A POCKET FULL OF POETRY

Folded creased and smushed
Sat on and crumbled
barely legible
chicken scratch writing
Number 2 pencil used
smearing like cried out mascara
Sun faded
fingers stained from making Jamaican greasy beef patties
Extra words written in margins with detour arrows to follow
Cross outs and skipped lines
Life’s pace unable to grasp unfinished endings
A pocketful of poetry like a full belly
A mouthful of birthday cake
Words imagined
captured and retained in ink as it sinks into thin sheets of wood
Other words dance in my mind long forgotten like rotten cheese
Most times my pockets contain the contents of
Loose change jingles intermittently with an assortment of jagged edged keys
a partially damaged CELL phone lies dormant deep in my pocket next to a tattered bill folded next to some grimy ones
The usual pocket hole as pens and pencils escape like fleeing
prisoners in the cover of darkness
I reach inside my pockets to retrieve words
Reflections of VISIONS of the day
Slanted perspective

Hungry and complete at the same time
These poems pop up anytime like crime
Sometimes words replace nickels and dimes
In the local grocery store,
the cashier is aghast that I possess no cash
a pocketful of poetry leaves a man poor
My pockets can only afford metaphors