Poetry

Time Again

By GREG MAFFETT | Published: April 21, 2012

Time again for a few poems.

I kinda sorta know where when is going

After that maybe a few more

To fill the void

Or not

I should

...but I won't.

My underwear are going to pot

Holes and such, rips tears

You know, I've retired three pairs

To teh rag drawer, their new home under my sink

I should go shopping for new ones

...but I won't

In fact I can do better

Than just replace the three

I can count out the years

I have left

Estimate the expectancy

Burning up three pair a year

From now til then

Do the math

...but I won't

I could be wrong

but the way i see it

a man does everything he needs

to do today, everything he'll need

in any one area of his life

he does that today

He's already dead

so I won't.

The Grandkid

I probably shouldn't say this

write this

but my grand daughter

has skin that looks so much like

a Turkey about to go into the oven on Thanksgiving

it's eerie

Then her left arm

Just like a chicken wing

she holds it there while trying

fruitlessly

to get her fist in her mouth

It is not so much the avian qualities

that I'm reacting to here

the feeling is that she has no more defenses

than an already plucked poultry

and knowing that

walking around the block

her in a stroller

my daughter pushing

three generations upright

its that

and nothing more

Argentina

Is where the wine I'm drinking

originated, per it's label

you can never be sure about that

could be a kid in the Bronx

with a chemistry set and a printing press

you never really know

unless you were there when the grapes came off the vine

One of the wine guys in Napa

is married to an Argentine

his case is a little more believable

as he travels to Argentina now and then

to visit her family

or so he says

I can never be sure, but he seems sure

or at least surer than I am of this wine

A coworker is getting married in August

To an Argentine

Or so he thinks

per the story, he has been engaged at least once a year

for the past half dozen years

to various women

from countries that are not the USA

Do I buy it?

Me?

I've seen a place called Argentina on a map.

That's all I know.

Tough one

This one is tough

Do I write about family that isn't here?

Or the issue with my big toe?

As to the toe, it is here, for certain.

I cut the nail too far, you know

The fungus stuff that most everyone gets

gets under part of the nail and turns it from

translucent to opaque

turns it brittle

so chopping it makes

sense, so you do, I did

Then it grows into my flesh

and that doesn't feel good

so I gouge out the flesh

so the dead nail can take that space

and tell my self not to do that

again.

I guess

in the end

the toe

was more

present

in this poem

than family that wasn't here.

But they are out there

Family that isn't here, I mean.

My mom, who made a blanket for her great granddaughter

it had a few errors

that my brother could have fixed

but given the time involved didn't

but passed along a hint that my younger daughter

who also isn't here

could have used

to fix the blanket that is here

Bottom line on the blanket

it's here and it has a couple holes in it

So is the christening dress my mom sent.

My brother is sending me a keyboard

for my new iPad. sending it to my work

because when you send stuff to my home

I'm never there to sign for it

so it goes to work

and they hold it and on those days when they

have something like that I do feel like

it is my birthday, even if it isn't.

I think that is it.

All I have.

All the poems I that are in me today.

All I'll write until it is

Time again.