our better Angels

 In America the promise of equality

Has shone like a beacon over  a raging sea

An assurance that after the storm

There was safety of welcome shores

In America, the promise of equality

Was never granted in sincerity

But as an illusion amidst a fog

A device of greater necessity

From the few to the many.

In America, the promise of equality

Was a wish before dawn

A prayer unto the bleak darkness

That there could be none worse,

And therefore- our better Angels...

But in America, the promise of equality

Breathed life unto itself

From the possibilities of prayer

And steadfastness of faith, it grew

A precious seed in vagrant strands

The land somehow yielded fruit

Made joy from a bitter whole cloth

Of rags and riches

In America, the promise of equality

Is a fantasy of life before the great leveling

Of every human’s fate; a child

Of a union of hope and change

In America, the promise of equality

Is in the balance, lifted by the wisp

Of unseen wings

Kyiv - a chapter falls

There is fire in the ice,
as if made to still, the gleam
of a more distant sun pales
against the eye's-own anger
and the heart's rush of heat.

There is fire in the icy breath
as if dragons and beasts of fury,
that crowd the mind's theater,
act out upon a glossy stage;
so much rage displayed for consumption
of a greater beast, the global feast
upon sudden misery.

[Democracy has a messy birth]

It is in the waning hours of each day,
the play unwinds; a chapter falls,
and winds of change carry
a stench of burnt tires.

For some it is a whiff of a window
from west into the west, to others a stain
upon a treasure- and Kyiv can bleed,
hot defiant blood, for change is also...
a fire, in the ice.