Another
round
of Xanax, please.
I‘m going
to need a
little help to make it
through this day-–
if I can even
make myself get
out of bed
to armour up
for my confrontation
with the black knight of fear itself.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Grey Matter
At work,
doing the drill,
the everyday routine,
tall, bespectacled, ponytailed,
he pushes a dustbroom at the coffeehouse,
around a not-too-dirty floor,
with care enough,
conscientious staffer,
doing the tasks required of him,
and yet I wonder what engineering
marvels, what artistic masterpieces,
what world-saving discoveries
gestate in silent pools
of thought behind
those eyes.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
A Strange Exhilaration
For Julie
Had she put it in reverse,
the beeping would have warned us,
but instead, the woman on the grocery-scooter,
suddenly realizing the existential tragedy
of a lame academic
with a life-basket full
of fresh produce and veggie-burgers,
floored the damn thing forward,
taking out the cereal aisle,
the health-food section, and
a couple of dazed shelf-stockers
en route to fresh meat and fine wines.
And did she find everything all right?
More than all right, Sweetie, much more.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
How They Lose Planes
Sliver of silver,
like a sewing-needle dropped
in a blue ocean
turned upside down and emptied
out over a thirsty world.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Sleeping with Murderers
No, of course I don’t condone it;
I have enough religion left
to disapprove of pointless killing,
especially of victims totally defenseless.
Yet, that is what they both have done,
out of boredom and love of sport,
and here I am in bed between them,
sharing familial warmth and comfort,
admiring the beauty of their forms
as I watch them sleep in peace,
with no regret for their act of malice,
for the baby rabbit they have torn
apart with their vicious claws–
bloodthirsty felines living lawless.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Japanese Springtime
For Mike Gorman and Kyoko Matsunaga
Beneath white blossoms,
a hatted woman with dog:
beauty in the park.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Precipice
Since first encountering it
in a set of self-paced
reading-enhancement lessons
imbedded in my fourth-grade
curriculum, I have disliked
the word precipice, perhaps
because it sounds kind of like
preciousness, both words that
speakers of robust Anglo-Saxon
frankly just don’t need, or
maybe because of some
unconscious fears of its
intellectual portents, its
unwelcome insinuation
that inhabiting a figurative precipice
might be as close to
living on the edge as
I will ever get, like playing
punk on the ’cello, not
that there’s anything
wrong with that.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
Poetry When It Comes 