Newport Harbor Summer
by
James J. Roberts

The harbor's full of fools and fops

from every state and nation,

mannequins in mindless march

of ego desperation;

like peacocks preening

they're beggaring to be seen,

knowing they only come to really BE

when by another - SEEN!

Normalcy
by
James J. Roberts

I met a normal person once
but soon forgot the name
or size or sex or frame
of him or her, I am afraid.
No matter,
for they are all the same.

Cowboys' Coffee Pot
by
JamesJRoberts

It hung
way back then
gray and high
white speckled porcelain
against the sky
from a jagged rusty spike
drove into a bunkhouse beam
that we sweat to raise
on a steamy eve
Fourth of July
of '65.

It hangs there still
tumbleweed dry
a tombstone of dusty dents
from bumps and bangs and too much use
rough and rusty around the spout edge
from packing up a thousand times
and pouring out
on winter morns
to groggy grunts
and on summer nights
filled with tales and stunts.

It leaks now.
a holey pail.
It's old
like those of us
who rode the trail
with it in tow
across open land and dusty roads.
So now back and forth
from our bunkhouse home it swings
tipping on its tired hook
bemused, unused,
forgotten and mistook
as a monument
to we who knew it well,
to we who went before.