Five Poems

Eating
pills

ignoring
bills

culminating
calories

scratching
my ear

with a
charcoal
finger

I'm a
factory
worker

the
original
ore miner

going
lower

in my
elevator

to the
source

of my
voice


*


Another
page

ripped
from

under my
pen

and
tossed

into the
wicker bin

before
the word

fin gets
written

is there
no way
to win

with a
poem
so thin

one I
try to
end

before
I begin


*


One last
guess

and I'm
up

to deliver

to the
indifferent
teacher

the fall
semester

is officially
over

and now
I know

that all
along

there never
was a

wrong


*


A crane

picks a
dash

from
a pile

of scrap
punctuation

and carries
this rusty
girder

onto
paper

where it
hinges

two words
together


*


I strike
a match

and watch
the stack

go up

in a
billow
of pyro

as I
ponder

how no
one will

ever know

and how
no one
will ever

browse
those rows

and dig
out the

throes of
my emotion