Geordie de Boer

Bullfrog’s Way


My friend, the bullfrog, more loyal
than a well fed dog
knows the ways of Abraxas, the moth,
and deep warm ponds.

With his many-paned brain,
he feels the world rock
and reel on its cockeyed axis.
It drives him giddy.

Drunk with lust and the dust
from damselfly tails,
he rumbles through the rainy night
down forbidden rails

and over covert bridges. One night
you’ll slight him
with your headlight beams. Don’t
pity him or offer a lift

out of guilt. He’ll give you
short shrift, short your
ignition and then give you a tumble
for your trouble.





The Valium Waltz

Drunk all the time on cheap wine, rotgut
and beer. Sad Kerouac’s dead in the bed
his mother made for him, Brautigan’s put
a bullet through his head, Waits has gone to
gravel like Old Golds and Oldsmobiles
and we’re all doing The Valium
Waltz, though we haven’t a clue
how to hew to three-quarter time now,
and the fiddler’s lost the rosin for
his bow. Vinyl’s making a come-back,
they say, but it still scratches and skips
as we reel to the rhythm of our home-
crafted waltzes and those hard single malts.





Geordie de Boer, a rambler and wrangler of rhyme (internal) lives in Washington (state). He’s been published most recently by Offcourse, Cirque, Heavy Bear, Alba, and Eighty Percent. Visit him at Cockeyed Fits (geedeboer.wordpress.com/).