I get my mail at 11:15.
By 11:30 I was kicked out of the house.

It was the day after Presidents day.
I’d brought her a new select comfort mattress.

In the mail was a coupon.
“Mail in for your free bra!”

It wasn’t addressed to me,
But Gisele was on the front.

I have a weakness for hot Brazilian chicks.
So I took it inside.

My wife saw it, took it,
Ripped it up. Giselle’s face

Was torn just left of her nose,
Right down her beautiful Bra line.

She missed the coupon though,
So I mailed it in.

Figure I’ll give it to her,
With a dozen roses.

I wake-up with no one.
I feel like John Donne.

I'm pious so I raise the kid,
I won the "sober" buyout bid.

I've got PB&J and a carton of milk,
She's living it good, lying in silk.

In the drive, there's a 98 Silhouette
Cost: $15,000; I'm still in debt.

Jamie has to get to school,
I'm her pet, her dog, her mule.

I return home and write,
stuff thats nice and polite

When I really just want
to write in Hate-mail type font.

It's blades,
it's hammering,
it's a head-ache from an old testament god.

It's losing,
It's lost,
it's disarranging your mind.

It's rape,
it's drugs,
it's a shock from a deflibulator.

It's being homeless,
It's love's labor lost,
It's misplacing your heart.

It's long distance love.

Glancing at my face,
you don’t see it's a mask
to cover the pock-marks
of Schizophrenia.

The brother eyes of
Charles Manson,
my bladed eyes
are blunted by
Prozac and Lexapro.

Ah...my lips
are the lips
of a Crazy;
always smiling.
Want a taste?
I’m told my kiss
unlocks the furnace of Hell.

This sensitive mask
quickly dissolves
when studied,
receding into
a narcissistic skull
of left-over emotion.

Scott, my friend
in the white coat,
tries to discover my ailment,

But I've secreted
these gifts away,

I've buried them
into this opaque flesh.

I stood there with a crunch in my shoe,
I had been running in rainbow-half circles all day.

The workman at my house had a hammer;
quirky, he put plastic around it and kneaded my bread.

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!
The Mcdonald barn burns in an accident with some plastic and a bread-maker.

The sterling stamping of silver nails into my counter
enflames my head more then the bread-making workman.

Olsen W. Potter

I love to be the stamp
Of a black epitaph
In black ink
On the first line of “Date Due”

I walk out with 3 or 5 or 2
And rip into them,
Breaking that virgin spine
Into beloved used.
gargling their words
to wash out
the talking-breath
of everyday conversation.

Give them to me, these icons of god’s addiction;
I want to saturate
in the serum of their forgotten fruit.

When the Portuguese found you,
A river in January,
The Samba, the Christ, Carnival
weren’t what they sought;
The wanted the gold of the land,
The slaves hidden within the natives,
The wood that has more life,
Nothing but gain.

When I found you,
A lake of passion,
The language, the food, Cariocas
Captured my soul.

I want to speak the golden language
Of the tongue,
Experience the samba of food on my tastebuds,
And let the carioca’s carnival
Releash the native in me.
I want nothing, but your passion.

May your ears screech
With the creaking of cellar doors,
While your heart echos the splintering of a shattered soul;

May your eyes melt
With tears,
as your skin
sizzles in shame;

May your spit be crossed with Arsenic,
Your tongue, a scythe
That dooms the lies you decree;

May your nose, cascading scum,
Sneeze out the lust that danced
while you fermented in your desire;

and

May your life be as
A room full of 30 empty chairs;
Love’s casket leading in their lament.

You’ve yet to speak,
Still you swirl in my thoughts
Like a hungry vulture

I want you to experience Life.

Life that, without your mother, will batter your patience
With the man who tries, to feed you infant formula and pat your back till you
burp,
But can’t fill that tenantless chair, that empty nest of stolen devotion.

Life that will burn the plastic off your lampshade,
that boy will create a crack of sorrow on your heart,
And you’ll call, needing a ride, crying, and I’ll just say that it’s ok
Because now you can understand your father.

Life that will steal you to marriage.
I will stand in line; my right hand a prisoner of war,
my left boycotting this oceanic alliance,
because I’m losing you, my writing hand, to some dude with a Corvette.

Life that will let you be a mother,
that headache from an old testament God,
letting you fill your own chair with your written laughter,

What I want for you is the knowledge that I sit today,
widower and Father,
and praise your life.

This is the assignment for my poetry class this week. We were to write a persona poem, a poem that's speaker is not the poet. I dont want to ruin the poem; so just let me what you think.

A Chip.

While I've got you here,
Mr. No caffeine for me- strictly Decaf-
(Do you think of my well being when you say that?
Maybe I need a shot or two to heat my inner self.)

We need to talk.

I can still remember warm milk by our bedside, Tolkien slept next to me, while the lamp and I
(Did you throw her out too?)
Flirted pull sting with handle.

I remember eggnog and nutmeg
the snow outside the window looked like flakes of sugar,
I always swirled a little just to see the whipped cream decorate your nose.

And remember your wedding night?
Who was the one that tipped out of the cupboard
red wine in your hand, shyness fleeing from my white stare?

