SLEEP

I would sleep a lot better
knowing you weren't out there
camouflaged in moonlight and indigo,
hiding among the redwoods
that encircle the house,
late night spying
though the bedroom window,
calling me from a cell phone
hanging up when I answer,
making the dogs disappear
one by one by one,
sending scissored newspaper type
pasted on white paper,
anonymous letters
filled with opaque messages
foreshadowing sex and death.

Yes, I would sleep more deeply
but would also miss you,
the sweet suffering you inflict,
the jolt of high-voltage fear
that nightly sears
my body and my dreams,
the sensuous smell
of burning uncertainty.

You are safe here.
I willingly survive
on French roast and catnaps,
a full eight hours
is not required.
 

THANKSGIVING

Kevin.
The man next door.
Insatiably punctual.
Wouldn't dream of being late
Even to a root-canal.
Dresses like his tailor's life
depended on it.
Drives a European sedan
that speaks to him,
"the door is ajar."
Habitually watches the weather channel.

Today,
he burned through autumn daylight
passionately dandifying his house
with outside decorations
pulled from carefully labeled
cardboard boxes.
Mr. and Mrs. Claus,
sleigh, reindeer, stars, angels,
candy canes and ginger bread men,
a complete nativity scene,
(including livestock)
plastic wreaths,
rope lights,
icicle lights,
lights that pulse and fade.
In response to 9/11,
a luminescent American flag.

7 PM.
He stands outside
surrounded by neighbors,
yells to his wife,
"the orange extension cord."
Instantly
like police helicopter
tracking criminal,
night is shredded,
pupils contract,
cockroaches run for cover.
"ooohhh-aaahhhh"
a yuletide fantasia
That would cause Martha Stewart envy,
no energy crisis here.

In my kitchen
a friend bakes pumpkin pie,
rinses the good China,
defrosts the turkey for tomorrow's celebration.
I tell her to forget about it.
"Gratitude is a dying sentiment,
Thanksgiving is going the way of the Buffalo,
it's a ghost town
between Halloween-berg and Christmas-ville,
the train doesn't stop there anymore."
She looks annoyed,
ignores my rant,
wants to know if I like
chestnuts in the stuffing.
 

LATENIGHT T.V.

2 AM,
Donald and Carla sleep.
They manage the Rendezvous Inn
a cockroach infested
pay by the hour no-tell motel
for a Japanese slum-lord
who lives in Hawaii,
grateful to have this gig
after their hot-tub
and jacuzzi business
died a tortured death.
(forcing them to move in the middle of the night.)

Shut-eye is normally hard to come by
this time of morning.
The Weeping Willow,
a biker bar next door closes down
forcing it's drunken, scuffling,
engine revving clientele
out into the street.

But tonight's not so bad,
Carla never wakes,
dreaming of dinner by candlelight
in an upscale Parisian restaurant
this dissolving into discovery
of an original and signed Declaration Of Independence
hidden in the backside of a seascape
she buys from a local flea market.
Donald sleeps soundly as well,
his dreams not nearly as complex.
He's busy banging out Susan,
Carla's younger and much shapelier sister
on the industrial dryer in the laundry room.
(The one next to the Coke machine.)

While motel management makes zzz's
their tabby pisses in the litter-box
and Conan O'Brien introduces Eminem,
tonight's musical guest,
on a TV set in the living room
that Carla meant to turn off
before going to bed.
 

Bio:

Thomas Kellar was born 1955, in Ft. Worth Texas. Currently he lives in
California's Sierra Nevada Foothills where he began writing poetry in 1998.
He is married, has 2 sons, occasionally hears voices and has difficulty in
remembering the sequence of past events. Tom enjoys discordant jazz, cheap
cigars, professional basketball, and toasting the evening sunset from the
sanctity of his wraparound porch.