Letter from Hell

The last I remember,
it was a gray winter Sunday.

I look outside 

my dirty window

at the empty branches

of a dead tree.

The afternoon is late

but never ending.

I walk down the empty street

in the shadows of buildings

that resemble broken,

decaying teeth.

Night will never fall

and no matter how long

I wander these sidewalks

to tire myself out,

I know that I will never

sleep again.

Wish you were here. - Jeff Barnes

When the Chinamen Come

My grandfather, the old bastard,
was always obsessed with the idea
that China would someday
take over the world.

I don't know how many times

we heard him say,

"The Chinamen gonna come."

Whenever my sister or I

would complain about anything

his response was the same.

"You think it's bad now, just wait

till the Chinamen come."

Anytime we didn't like 

a certain food he'd say,

"Just wait. You will learn to eat it

when the Chinamen come."

He was such a tightwad that

if he were alive today,

he would do most of his shopping

at dollar stores for things

made in Chinese sweat shops,

and I can imagine him smiling smugly

if Chinese soldiers surrounded

my sister and me as

we were forced to eat

liver, zucchini, and beets

at gunpoint. - Jeff Barnes

Three Rocks

At age ten he loved
to go to the banks
of the creek in the woods
and look for rocks.
He would bring home
the most interesting ones,
rinse them off
and display them on his
bedroom shelves.
His parents were certain
that he was an aspiring geologist.

At age sixteen

he only grudgingly went to school

but his real passion

was his guitar.

He would play along

with his records,

learning every song he could,

and knew that someday

he would be a rock star.

At age seventy-two

he thinks back to the days

of collecting rocks

and wanting to be a rock star

as he rocks

and rocks

and rocks
his life away

in his rocking chair. - Jeff Barnes

The Queen of Cups

The Queen of Cups is happy tonight.
Her wavy silver hair reflects
the blue dusk and sliver
of moon

and swirls 
like a vortex of moving sky
as she dances
to the songs of 
a northern mockingbird.

Her eyes reflect the stars,

her laughter a counterpoint

to the calls of

the spring peepers

and when she lies down

in the grass 

her sleeping breath harmonizes

with the sound

of the stream that runs

just beyond the trees. - Jeff Barnes

Creation Myth #8,693,212

The sun didn't come up this morning,
but a giant fried egg rose in the sky.
A purple gorilla waved at me
as he flew by on an atomic pie.

Blue jays were swimming in the river.

A blue whale went out for a walk.

A giraffe flew by in a helicopter,

in hot pursuit of the Jabberwock.

Three platypuses played poker in my living room

and asked if they could deal me in.

"No thanks," I said. "I just bought a new unicycle

and I'd like to  take it for a spin."

As I rode my unicycle around the block

a man with a bow and arrow came by.

He looked up, took aim, and shot

an arrow at the egg in the sky.

This archer's aim was quite flawless.

The nucleus of the giant egg broke.

And that's how the world as we knew it

became an endless sea of yolk. - Jeff Barnes

In the Beginning

After the used bookstore closed
and everyone with us had fled
to wherever they were going
we stood alone in the parking lot
and decided to have our first dessert
together, pumpkin ice cream
served up in waffle cones.

We stayed until the ice cream joint

closed and even afterwards

we lingered in the parking lot

on that October night.

The blue outfit, complete with blue boots,

you wore to the movie the following week

brought to mind the lyrics from a Rolling Stones song

about seeing the sky in front of you.

Shortly before Halloween we went to a party

and met a self-styled psychic who said our love

was forbidden and that you would move

to California and marry a doctor and that I

would end up married to a blonde woman

I would meet at work.

Eleven years later, you and I

still look back on that day

and burst out laughing at that dumb bitch. - Jeff Barnes

Balthazar Bumbershoot

Balthazar Bumbershoot had a mouth on each hand
and a shiny gold bugle where a mouth should be.
Most people, as you know,  have two legs
but Balthazar Bumbershoot had three.

He had two eyes under his eyebrows

and two more on either side of his nose.

He had purple fingernails on his green fingers

and green toenails on his purple toes.

He had a horn much like a unicorn

sticking out of his forehead.

The tip of it had a little light

that  at night glowed a bright shade of red.

One day wings sprouted from his ears

and he flew away like a big bird.

He said he couldn't stay here anymore

because this world was just too absurd. - Jeff Barnes