find solace
in your somewhere out
there audience.

Humorist

Yellow bow tie
like a daffodil splash.

The jokes aren’t working
but the microphone is.

To the chagrin of
the audience.  Working

bits of scrap humor,
peddling the sell of a pun.

No one is buying.
No one is laughing.  But
joke on.

Bookworm

Wrinkled up, curled in pages,
roving over verbs.  Retreating
in the shadow of illiteracy,
the opposite of those wordless
earthworms who used to slip
away at the shine of light.