on beardless chins

 Riding through the night and rain
on old Route 66, racing a freight train;
to a grade crossing five miles down the road.

On the stereo, a deep voice growls
about boxcars moving south, like words
out of my mouth and a blended thread of thought.

This stormy night  brings me home with a smile
my favorite team is losin' again, but the wipers
match the rhythm of my mood, i'm so good
in the cozy piece of the bubble in which I live

[Outside, Man has sown soul foul seeds and imagines that
the world bleeds, but no, it is just he- the heedless and the innocents nearby]

The world of men is changin' so, new wars find old grief
snatchin' young lives the Thief now risen from the East.
And once again, I see the Old burying  the young
flag-draped boxes frame final kisses on beardless chins.

It is an allegory of the human condition:
the permissions given to evil; to take our love
and leave the shell to ground. On the war-worn path,
a strike for righteousness:  for life's sake, young life,
and that yet to be in swelled bellies and magical dreams

I'm in the bubble amid a world swirled by change
in the bubble: a  space that has not yet felt
the flood-freeze-and-burn legacy of reckless man

So, I drive and complete the tedious circle of this day
so fortunate in the thousands of ways
we daily see and rarely say- even to self

My bubble is a world still filled with people I love
and with a heart that finally has learned
the strength that comes by gratitude, and the power to see
the overwhelming beauty that life can bring

paper plane

 Its been awhile since I was nine
a memory flashes and feels set free
and the paper airplane flew so fine

when blank page folded to my special lines
well defined my ingenuity
Its been awhile since I was nine

a reach into the bright  sunshine
i curled  wings to climb quickly
and the paper airplane flew so fine

run and chase to quick rewind
being the best came so easy
Its been awhile since I was nine

do memories age like wine?
does time unwind the mystery?
and the paper airplane flew so fine

a proud of my brilliant design
relive a  day that was all it could be
Its been awhile since I was nine
and the paper airplane flew so fine

Poppies

 There is a poem in the poppy--
 layered, soft, and fair;
an effusion of nature's wisdom,
and all it gathers near-
And for a field a-flowing
with wind and sultry red,
my thoughts drift to Flanders  
where wistful eyes opened to sun
and closed to dark
The folly of men remembered
 and greatest love forgot

And war did not die
verdant 'neath the sky, and red
flowed for decades beyond,  til now
when we can in stillness reflect
on so many years of people
and so few of peace

Captive of times -- we say
and rue the bloodied days, as if
the choices were not ours; and captive
we remain-- democracy teeters,
tyrants rise, and truth is on the run!

Through summer heat, slanted winter sun
as the world spits back the poisons we have sown
we live in fire and freeze, flood and sere,
ancient mountains of ice melt to rising seas .
We sit in the balance and
 consider the price of life

I remember priceless poppies, red and reaching
bathed in  love of a nearby star, and the young
clash, flash, and fall-- like seeds of autumn
planting for a tomorrow they would not see
as do we all...

In the rise and fall, circle of being,
rotation of the universe, and we
fail to keep the promises made
to Flanders field and so many more
places without such flowered names

And we twist slow in winds of lies   
ground down in jaws of deceit
as if it were not ours
to raise the sword of truth
and wield it with the strength of certainty
that right is within us and
the brightness of the future
burns our eyes

Air So Still

Searching the afternoon sky,
finding sudden cover - dark, like evening;
against the backdrop of low, gray clouds,
my skin feels the weight of this summer day.

In air grown so still
the black vulture cannot glide.
She efforts to climb only to drop again
until near still treetops, I lose sight
of  broad, dark wings

The buzzing cicada brings my focus
to the garden fence
it flies headfirst to the wooden boards
and then again, drops to ground
rises yet again-- such a search-
 for completion lies only ahead

 The path of life is but a bridge
to the moment we try to hold,
and time has no care for the journey.

We are
captive of a thing we cannot see
spoken-to in a language we cannot understand
bound by hopes we cannot deny; and so
we are
as the cicada at the wooden boards
a long journey into a brief daylight
and desperate flight for purpose

And the vulture circles back, her effortful flapping
of broad black wings
for in air so still and filled with my thoughts,
it cannot gently glide by
 

A cloud above

 The picture on the shelf-
front and centered tonight-
as a warm bath of memories
fills the cozy dining room.

With friends old and new,
tonight's laughter trims ragged edges and unfinished sides.

Yet I see
the pause that lingers in the wayward glance
the smile a tad  short
and the small silences that reveal
a cloud above your views of the world

It is a world that brought you from one side of the globe
and him from the other
to meet and love in the most unlikely coincidence
like raindrops upon the sea

and now, the picture, the smiling child
the affliction, and the sadness
that explains your goodness and his
and bonds that speak of forever

when love is impossible on the skin and
inescapable deep within and so full
that it simply overwhelms

the heart within the heart

Texas Tally Ban

 

 

The right to vote for every man

The essence of being an American

Lost to the win-anyway-I- can

It’s a  Texas version of a Tally ban.

 

Already the hardest place to vote,

Texas amends the tough laws they wrote.

Your votes are suspect unless Republican

So says the snarky Texas Tally-ban

 

They need no mirrors, whispers,  or smoke

Bold- no cloak, and this is not a  joke

The next election tally will not stand

Until approved by the Texas Tallyban

 

The line of our great democracy

The sacred trust from me to thee

The stuff that keeps Americans free

Would thus fall to a little Texas tyranny

 

It’s odd-that a place so big and grand

Can stomach such a tawdry band

Sawing-off the branch on which they stand

that clever Texas Tally-ban

 

They turned Lincoln’s dream into a rune

With all  depth and wisdom of a kiddie toon

Fall they must, for truth trampled by man

Will rise-  a swift boot in their Texas Tally-can

 

To kill the asp the Bard once said

Must be smashed while in the egg

So, I’m for taking up an iron pan

To quash the Texas Tally-ban

 

It is a painful sight;  to see

Democracy on wobbled knees

The lies are big and Texas-tall

The words are slippery like Texas oil

 

But so rude, crude, and clear to see

The victims are truth and decency

On muddy bellies, they stoop so low

to deliver their pernicious blows

 

But miss the mark—the heart goes on

Still beats strong, resisting wrongs

‘Gainst evil  born to darkness, it fights

Tally-bans burn and die in the light

 

It needs a thundered voice of an outraged nation

Doubtless outrage without further hesitation

to enable the stroke of a wise man's pen

to rescue voting  from the Texas Tally-Ban

 

Near You

 Of all the moods that sweep through my time
there is one- comes like waves of soothing music
they are thoughts that dwell with you
that linger and slow the flow of moments

with you i rise and fly, upon thermal lifts of desire
and passion-ed breath fills my chest like fire
and rebellions born of want, free me to dare
the chance of falling, to taste rare air
in the place near you


when you are hurt by my careless words
my unbridled fits and rage, then remember
the passion of days and sounds of our nights
when love eclipsed the sun
wishes made the stars obey
and we hungered for touch...

when I waited for you
in the deepest part of me and somehow
you softly and tenderly found my lips
and brought me to the place-- near you