Perhaps you are not
Where you planned to be, so create
Wherever you land.
LETTER TO EMILY
Dear Emily, you taught us that
“Hope is a thing with feathers
that perches in the soul.”
That thing with feathers also
perches on bush and tree
and carries seed
to remake the world from
dark and crass
to life renewed
as flowering blooms
and melon vines which zoom
across the flower beds
so carefully planted
and now supplanted
by delightful fruit.
We call such wonders volunteers.
I call them hope’s pursuit of faith
dropped into dark soil
by things with feathers;
expanding our gardens
and our hearts, too.
Never has the phrase feathered friends
rung more true
than in a garden making amends
by feathered seedlings born anew.
Filed under POETRY
CIRCLES
I circle each thought lost
inside out amidst
newscasts and social media
circling wagons to create stories
of fearful need to protect
the weakening interior of America
which knows not
an independent thought.
Which instead seeks death
and destruction of a nation’s
Constitutional protections.
No circles required with facts and reason.
Running in circles means running amok.
I watch the circles expand and contract,
circle one another forward and back.
I get dizzy with disgust as stories go round
and roll down hills that are fake
without any brakes. But, who cares?
Circles of bouncing balls under our feet
keep us off-balance, distracted,
our fears discouragingly protracted.
Where can we rest amid such rolling displays
of ignorance and false flags?
How can we escape from the circles of lies?
How can we find solid surface and stand
safe and secure in this most-beloved land?
Who will tell stories that are straight and flat?
We need much more of that.
Instead, we let the bleed lead a sexier tale,
circling like water down the drain.
We are sucked into circles of muck and disdain
so deep there is no easy escape.
The circle we live on is now on fire,
circling our sun among other stars.
Circles of life persists despite
our circular thinking and culture war.
Toss the circular balls to our children.
Let them play with balls in the air
tossing around new ideas.
Walk slowly until the surface is clear.
Filed under POETRY
RICHER OR POORER
Nothing is surer
than the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer.
Private equity firms
build wealth and power
through loopholes in tax laws
that like black holes
deeply draw in Sinemas
and Republicans
to protect their donors.
Black Holes that allow no escape
for clerical workers and truckers,
those who stock shelves
and wait tables, who wash the dishes
of the rich who eat at fine restaurants
teachers cannot afford.
While equity pays off at a lower tax rate
than those who labor,
not simply push paper.
Never has a black hole shown stronger
that no one can avoid voting, any longer.
If there had been another Democratic senator
we would watch that black hole close
and deprive the rich from getting richer
while the poor get poorer.
No one need be poor in this rich nation.
I applaud the compromise with elation.
And will vote to increase Democratic clout.
Voting is what we must be about.
And then we will see loopholes close,
and create true equity for all Americans equally.
THE SPIDER BY THE DOOR
We have a fraught relationship, the spider and I.
She weaves her web along the trim of my back door.
And when I water the garden I turn the hose to clear
the mess she’s made once more.
She now is in a snit worse than any she’s shown before.
For now she weaves her web across a larger field,
snagging the handle with her sticky spit and bugs galore.
Now, exiting through the back door means
walking through her web covered in cotton glue.
Getting into a power play with a spider is not wise to do.
I can almost her her snug refrain, “Hah! I got you.”
Filed under POETRY
THINNING OUT LIFE
My hair is so thin
and so fine,
so unstructured
by aging design.
A blanket woven
from my hair
could not warm
a body cold
from aging blood
flowing so slow.
All of a piece
are these changes
noted and coded
to bring the message
that life is also this:
so fine and
unstructured
except in my mind.
I brush my hair and
watch it fall
loosened from its frame
like my muscle and bone.
The stories it tells
as it catches the light
separating so many colors
into memory’s delight.
If this be aging
I welcome it close.
Aging brings wisdom
to bear each loss
before the final
loss comes and I
am finally bald.
Filed under POETRY
CALM AND COOL HOPES
The heat of the night
left a scorched dawn.
Crimson and gold flames
marched across earth’s brow.
Silence held court
over insect and birdsong.
Canons blew measured beats
throughout the night to face
ceasefire at dawn.
Even the cicadas are silenced
under the strain of clouds
threatening a refrain of rain
over and over and over again.
The battlefield of flowers
hold the whispered beat
of life-sounds’ defeat.
There is a beauty to such calm
where life is pinned down
to lie in wait for safe return
of cooler days and nights.
One could choose weariness.
One could choose delight.
Filed under POETRY
LETTER TO REPUBLICANS
Sirs, if you would please
let our people go as they will.
Your collar on their necks is too tight.
It steals their breath.
It dims their sight.
It twists their minds
in your unholy light
with distorted tales
meant to keep them near
where you can hear
their strangled cheers.
These are not cheers of joy,
but cheers of fear.
Sirs, the game is up.
Now, only cruelty
fills your cup.
No policies nor principles
guide your foolish pride.
History is not on your side.
Your wealth must abide
on steadier ground.
Sirs, you can no longer hide
behind false claims and lame
excuses for false supremacy.
Better to unlock the grip of lies
you use to hold onto
power never due you.
The power, sirs, is ours.
Spreading chains across ballot boxes
weakens the nation, but not it’s people.
The power is ours, sirs, not yours.
Sirs, if you would please, step aside.
Move to higher ground
before the tide turns into a flood
and streets run red rivers of blood
across a country mired in shame
to have lost democracy.
You, sirs, if you please, are to blame.
KENTUCKY
Kentucky sits down pen in hand.
Words tumble unkempt as she
undressed yet and hungry
not simply to be fed
after arising from her bed
with food and drink
but, with vowels and consonants
in constant need to create meaning
from nightmares and dreams
of words which stream
like Kentucky’s flood
destroying all in its wake
as her words awake and beg
to live above the waterline.
The dreams may drown
but Kentucky’s words live on
battered senseless by the weight
of rushing water tossing them around
until they come to rest upon this page.
Kentucky will dry in these words.
Kentucky will survive in these words.
Kentucky is not gone in these words
but, simply moving on to better days ahead
as she rises again from her nightmare-tossed bed.
Kentucky pulls her blanket of dreams
about her trembling form
determined to rise above and move on
to dry land, where the ink has dried.
Filed under POETRY
ICED OUT
Staying set apart is not so rare.
Children who are different
in whatever way offends
the most common denominator
understand and try to make amends
to be included, and not excluded
from the play, the party, the repartee
alongside lockers and desks
and walking home, along the way.
Isolation ices out those different.
Being together used to be
celebration enough for me.
Isolation even after immunization
and boosters brings PTSD
from past to present imagination.
Birthdays and weddings,
funerals and christenings
are no longer safe
for those like me.
Isolation ices out those different.
Cupcakes delivered to the door,
invitations to celebrations where new histories are born
leave those unable to attend forlorn.
We lose not only today’s events
but the connection to friends and family
forged from the past to new futures
where our existence remains unseen.
We are isolated from not only today
but from every tomorrow’s remembrance.
Isolation ices out those different.
Filed under POLITICS
