As you lay dying,
I went out to mow the grass,
Knowing it a task
I’d be able to perform
With a bit of grace,
Preparing myself to try
To bid you this last good bye
With dignity and honor.
As you lay dying,
I went out to mow the grass,
Knowing it a task
I’d be able to perform
With a bit of grace,
Preparing myself to try
To bid you this last good bye
With dignity and honor.
I’m done racing rats
Through a seeming endless maze
Chasing smaller chunks
Of stinking green Limburger.
I see, now, the trap
Set by those soulless fat cats
To keep us from succeeding.
Beside a small pond
hidden in a cedar grove,
a homely shed stands,
indifferently attended,
not for lack of love
but for aching old bodies,
children too busy,
and grandchildren far too young
or moved just too far away.
A lucid moment,
skitters past and disappears
furtive as a mouse,
into the mounting clutter.
Leaving us all wondering,
“Was it, really, ever there”?
Songbirds bring no joy
for all their urgent chirping.
Leaves collect, unraked,
along poolside patio.
Grass leaps joyously
skyward, mower still garaged.
Winter deadfall lays
untended about, unburned.
Daffodils came; went
unseen and unphotographed.
Irises glow now
in varicolored splendor
yet scarcely noticed,
in passing, by a weary
soul, slowly, recovering.
In these trying times
Let us not forget the mirth,
The unbridled joy,
Reminiscent of our youth
When humor still lived
In the great absurdity
Of footprints in the butter.
A fat, bald, white guy
sporting third degree sunburn,
Speedos, and Ray-bans
and driving his Jag:
Donald Trump for President
twenty twenty four.
This disease leaves wounds,
rivers both wide and deep.
Too deep for fording
and much too wide for bridges,
so we build ferries
and brave treacherous waters,
holding connections
to our loved ones long estranged
by these savage waters wide.
As I contemplate
The things for which I’m thankful,
This Thanksgiving Day,
My thought keep on returning,
Almost without fail,
To this grand experiment,
Managing somehow
To maintain its functioning
Despite ill intent
From an elected leader
Lacking heart, and soul, and thought.
In a former life,
digits were significant,
windows into certain truths.
Now I hold focus
on subjects far more tangible:
Standard Deviants
who analyze variance,
then regress toward the mean!
Somewhere, below, lies
Bristol, famed for it’s street art;
An ever-changing
Desert of stone walls, stencils,
Spraycans, and wheat-paste,
Chronicled by one poet,
And honored by another.
This, I know, is true.
Between these words lie meaning,
Blatant and obscure,
Obviously camouflaged
Within white spaces
Surrounds by darkened lines;
Razor sharp yet, oddly, blurry.
Is there no respite
From cacophonous onslaught?
Grave silence beckons
Offering some false solace;
A dulcet Siren,
Singing softly of retreat
From all worldly suffering.
Oh, that hollow call,
Promising a warm embrace
In the frozen earth.
When’s the time to grieve
Climatic devastation
Sweeping all nations?
When once deciduous trees
Fail to shed their leaves?
Is that our cue for sorrow?
When there’s just no tomorrow?