Bob Wayne

If Jesus came to dance,
what would the Buddha say?
Could we be saved by the sound of
shuffling feet?

My poetry kicks in the door,
bellows for beer,

Have humans always killed each other?

On the seventh day
the fire wasn’t easy.
Sargasso Sea
crashed and burned.

Something inside my skin moves
and I watch it
scurry about.

I rode my bike the other day.
First time in ten years.

Ah, morning at the office.
Nothing like the fresh aroma of burnt coffee.

She’s just a cat;
a fixture around the house.

The best cure for poetry is

Winter prowls through Shingle Creek Park.

She hung dead roses in my kitchen

Bouncing across the street
in his four-wheel Electri-glide,
bandoliers across his chest.

Two joints before first shift,
recovery from last night,
lube the line.

When it comes to a working man
his garage is biography…

I feel like…

I never should have made
Left Turns.

A quantum particle
at the gates of Hell.

I could have stared at the waitresses legs

I can’t see the path.
My sight is twisted.

I scrabble with bare hands,

Church lady pies,
lounge in the back seat,
taunting me.

Does my shadow feel?
I see his foot tapping to the music.
But is it in his soul?

In confession,
fathers speak in tongues,
mothers weep holy water.

My fountain burbles,
and Klemmer’s sweet sax
sings me to sleep.

Dragging my weary,
sixty year old butt out of bed,
sleep knuckles under.

I’m dreaming
of a bellyful of fire,
I’ve been dead
for so long.

She was no longer alone.
For the moment.

We were lovers long ago,
I remember her face in the morning.
A jigsaw of fine lines,
her dayface dissolved in the pillowcase.

The ancient garage always reeked of grass.

The leaves screaming

I am from what was once called
The Paris of the Midwest.
Nugent called it the

The wonky old aluminum window,
austere and squealing for mercy,
would only rise a few inches.
But it was enough.