Wives Day
by Ted L Glines

Who picks up your dirty socks
stinky yuck-pooh things,
washes them so they'll be fresh
for work and outdoor things?
Who mixes up the batter
for your waffles Sunday morn (?),
for you to eat and walk away,
this somehow tastes like scorn.
Who tends your needy kids,
wipes their noses - hugs their fears,
so you can be so proud of them
all down through the years?
Who gives you love and caring hugs
when you stumble in from work,
even though she's tired herself
and sometimes you're a jerk?
Who's always there at night for you
with passion absolute,
(so you can roll and go to sleep)
is she a prostitute?
I think we need to thank the wives
for all their work and play
which make our lives complete and good
every blessed live-long day.
I think we need to thank the wives,
not just once or twice per year;
I think we need to do this now
and every single day!

Woeful Joe
by Ted L Glines

Woeful tale? Ya jus don't know
'til ya hear the yarn 'bout Woeful Joe.

He was born one mornin' in forty-two
an' his parents took off - left no clue,
left him to fend however he might
an' nothin' in life ever worked out right.

Raised in the back of a pickup truck
by a rodeo bum whose life did suck.
Well, I told you Joe jus' had no luck,
he fell out the back of that pickup truck,
bounced an' flopped an' finally landed
an' the truck kept goin' - Joe was stranded.

He finally made it to some city
an' his life continued - more's the pity.
He found a job - sittin' outside,
tin cup an' pencils by his side,
beggin' coins 'til the day he died,
scribbling poems on scraps of trash
an' plannin' to eat if he got some cash.

Now...

He weren't handsome by any means,
about as purty as a sack of beans,
he wanted gals but they'd refuse,
they only wanted to hear his muse;
the only man he ever knew
who remained a virgin at sixty-two.

Wrote tons of poems but never got paid,
knew scads of women but never got laid,
Joe didn't know what he'd done wrong
to deserve this life - a sad sad song.

When Joe died ...

Holes in his britches - holes in his sox,
no money to pay for plot or box,
none of this funeral window-dressin'
an' only his muse to pass a blessin'.

They buried Joe in a garbage bag
in a landfill spot - no stone or flag,
no one came to cry or mourn,
he died as he lived - unseen - but scorned.

Sometimes in the fog at the city dump
you can hear his voice an' somethin' goes “bump”
an' you'll think you're crazy at those times
'cause no one's there - speaking those rhymes.
An' times when the wind is sighin' low
it seems to be sayin' “Oh woe, oh woe.”

Jus' singin' the song of Woeful Joe.

I have always wondered, when a homeless person dies, what happens to the body? Is it buried? Where? Does his muse say the eulogy? Where are the churchy people when we need them? It is the poet who touches the socially untouchable ... and that shames us all.

Whispering Wind
by Ted L Glines

Ache is an emptiness which longs to be filled,
an echoing heart which will never be stilled,
longing for warmth, the feel and the touch,
closeness of someone who means so much.

Whispering wind come to me now,
show me the way, tell me how
to fill this void and make me whole
and thaw the self of my frozen soul.

Way in the black two dimensional space,
I strain my eyes to see your face,
and I see no form in that empty place,
but whispering wind hints at your voice,
an empty promise, a choiceless choice.

Nothing remains but to face the gloom
of a black empty wind and a lonely doom.
But I'll always be here like from the start
waiting for you to fill my heart,
and I can wait and I can cope
so long as there is a whispering hope.