Can You Handle It?

Wow. I just found some stuff from 2005 that I wrote. That was the summer I lived in Maine, and we worked for a landscaping company. It was a pretty awesome summer. We would occasionally "do" (?) some beat poetry. I don't really remember how it got started, or why, although I do remember that it was my friend Jeff's idea, and he "taught" me how to "do" it. I don't know what the correct verbs are when discussing beat poetry. "Speak" it? Anyway, I found two of them. They make me laugh, so maybe you will too. (Just try to picture me trying to sound like a beat poet as you read this.)

In a greenhouse
full of flowers
that are pink and red
and sometimes even
yellow
I work with the dirt
and all I see is
brown
People tell me the flowers
smell pretty.
But I look down
and my hands
are dirty.

(Even just typing it I can't help laughing as I imagine the voice... the tone... the style. Which is why I was never good at speaking beat poetry, obviously you're not supposed to be amused.)

Here is a doozy. Some of you may know about my fear of moths. Enjoy this, inspired by that monster:

I am a creature
of the night
attracted to the
light
I am feared
though I am not
fearsome
I flit and I flutter
and make that girl
shudder.

Is anyone else enjoying this?

A little one:

The weeds are growing
too fast for me
and I get
tired
so
I eat
my lunch.

Now this one, as far as I can recall, was not intended to be a beat poem, but as I was falling asleep one night the images came to me, and I got no rest until I wrote it down, so this one is not "funny", but here it is:

I was not in the drivers seat,
behind the steering wheel,
but I was the one
who drove her away that night.
As the tears streamed down my face,
she squinted to see
through the rain spattered window.
She switched on the windshield wipers
and I stretched to reach a Kleenex.
I stumbled through the too empty house
as she sped mile after mile
down the lonely highway
I strained my memory to find the time when
we stopped being happy
as she struggled to make sure
she'd left it all behind.

I remember this one was in my head because of all the verbs that start with 's'. That's why I had to write it down.

Well, that's my little blast from the past. I have a few more treasures from the notebook I found. Just wait.