Need to know:

A Passive-Aggressive Formula
By GC

Rebel over 
honey dos
--never,

just say, 
yes dear, 
then sneak off

I keep
golf clubs
in my truck

There is 
an Igloo cooler
in there too

No Big Blow

A Walk In The Wind
By GC

Hurricane season came and went
and no ill wind raised its hell
I didn’t have to batten hatches
and wait for swirling winds to pass

No hunkering down from wind this year
no cleaning up after weather’s wrath
no raging winds splintering trees
no ripping off of the roof over me

It’s been quiet and calm this year
and that’s sure, ok, all-right with me
nothing bad came our way at all
the walk in the wind was a breeze

Let's all sing, like ...

Things With Wings
by GC

Hummingbird

Stand still on beating wings
above the crimson petals
dip to the flower's heart
and drink sustaining nectar
of life, of strength, of freedom

Osprey

Out over the marsh
an osprey dives steeply:
outstretched talons
slap into the stream

Blue sky is regained
with carried mullet,
bitty baby birdie food
taken to the nest

Outstretched beaks
clamor for lunch
brought by Poppa
for Moms hungry brood

Now, babies grown,
the ospreys depart
for Brazilian waters
and winter's warmth

Come spring
the ospreys return
to familiar nests
and new families

Mom and Pop
nurture new nestlings
in a remembered home
on the salt marsh piling


Painted Bunting

Like Joseph's,
yours is a coat
of many colors
that makes your lady
green with envy.


Cardinal

Crimson brilliance
hides your feisty nature,
you who delight in
crowding other
feathered friends
from the feeder;
and, oh yeah,
while I'm bitchin',
your gal is less than
delighted with her drab coat.

Snowy Egret

Craak, craak, craak
,that guttural complaint
issued as you fight
with your
blue heron brother
over a tiny
silver fish
puts lie
to your
pure white plumage
and elegant bearing

Of Time

Dawn Won’t Come Again
by GC Smith

Now that time has passed me by
days that have flown won't dawn again

I'll never race at Watkins Glen
I'll never climb the Eiger

Now that time has passed me by
days that have flown won't dawn again

I'll not win the Nobel prize
great ideas won't germinate

Now that time has passed me by
years flown by won't come again

No dalliance with Sophia Loren
whose time has also passed

Now that time has passed me by
years flown by won't come again

Pass I must on bucking horses
my bones are now too brittle

Now that time has passed me by
days that have flown won't dawn again

I'll never fly a fighter plane
land on a postage stamp at sea

Now that time has passed me by
days that have flown won't dawn again

I'll not set the world afire
with these my fading embers

Now that time has passed me by
it's gone and cannot be recaptured

Yesterday was yesterday
first light came then flew away

But, I look back on yesterday
and sometimes dream it's yet tomorrow

Gettin' on

Intimations of Mortality
by GC Smith


My  joints complain

Complaints not against
that young athlete
who pushed body feats
to outer endurance limits
and even then would not quit

My brain falters

It frequently farts
stumbles over my name
while yours is lost to the ether;
it now suffers a nascent dementia,
Irish style, remembering only grudges

My heart speaks

It murmurs
a bumbling, offbeat cadence
that is neither  poetry nor prose
but, rather, is a coded message
about the inexorability of time

My guts say

Soldier on,
it’s what to do,
it’s nothing new,
it’s simply the way,
it’s life worth the livin’

Unique and Unafraid

POWER
By GC SMITH

The Story of My Birth

Stars twinkled merriment
shouted, look a fool is born
sucker for the fleecers
circus child forlorn

Moon smiles and laughs
he’s sure one for the books
silly foolish circus child
with his deformed looks

Clouds say they will part
reveal for all to see
circus child and his art
fooling you and me

Circus child has a mind
much like a steel trap
isn’t bothered by the taunts
or any other crap

Circus child lives alone
visions in his head
doesn’t give a hoot
if you’re alive or dead

