Conspicious Presumptions is a compilation of humorous and serious poems written by Terry McCarty between the years 2012 and 2014.
AMARILLO 74
The bus is waiting
Everything out of the motel room Where
I lost a sort of virginity Spending a night
with people Other than family.
Quick breakfast.
Then take off my right shoe To
make sure
The rest of the money My
father gave me
Is still there.
Look across the street
At the convicts in City Jail Using
a mirror to flash SOS signals at
the girls
In our high school band.
The bus is waiting. I
wish I could stay.
I AM NOT READY
TO WEAR MY FATHER’S FACE
when I was much younger people
would tell me
how much I looked like my father
now I'm older
hair grey on the sides less
of it on top elasticity of
youth gone
instead there's a hard, determined
certainty
and tie every day
ready to pass someone to the
next grade
or approve or deny their loan
but I'm not Authority
no matter how I look now I'm not
ready
I don't think I ever will be
ITALY TRAVEL POEM
it's almost 7:00 in the morning
we arrive at Rome's Piazza del Popolo waiting
for Violetta the tour guide under gray skies
pelting rain
as only a few people
walk to work
at this foreign-to-me-in-both-ways hour
Violetta, please deliver us from
dreariness
to the padded seats of a
recent-model bus where
we can travel towards
Tuscany
where ancient churches,
lunch with wine tasting, wellpreserved
villages (with
thankfully few cars) wait
patiently
in all kinds of weather