For this issue of TLV I lend my pen to the semi-able Sundown Cowboy, self-proclaimed poet lariat of The Balcony.
Bagged
Two paper bags –
one white and one brown –
which would I rather
have hanging around?
One bag for you,
one bag for me.
both bags containing
sweet mysteries.
Both have a time.
Both have a place.
Both have a thing
they do with your face.
Say “brown” and you frown.
Say “white” and you’re bright.
Oh, which bag shall I
wish for tonight?
In white they put chocolates
and bread and muffins.
In brown they put books
and groceries and vodka.
You take the white for
the pastries and candy
and all other treats
that make you feel dandy.
I’ll settle, my friend,
for the bag that is brown
and the magic it makes –
turning frowns upside down.
Critiquing Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff or
Sean Penney, You Just Doo-dooed Stuff
Silently, soberly, I sat in my carnelian-colored cloth chair, in anxious anticipation, allured at the thrilling, tempting thought of randomly reading the restless ramblings of Sean Penn in his pretentiously-penned and parsed, disastrous and degenerate diatribe of a debut novel, most notably (and naturally) known now for its anguished, agonizing, abhorrent, abominable, abstract, absurd, and abysmal alliteration. The pathless, pathological, pitiful, and painful passages pierced and paralyzed my powers of positive perception, leaving me languishing lightheadedly from the loquacious literary lunacy so liberally levied on the pitiful public. Please pour profuse praise upon this raffish, rhetorical, revved-up reporter for straightforwardly, sanctimoniously, and superbly saving souls from senile stupefaction by declaring this dense, dilettantish, dank, dandyish, direful, discombobulated defecation of a disastrous, decomposing, and damnable mountain of deplorable, despicable dung.
Crutching
I saw you walking –
the two of you –
arm in arm,
hand in hand,
leaning against each other
in the rain,
no umbrellas or raincoats,
just two jersey hoodies,
certain to protect your heads
until they themselves are saturated,
which won’t take long –
not in this downpour.
I know why you walked that way –
why you crutched one another –
and why you didn’t care one whit
whether you were wet
or whether you were dry.
Yours’ was a mourner’s pace –
the outward manifestation
of internal pain –
the body’s way of saying,
“This is too much to bear – alone.”
I know that heartache all too well.
That is why,
when I saw you walking –
the two of you –
arm in arm,
hand in hand,
leaning against each other
in the rain,
I shed two tears:
one for the sorrow –
the sadness of loss,
and one for the grace
of each other’s shelter
when it’s raining –
outside and in.
…and that’s the view from The Balcony. 
