Homer's son

Digital, famous,

you’re not real, Bart Simpson,

but still we love you.

You Beauty

After dinner, Andrew sits on the floor and belts

out notes – off key - from well known power ballads

tilting me back to early family parties

and recent business meetings when I could

and did express my tension, truth or beauty, disregarding.

Then his clamorous song stirs up a heavy

chest, my cave of mouth to a vinegar taste

and tears all dammed with clubby fingers

clenched for every time I couldn’t, didn’t

howl because he's singing out, because he can.

...but blackberries

glint, hanging after rain;

something, nothing, fruit ahead of winter.

Blackberries shine ; look in wonderment

at a little business maybe concerning, or

not concerning, passers by

in conflict ‘do I - don’t I - want to

pick and eat a multi faceted fruit,

this burst of life as life potential?’

Blackberries will fall; not as victims,

not blessedly,

heroically, or even humanly

but now they shine in Autumn as their time and

blackberries turn a little in the wind,

impregnating optic nerves by dancing – no –

such a thought is crazy, silly,

weird, a human fantasy

but blackberries…