He’s powerful, he’s not forlorn
despite his deformed looks
and he isn’t hurt by taunts
’cause he’s one for the books

And you, you stars and moons
who shine above the earth
you should be ashamed
of your mocking of my birth

Way back when

Saturday
By GC

Nineteen-hundred and forty-six
eight years old and flush, with
fifteen whole cents in my pocket;
enough for a Hopalong Cassidy,
a Zorro, or a Lash LaRue fix
and a nickel left for a candy bar
but I had to wait forever for the
noon opening of the Crystal theater
aka the "Bucket of Blood" and the
thunder of hooves, the report of the
never emptied six shooters, the slash
marks of the rapier, the crack of the
bullwhip, movietone news, and Daffy Duck
and all of the silver screen adventures
of my Saturday afternoon boyhood, even
on occasion a bare breasted African woman
or a stampedeing herd of striped Zebras

#2

That same year (1946), early
on a Saturday morning, the
self-same eight year old
was, for the sin of talking
aloud in the shhh of the public
library, banished; so, on the way
out of the building he told the
Librarian what she could do
with her library, ripped up his card
and tossed it on her desk.  A
week went by and pride swallowed
he came back and apologized, and
she graciously issued a new card, and
even  more graciously never said a
word to his Mom, and so, through
her goodwill his affair with books
filled with wonders of  the world
resumed with barely a hitch.

Some say, however, he never did
learn to keep his mouth shut.

Martini anyone?

Nasty Day

By GC SMITH

Gloom is on the marsh today

the sky is spitting ice cold rain

trees turned to shades of grey

beneath the pewtered clouds

I think I'll light the fireplace

and curl up with a good book

I'll cover myself with an afghan

to keep me from the cold

It's nasty and it's mean outside

but I, for one, will be staying in

I'll not see sun pass the yardarm

to say it's time to pour the gin

So, I'll mix me a dirty, dry Martini

pour it into a classic stemmed glass

And if you dare tell me I must  wait

I’ll simply tell you to kiss my ass

So go on, go and mind your business

'cause, as for me,  I will not listen

I'm gonna do what I want to do

on this shitty cold wet autumn day

Loose Lips

Foot In Mouth
By GC

I never
ever 
know what I
mean to say
but I say it
anyway

I open
up my
trap 
and utter
crap
spills out

It’s what I 
shouldn’t
do, 
but you 
know I’ll do it 
anyway

It’s just 
the way
I am,
but why
I sure don’t
know

Bad for people

Shamans, Priests, Shysters
By GC

Chants, incantations
bodies and blood
sacrificial lambs
hearts ripped out
make for theater
but nowhere truth

Baddies

They Walk The Night
By GC SMITH

Beware the night, when darkness hides
the Hags, the Hants, the Ghosts, and 
yes my dears, Plat Eyes, Boo-Daddies;
the fearsome five from depths of hell

Lowcountry dark is eerie, spooky;
pale moonlight filters strange shadows
through the Spanish moss that seems like 
putrid flesh sloughed from ancient skulls 

Beware, the night when darkness hides, 
the fearsome five that walk upon earth;
quake in fear behind painted portals, 
pray that your Gods ward off the spirits

Lowcountry Gullah legend warns us 
it is wise to stay behind locked doors;
blue painted portals will protect, but 
do not be certain, rather, be afraid

Creatures come to take the little babies 
and bring them to their chilling lairs;
specters lick lips through vile rictus 
and bear their fangs before they feast

Blood they seek; blood they need;
blood to satisfy their undead lusts:
ghouls find their feast in flesh,
so guard your babies with your lives

Spooks may find breaches in a portal
to slither through and find their food;
pray that you're safely locked within,
pray for the children, pray for yourselves

The Gullah-Geechee life is cruel,
hard scrabble times the lot of most,
and now comes the fear of creatures foul
who would terrorize Lowcountry night

Tomorrow is another day, when light returns
and daylight promises that terror will subside;
that is that the morrow will find you safe and yet alive
Still, beware the night, when darkness hides those five