The Green Jungle

 The Green Jungle

The green jungle
outside my window
conceals mysteries—

what my neighbor is up to,
where the cats disappear,
what stirs beneath the leaves.

Hell, that jungle is thick,
so thick I think of cutting it down.

Mostly because it shelters snakes
and other creatures,
hiding in its tangled shadows.

Critters like Tiki,
and maybe even
a time machine.

Grandma smiles at me
from the windowsill,
as if she can read my thoughts.

But she is a distant memory now,
a voice from a vanished world.

She lived through World War II
in a shattered Germany,
with five children to feed.

Fleeing from one relative's house
to another in the middle of the night,
while bombs fell from the sky,
leaving only moments to escape.

One of those children
was my mother.

In 1945 she was nine years old.

Most of what they endured
remains hidden inside her pretty head,
buried beneath the years.

Perhaps that is one of God's graces—
That memory spared her
some of the horror.

But her body remembers.

It remembers hunger.
It remembers scarcity.
It remembers not knowing
who was friend or foe.

Before the victors divided the country,
before borders hardened
between East and West,
my mother escaped westward.

She was one of the lucky ones.

And as I stare into the jungle
outside my window,
I wonder what else survives unseen—

the snakes,
the cats,
the forgotten stories,

and the roots of old fears
still growing beneath the surface,
hidden like a forest
too dense to enter.

The White Rain

 The White Rain

 

The summer garden of us was lush,
until the frost bit deep.
We wake to a landscape
turned suddenly stark,
snapping the roots.
The clock fractures open,
and we let the debris scatter.
It is an ending, quiet as ash,
and the air settles still.

I refuse to drown the floor
in the white rain of what is spilt.
I am no showy Willow,
bending my spine in a theatrical weep,
Draping long green sleeves
to court the indifferent earth,
Flirting with the passing wind,
putting on a tragedy
for God knows who.

Yesterday’s downpour
is already a ghost on my skin,
long evaporated.
I am only a silhouette
leaning over the well of sweet, toxic memory,
Straining to see the reflection
of why I ever built the bridge at all,
As if a heart ever required
a logical blueprint to ruin itself.

You asked if the world harbored
a quiet malice against my name.
The shadows are too shallow
to hold a grudge that heavy, Marty—
There is not enough warmth
left in the heart to care.

 

I Rang the Bell, Didn't I?

 I Rang the Bell, Didn't I?

The joke was stupid,
but the punchline hit like lightning
through a church steeple.

Better than Viagra.
Better than anything
sold behind a pharmacy counter
or whispered across a parking lot at midnight.

For one glorious second,
the universe coughed up a win.

Now every day arrives wearing yesterday's clothes.

The clocks run backward.
The headlines molt and grow the same diseased feathers.
We're trapped in a carnival ride
operated by drunk historians.

Who's on first?
What's on third?
Who burned down the rulebook?
Who replaced it with a coloring book and a flamethrower?

The air tastes like pennies,
old grievances,
and freshly laundered lies.

Racism hangs over everything
like a dead possum in the attic—
bloated,
stinking,

impossible to ignore.

I'd just like to breathe
without inhaling someone else's delusion.

I want the tirade to end.
I want the fever to break.
I want normal to stumble back through the door
looking rough,
missing a shoe,
but alive.

Instead, we're all waiting for Season Three.

Not a polite season.
Not a prestige-drama season.

House of the Dragon season.

Dragon fire turning tyrants into barbecue.

Crowns melting into puddles.
Egos scattered across the countryside
like loose teeth after a bar fight.

Heads roasted.
Limbs crushed.
Entrails decorating the landscape
with all the subtlety of modern politics.

Let the whole miserable circus
reach its final act.

Then sweep up the ashes.

Strike up the band.

And for the love of God,

let me dance.

The "M" stands for Mouth-breathing

 The "M" stands for Mouth-breathing

The "F" stands for Fake.

MF.

A fitting title for a man who thinks a Peace Prize should be awarded for collecting dictators like baseball cards.

You think Putin is your friend?

Putin doesn't have friends. He has assets, obstacles, and future obituaries.

To him, you're that mosquito trapped inside the bedroom at 2 a.m.—loud, irritating, and one slap away from becoming a stain on the wall.

And then there's China.

Not because they admire you.

Because somewhere, a team of scientists is desperate to discover how a brain can be simultaneously overused and underdeveloped.

You are living proof that confidence can survive without evidence.

It's remarkable.

Engineers study structural failures.

Economists study market failures.

Historians now have you.

A one-man case study in how ego can achieve escape velocity while intelligence remains firmly grounded.

You wanted to make history.

Congratulations.

You did.

Just not in the chapter you were hoping for.

You're filed somewhere between "avoidable mistakes" and "what were they thinking?"

Future generations won't ask how you changed the world.

They'll ask how the world let you keep trying.

That's your legacy.

Not a Peace Prize.

A cautionary tale.

  

The Awakening

 The Awakening

Wake up.
The clock is ticking in reverse.
You sleep inside a velvet hearse.
You dream of infinite supply.
While rivers fade and forests die.

The cat looks down with dizzy eyes.
And laughs at all your golden lies.
Your billions cannot buy the spark.
To fix the engine in the dark.

The time machine is missing gears.
To fly beyond these heavy years.
Before the basket burns to ash.
And all your limitless illusions crash.

You move in rhythm, perfect, slow.
A zombie dance is all you know.
Hypnotized by what you own.
While sitting on a hollow throne.

A gaping hole begins to tear.
Through fabric made of empty air.
You are the ghost; you are the seed.
You are the story that you breed.

So tell yourself a better tale.
Before the final anchors fail.
Look back to see where you have been.
The past is where the truths begin.

Remember what the silence cost.
Remember everything you lost.
Remember…
Remember…

The Reflecting Pool

 The Reflecting Pool

 

The surface should be perfectly still,
reflecting every approved procedure,
every box checked, every signature filed.
A model of order.

Never mind the algae bloom.
Never mind the growing heap of mistakes
rotting quietly at the water’s edge.

“YOU’RE FIRED,” rings across the lawn.

Problem solved.

Because nothing cleans a polluted pond
like tossing one or maybe thirteen unlucky fish onto the bank.
Because accountability is most effective
when it travels exclusively downhill.

We can simply agree the disasters were anomalies,
the warnings were unclear,
the experts were biased,
and the evidence was taken out of context.

When the glass begins to crack,
we'll blame the temperature.
When the foundation sinks,
we'll commission a report on gravity.

And if confidence starts to waver,
I know the perfect distraction:
let's bomb another country.

The markets will love it.
The flags will wave.
The headlines will cooperate.

That ought to prove we're in control.

And if somehow that doesn't work,
we could always try a coup—

though, in fairness,
it helps to know how to spell democracy
before attempting to overthrow one.

 

Fair-Weather Princess

 Fair-Weather Princess

A fair-weather princess
once wandered gardens long.
But she had no use for rain,
or getting wet in song,
with either friend or foe.

She's devoted to calm,
avoids forecasts in principle,
files storms under unacceptable
and thunder under whimsical.

"Better viewed from afar," she'd say,
than splashed in this weather’s mess."
So she built a moat of umbrellas
around her happiness.

By dodging every cloud,
every puddle, every scar,
she slowly turned herself
into a pickle in a jar—

sealed against the tempest,
safe from every squall and squirm,
until the rain she feared the most
was life itself, confirmed.