LAST GASP

A doe raises her head attentively
some of us stop what we're doing
she hears the sound
far better than we 

For most it just blends in
with the rest of the
noise pollution
but for those who do take note
it mimics a cry in the wind
beneath the brainless bemusement
of the Cornhole Championships 
one has been reduced to watching 
as one dutifully 
shelters in place

Some switch to Fox
or CNN to get the latest
from the All-Pandemic-
All-The-Time channels 

We are all in this together...
comes up over and over
on the screen 
but it's not the way 
they'd have you believe

more like nervous strangers 
trapped inside an elevator 

and the doe and her ilk
are coming out of hiding
to reclaim the 
deserted suburban streets
stolen from them

Hey children
what's that sound...

boot heels hit the ground
as we follow along
in lockstep
(at least as far as
 the end of the patio)

And that cry in the wind
some of us 
but far too few  
heard was nothing
less than the
last
labored 
gasp
of 
ideals
we once held
sacred and dear
dying

the Greeks called it eleutheria!

LAST LESSONS OF THE AFTERNOON

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Didn't send anything 
to your journal this time
didn't send anything to
your contest 
(after winning it last year)
give someone else a chance
I said
but the truth is it's just too much
goddamn trouble 
for little reward

Like a lot of things

Like life
mostly

But you're expecting
a poem 
of course you are
that's why you're here...

So let's not disappoint:

Last lessons of the afternoon
your last drive
I said, this misery must end

The rolling English road
bagpipe music
anthem for doomed youth

Buffalo dusk
full moon
what are years?

Look within
the lost man
not waving 
still drowning

I remember the woman
 at the Washington Zoo
wearing flames and dangling wire 
a kiss in space
a taste
tangerine
Xmas trees
the end of love
going
going
gone

All day it rained 

Fuck you 

EXISTENTIAL DILEMMA

d'Verse Poets Pub

How many people
would you have killed
by now
if you could just wish
somebody dead
and the deed would be done?


no consequences
and completely anonymous


No
you say
no one should have that kind of
GODLIKE 
 power over another
but you see
it's almost as easy
right now
it's almost as easy
just a flick of the finger
is all that it is
just a flick of the finger...


bang bang
you're dead

freedom  

responsibility

Truman thought that the lesser
of two evils
was to slaughter the innocents
to make the combatants sit up
and take notice
but the end is never justified
by such a means
it just means
that it's the end
but it will come around
again
it always does


and there you are again
my friend


freedom


responsibility


if  he ever slept
easy
for just one night
after that fateful decision
then he was a madman
just like the rest
but you see it's okay
because he was
our
madman
and sometimes when God
doesn't act
we have to


and right now
it's almost
as easy
you see
it's almost as easy
for anyone
to make that call





.

TROPOSPHERE

Poetry Picnic

d'Verse Poets Pub

There's wispy clouds 

morphing slowly into

some other shape--

some other beingness

right before your eyes.

Not like your life, which

does it behind your back.

The birds are doing strictly bird

things, they don't give a crap

about you and me, unless its to splat

some on top your head

And off the top of my head

I'm rehearsing what I might say to you

tonight, if you ask about her, and why

it all turned to shit so quickly, and

I'll just say that she was the

prima donna type, and me,

just a casual guy who doesn't sweat

the small stuff--and I think it was

'cause I didn't bow down to 

her, or even curtsy, somewhere

along the way. Not really knowing,

but banking that you won't be

the same, but hey...

Sitting on the porch, I spot

the feral cat who lives underneath

the house, heading off on his mid-afternoon

hunting expedition. And when I think about

moving from here, I think about

where would he go in this 

stark coyote land?
There's a bowl of water that I set out.
Never food. 

He's lean, but he's a survivor,

and I'd never want to turn
a wild thing into something less.

And I glance up at those birds on a wire--

heads down in a heartbeat--

and off to who knows where,

'cept that it's someplace else, as

I languish here, dreaming of 

Adriatic whores, and some way to 

attain that kind of altitude. 

  

THIS POEM (inspired by the debt crisis, the economy, war, rampant paranoia and...you name it.)

This is not your father's poem

we must admit it's true...

this poem belches at the dinner table

picks its nose at the opera

and passes gas in church...PEW!

This poem is a nasty little bugger that will sneak a peek up your dress

or bite you on the rear if you don't stand clear.

This poem stepped on a crack and broke your mother's back.

This poem wants you to wear your stiletto heels and give its ass a whack.

This poem doesn't give a damn if you're black or if you're white.

This poem IS black...this poem IS white.

