welker: welker

Showing posts with label welker. Show all posts

under the mexican sky

i’d like to be drunk right now
ordering more tequila
dancing under the mexican sky
with a mexican girl

she might whisper something in my ear
something i don’t understand

i just smile

and keep on dancing

under the mexican sky
with a mexican girl

i carried you around like a secret

i carried you around
like a secret

like a mantra

mine-mine-alone

i carried you around

like a secret

like a surprise party
for myself

i carried you around

like a secret

like a special gift
just for me

i carried you around
like a secret

like a secret
you couldn't be kept

letters

when i write letters

in my head

in my bed

at night

i never start

dear so and so

or to whom it may concern

no salutations

nor hellos

no complimentary close

the body of the letter

is all i ever write

when i write letters

in my head

in my bed

at night

you knew who you were, when others didn’t
ocean child, small field
kissing him and keeping him
ocean child, small field

only you could guard his secrets
never telling, always smiling
ocean child, small field

that summer

remember that summer

second story apartment

late at night

just the two of us

windows open

candles burning

in old wine bottles

wax melting

dripping running

flowing slowly down one side

remember that summer

the sound

of david gilmour's guitar

is still ringing in my ears

comfortable silence

when my father and i

fished roy hazard’s pond

in the early evenings

of early summer

we would sit

beside each other

silently casting our lines

into the reflection

of the sunset

on the water

even in the car

on the way home

we let the sunset

do our talking

i knew everything i needed to know

in that comfortable silence

when my father and i

fished roy hazard’s pond

in the early evenings

of early summer

she wrote poetry like jazz

she wrote poetry like jazz
late at night in smoke filled rooms
hot horns blowing cool breezes
music swirling swelling fading
never heard again
words pumping from her pen like gasoline
she lit up the night with conversation
about people i didn’t know
ideas i'd never thought of
places i’d never been nor ever go
books i’d never read and never will
thoughts crackling through my head like a grassfire

she let me walk with her once
to the corner for a package of kents
no shoes - skirt clinging tight - blouse unbuttoned
undisturbed by the night
unaffected by the store clerk who called her by name
then looked at me and smiled
under streetlights she danced like a child
in the middle of the night
perfume on the breeze like incense in the air
i fell to my knees and prayed like a schoolboy
to this lady of perpetual nightlife
who kissed me and disappeared into the dawn

christine's lament

catching the fireflies
hasn't changed things
reality still lingers
inside my head
silently waiting
telling me secrets
in the quiet of the night
never realizing
every whisper is an ocean

lonely mermaids
appear on the shore
naked in their defeat
giving the game away
to those of us who
recite their ancient rhyme
each to each we say together
each to each entwined forever

~ welker ~

when the night comes down

when the night comes down

in my small town
when the night comes down
and the sky is filled with stars
old men meet on empty streets
and count the passing cars

in my small town
when the night comes down
and the houses fill with light
young girls cry their sweet good byes
to the boys who chase the night

in my small town
when the night comes down
and the evening shades are drawn
prayers are said beside the bed
and all our fears are gone

and late at night
when my sleep is light
and the child in me is free
in my small town
when the night comes down
is where i dream to be

~ welker ~

(Originally published in Troubadour: The Best of Rhyme 2001)

sugar bowl

sugar bowl

if you lived inside my sugar bowl
i'd sprinkle you on my corn flakes
and slurp your sweet white syrup

if you lived inside my sugar bowl
i'd stir you in my coffee cup
and sip on your sweet honey

if you lived inside my sugar bowl
i'd mix you in my cookie dough
and bake a batch of you

~ welker ~

reaction

reaction

jesus frowned at me today
satan simply smiled

~ welker ~

(This work originally appeared in TYPE)

she told him more than once

she told him more than once

she told him
more than once
that all of her love affairs
ended with a broken heart

he thought
she meant hers

~ welker ~

no ketchup

no ketchup

he ate lunch
like a bachelor
leaning over the kitchen sink

two micro-waved hot dogs
loaded with mustard and relish

~ welker ~

sometimes i pretend we are sleeping together

sometimes i pretend we are sleeping together

sometimes i pretend
we have fallen asleep at the same time

you
on your side of the world
me
on mine

and in my imaginary sleep
we dream the same dream

we meet
on a crowded dance floor
and waltz among the teeny boppers
who bounce up and down
and stare at us
because we are too old
to be dancing to their sound

they don't realize
they are dancing
to an imaginary song
in an imaginary dream

they don't know
i am pretending
you and i are dreaming
the same dream at the same time

you
on your side of the world
me
on mine

~ welker ~

rhetorical

rhetorical

is there anything
quite like the sight
of a ’57 chevy

running the down the road

in a light september rain
just as the sun goes down

~ welker ~

requiem

requiem

you were radiant once
in your innocence

you knew no tradition
had no affiliation

you were like an orphanage
for the hopeless
like a refuge
from the mainstream storm

and now
it has come to this
evolutionary not revolutionary

do you smell the slight taint of decay

~ welker ~