old pottery by Carl Miller Daniels

 

the slimy muck and mess of everything —
the absolute sliminess of reality — it’s all
just, well, it’s all
just so slimy. gooey. slippery.
yep, the utter sliminess
of everything sometimes overwhelms.
saddens. envelopes us.
you. me. everything.
just a big gooey mess.
sometimes,
i envision
myself a pile of bleached white
bones on a secluded hillside.
dry. dry, everything
is so clean and slick
and dry. bones, wind-blown,
dry, not a droplet of anything
moist or gooey left.
yet the wind
hangs around,
ever vigilant, just
in case.

for 100% accuracy by Carl Miller Daniels

when buying
leopard paint,
don’t forget
the
“grass-stain green”
for
the
paws.

the fountain of youth by Carl Miller Daniels

the train
left at 7 a.m.
**
everybody aboard was unconcerned.
**
they’d eaten cranberries for breakfast,
and rejected the canaries.
**
passengers
often
sniff at stuff they don’t eat,
but could, if they
wanted to.
**
pond scum is really just algae.

sherwin-williams by Carl Miller Daniels

in some parts of the country, it’s
a homeowner’s tradition: everything in
the yard (except
the grass itself) gets painted white:
every rock, every birdbath, every
busty concrete mermaid statue,
even the lower 3.5 feet
of every tree trunk–all painted white.
**
at night, there’s kind of an eerie
glow from all that white paint.
**
at night, there’s
just the hint that maybe the
practice of painting everything
in the yard white is kind
of charming and weirdly nice, like
the people who do all that painting
know what the heck it is they are doing.
those yards do look kind of inviting
now don’t they…
**
in fact,
**
sometimes,
sexy teenage boys escape from
their bedrooms and
naked smoke and drink
beside white rocks and
lower 3.5 feet of white tree trunks.
sometimes these sexy
naked teenage boys get smoke-drunk
and erotic-happy and
jerk off together, out there
in some unsuspecting yard,
amongst all the white
objects: then,
all done,
wander nocturnal neighborhoods
on tiptoe, on delicate hoof, among
the white rocks;
only the
dribbles give them away.