This poem don't care if you're gay or if you're straight.

This poem IS pretty gay...and this poem WILL set you straight.

This poem needs no critique,

nor will it ever appear in some anal-retentive academic journal.

This poem possesses no mystique,

but its heart is pure and its message eternal.

This poem don't care about what's "PC" or what isn't...

This poem is free to sing My Country 'Tis of Thee...or 'tisn't.

This poem makes no apology to any lace-panty wearing pantywaists

who may be offended by words--

who believe that speech should be free

only when they agree.

This poem don't cotton to no flag waving love-it-or-leave-it hypocrites

who tell us we should love the symbol more

than what the symbol stands for.

(Do you KNOW what it stands for?)

This poem believes that life, liberty, and the pursuit of "hap"

is being threatened by the whiners and all of their crap.

This poem knows that our minds have been brainwashed

by those whose misdeeds have been whitewashed

until everything we believe is hogwash.

This poem advises you to murder your television.

This poem has had a hell of a vision

that your television is out to murder you.

This poem wants us to get our heads together--

this poem wants us to get our shit together,

but this poem doubts whether SHITHEADS can ever get it together!

This poem is bi-coastal.

This poem went postal.

This poem is headed for a fall...

this poem banged its head against the wall

and passed out in the toilet stall.

This poem is a celebration of what America once thought she could be...

and a requiem for what she has become.

This poem is done.

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

Poetry Potluck

photo courtesy of Getty Images

One Shot Wednesday

Walk with your head held high.

Walk with the fire of freedom in your eyes.

Walk to dispel the lies.

Walk with a vision of the basic right of self-determinism
 for all people.

Walk like a true patriot.

Walk in the footsteps of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Walk with your friends by your side.

Walk with your lover by your side.

Walk to stand side by side with the old and the young.

Walk to show the politicians you are coming

Walk to show the politicians what true democracy
sounds like: THUNDER!!!

Walk with these lyrics pounding in your brain:
Call out the instigator/because there's something in the air.

Walk to demonstrate that the TRUE power always lies with the PEOPLE.

Walk to demonstrate that the people have given too much of their power away.

Walk to demonstrate the sleeping giant has awakened.

Walk to demonstrate that the few will no longer dictate to the many.

Walk to demonstrate that government must be our servant, not our master.

Walk with these lyrics swirling in your head:
They come, they come/to build a wall between us/don't let them win!

Walk to bring the oppressors to their knees.

Walk to throw the bums out.

Walk to kick in the doors.

Walk to tear down the walls.

Walk to emblazon the walls with this slogan:
If not us, who? If not now, when?

Walk in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.

Walk in the spirit of the sixties.

Walk to end the abuse of power.

Walk to empower the powerless.

Walk to show that the masses will no longer be the asses.

Walk to the rallying cry of the trumpet.

Walk pledging no retreat.

Walk for the liberation of man.

Walk to bring sanity back to humanity.

Walk to honor the dreamers.

Walk to create the world in our own image.

Walk in the spirit of Gandhi.

Walk with the fervent prayer that revolutionaries
no longer become just like their oppressors.

MAN IN THE BOX

Rush hour finds me back on the road to nowhere--

one of the multitude of morose or comatose

wage slaves blending into the traffic flow,

merging with the stream of semi-consciousness,

farting and belching along,

darting and weaving,

to gain some positional advantage in the race to the BIG HOUSE

where I pay homage to da MASSA,

a man whose fondest sentimental memories

are of raining bombs upon the Italians--

a place where, like a chess player who's maneuvered himself into a corner,

they will keep me in check until quittin' time.

He appears at the stoplight

like a notice for a bill I forgot to pay.

Derelict with a sign that says give me money.

I don't, though I can't think of a good reason

not to--isn't he putting in a day's work,

standing in the sun, trying his level best

to hold that placard straight,

same as the guy on the road construction crew

who pulls his thumb out of his ass

just long enough to shove a sign

in your face that says SLOW DOWN?

A man in a cardboard box

needs only to flip his lid

to observe the stars,

while I, who gave up reaching for them

ages ago, try to comprehend the difference

between his heaven and mine,

knowing that truth is like the sun--

not everyone sees the light at the same time.

And though I pretend not to notice him,

what I really want to do is roll my window down

and say, "HEY, let's you and me--let's hit the turnpike together...

RUN while there's still time--

head north in the summer and south in th-

but by then the light has changed...

and I'm back on my road to nowhere.

I guess it's just as well...

I couldn't live in the shadow of his pain,

nor ever think of a reason to be that free.