if you walk on the front lawn
past the library where –
free of charge –
you can take some
if you leave some

if you approach the front
windows she will likely try
to claw the screen
attesting to her
ownership

if you walk up the driveway
and duck under the
grapevines or
poison-ivy – some say –
will tickle your legs

if you look upward
you can barely see the sky
between the
older-than-the-4th-of-July
burr oaks

if you walk past the
once-was back door –
into the backyard –
a forest of ****-trees
shades leftover plants

if you stroll further
the spring bulb-mothers’
dead stalks
cover the leaf-mulched
soil

if you climb up two rotting
steps to the bird feeders
squirrel-ridden –
and treated with suet –
is the cardinal family’s
year-round home

if you like critters and
engage them in dialogue –
natural ambiance –
you will have an annual
prayer rug for a yard

if you let the white pickets
go gray beside the curb –
looking wrinkled –
the shimmer-light of the
street lamp will guard the
paw prints of winter bunnies

© Lewis Bosworth, 2016

As I peered down at the murky
Distance beneath, a stalactite
Scratched my shoulder.

She looked to belong there,
Translucent in her birth suit,
A callous icepick in drag.

I gagged on the still water’s
Stench, hoping for a mirror
To spy on the carp below.    

Strange sounds came from the
Depths filling me with fright,
A white sheet covered my head.

My memories of life before
The well emphasized
My pledged share of crops.

Looking down at turmoil,
A witches brew, a caucus of
Black children as phantoms.

What does the mob spawn?
Down there in the shadows?
Can they sell me again?

My story is growing faint,
It gnaws like a cancer
In line to pay the poll tax.

The terror of being thinned
Out is one way to judge
The faces of injustice.

A leprosy of the soul plagues
Me, this scurrilous writ of right
To cultivate cotton and tobacco.

Two small visages glare up,
The girl has dry hair,  
The boy wears suspenders.

Terrible myths surround
The tales of cherubim
Cursing the walls of mold.

I look down again at
The single bucket, its clamor
Pealing against the bricks.

There is a dizziness about
Staring into an infinite liquid,
Call it vertiginous space.

Consider the opposite,
Gazing up at me, seeing
And feeling raindrops.

Inside this well lurk a
Paradox and an illusion,
Duplicitous evils.

Seeing the faces at the
Bottom is an illusion,
That they exist is paradoxical.

Black isn’t black, but white
Isn’t white, another paradox,
Test them for translucence.

In this day we are challenged
To be just, to hold high
Our heads, never to abort.

The penultimate favor
Is of forgetfulness, of
Ignorance, of mercy.

The only face left is
That of the white sheet
Covered in dust and sweat.

© Lewis Bosworth,,2015

Behold: the blind now see the river’s
banks spilling water on their shoes.

They touch the mud, rubbing it on
their naked thighs, cooling comfort.

The smoke of a man’s pipe on a park
bench nearby wafts above their heads.

It causes them to salivate with thoughts
of cedar, lemon drops and licorice.

Little boys stop in their tracks as the bell
of the ice cream truck peals by.

Playing tricks is the game of the brain
whose cells deliver dreams, laughing.


“Uncommon Senses” will appear in Trying Hard to Hear You, © 2013, Lewis Bosworth

Service to others is the
rent you pay for your
room here on earth.
—Muhammad Ali

She talks of change, of
Back to neighborhoods
Which were comfortable.

Of underground parking,
Of walkable, convenient
Distances to work.

Oh, how nice to wish
For change, to want to
Go forward by backing up.

Or, to make sense from
It, plunge right in and
Join the dance.

I dread the thought of
Driving for fear of putting
My foot on the wrong pedal.

As a perfectly flawed man,
I live alone with a cat and
Shelves hosting 6K books.

Should she change?  Must
I?  Which of us has the
More restless heart?

Life is for living, it is
Said, so perhaps we can
Stick it out for a year.

Stick it out until you can
Prove that love is not a
Swollen mass of flesh.


Or change, change, and
Pretend you are different
From a new car in the driveway.

Or another K of paperbacks,
Or a new litter of kittens
Grazing in the kitchen.

If you change, hide all the
Evidence and be humble
As the crippled or the blind.

Share your legacy before
Someone else interprets
It for you.

And live every day slowly
While looking in the mirror
Saying “Progress, not perfection.”


© Lewis Bosworth, 2016

It’s the wee things that get to you,
the things that they – the invisible
“they” – don’t think of or deem –
what an egghead word – import.

Like the many languages Pope Francis
speaks to the poorest of the poor – just
books away from Revelation and the
end – apocalypse, they call it?

Like the simple task, simpletons do it
in political campaigns for the simplest
of the simple – cost deferred until a
position be taken if it isn’t ******.

Like the contours of the manhood of
the waiter leaning tightly against your
table – as he asks again if you want
your salad with French or Italian.

Like the death of Romano III, a cat of
nineteen, lying alone on a warm rug –
or it was a cold shoulder, the mother
lode of forgiveness.

Like the birth of an heir or heiress of
a circus regnant – a cut above the
silliest of the silly, dancing in the
streets to a playwright’s tunes.

Like the circumcision of a newborn
boy – a social decision on an *****
that doesn’t know itself until puberty,
an unfair decision by a man.

Like the baptism of a child – protection
against purgatory or is it the shoreline
of the Jordan where wading isn’t kosher
when the teenaged lifeguard is absent?




Like the final couplet of the last sonnet
of a poet – her celebration and self-worth
still unrhymed, its meter and iambs
unborn until next week.

Similes slant to the similar, metastasizing
and growing outside the box – oh, ****,
the poet says, her wings clipped by a
little thing like a pep rally.


© Lewis Bosworth, 2013