Now this. A chip to disgrace my gold rim.
as if the tea ring ‘round my nethers wasn’t enough for you,
I bet you dropped me on purpose didn't you?

Don’t look at me with that rag,
you can't clean away my feelings.
You can't sip away my pain.

I use to think your eyes were like hot chocolate,
we had something special -you and I-
Now because of this chip, I get the can.

IT WAS YOUR FAULT.
I was sleeping away, dreaming of a certain mocha latte that
always animates my porcelain,

When you grabbed that new thermo-whatever
and knocked me awake with a crash,
breaking away my dignity.

We're washed-up, on ice,

Trashed.

Laying in a bare bed,
a black blanet twined around,
like ivy climbing the trellis that moonlights as a ladder
to the balcony of a lover who has been absent for too long,

thoughts come and go
fleeting feelings of friendship, love, passion

until at last, like a unwelcome invitation
to the wedding of our one true love,
sleep comes to the mind,
releasing colors before our closed eyes.

Remember? Remember
the image of a solid tree.

Loneliness comes with the mixing colors,
flowers grow, bloom, and die
all while the tree stands tall
waiting for a splash of white to erase

The colors that blind our eyes.
The blanket lets go,
As cold takes over the bare bed
betraying us to feelings of numbing desolation.

Olsen W. Potter

The blood on my hands goes to show you
that life is not all that it seems,
the red in my eyes seems to prove
that corrections have to be made.

They call it a sacrifice,
to give up all that you have
to a stranger you barely know,
give because you can.

I'm sick of playing nice,
forget tender and kind,
I'm playing a new game now,
one where I'll never be hurt.

So this blood that drains from my lips,
this blood that feels so warm,
is to prove that I can be mean,
I've warned you, stay away from my storm.

This red that never fades
made to cover up inside,
these feelings of love and truth,
Feelings I wish I could hide.

I through playing by the rules,
forget sweet, forget kind.
I'm a new me now,
I hope that you dont mind.

Caressing on my hand,
soft, warm, leather-like;
thoughts of meadows and brooks
paint a landscape of sensations
on my skin.

Time, a round room with
a blowing breeze,
alone.

Pages turn creating wind,
cooling down a self-hate;

not wanted, not needed,
not here.

"Sorry I'm not in my mind right now,
call back later"

changes

"I'm better,
call all you want!"

I asked if I could tell you that
I loved you.
I asked if you would
hold my hand.
I asked why you
were smiling,
you just keep smiling
back.

I haven't asked if
I can trust you,
why ask a question
you already know?
I told you
that I love you,
what more is there to trust?

Absolute dread,
a moment when I can feel tension,
like a cat in the headlights of my eyes.

Closing in around me,
I can't seem to move or think
its takes over and will not relinquish its hold.

Fighting, almost like loving,
only strengthens its power
to overtake my mind with images of humilation.

Closer and closer still it comes,
What can I do but let it take me?
All it is
is a simple
kiss.

We entered,
not just a simple store
but a warehouse converted to
the worshipping of all things manly-

Homage to the bullet;
Shrine to the Hunter-

Two kids-cowboy boots and all-
push a cart that reads
"Customer in Training"
I stopped and wondered,
amid the countless colors of cowboy hats,
"Men in Training"
is better.

Not being a hunter,
a fisher,
an athelete;
its hard to understand just what it is
that makes a man.

Poetry,
rhyming,
sounds,
everything and nothing said on an empty page.

Love,
laughter,
sorrow,
capture the attention of the reader like a burning book.

One look,
one movement,
one word,
destroys walls and castles quicker then anything else.

Fear,
Hate,
solitude,
keep me within my own castle's walls.

"You always look so proper,"
but I'm only twenty-one.
"You always know the anwser,"
But I'm younger then you all.

"You're so kind and gentle,"
"You're so warm to touch,"
"You're voice is so soft and tender,"
yet I still sleep with just my books.

"You're such a good guy,
to help that grandma with her bags,
to help that kid learn to read,
to do everything you're asked,"
still I sit alone...

Squeezed in between the Bulher Agency
and the Thai Cuisine
is the Sushi Ya-
Friday Night-
out with the guys,
well fellow employees at least.
I had a godzilla-cripsy crunch-
a Happy- my mouth wasnt full of joy-
after a cup of courage-
A.K.A. Lemon Water-
I tried a Crystal Shrimp...
the urge
to go
overcame me.
The bathroom was pure black
with a wanna-be Piasco
paino player painting
hanging above the sink.
The mirror was displaced
along the wall it ran,
in front of the john.
As I sat
I saw and thought "why?".
The iron butler stood there,
arms outreached, a tray of toilet paper,
as if to ask so kindly
"May one be of service sir?"

-Olsen W. Potter-

I said I'd write you notes
in the freezer-
you laughed.

I said it didn’t matter.

I said I would write you poems
everyday-
you smiled then cried.

I said I love you.

I said that I would be there
with you-
you hoped more I.

I said I couldn't make it.

I said I'm having problems
with my mind-
you love me anyway.

I said it hurts.

I said I would always
love you-
you said to keep in touch.

I said a simple "O.K."