No Kings
To bow before
The roar is compelling
The horns, the traffic, the people
Chanting.
Peaceful
Composed Protest
Against unchecked power
Resistance becomes nationwide
Duty.
Oppose
The regime
The planned takeover
Loss of freedoms and injustice
Symbol.
Let us frolic as children
our nimble limbs dancing
atop young dandelion heads
diffusing the air with wild calm.
Let us exhale red-lipped verse
as if the blackness of the universe
were but a comma in our sentence.
Let us sing in the meadow like the plovers,
home at last. Let us warm ourselves
in the commitment of the Sun.
share our wonder
with the monarch,
our two backs lying flat
chewing on metaphors
as the cool green grass pokes our necks
and persistent flies tickle our form.
Let us muse over the matchlessness,
Of this finite exotic jungle. And let us plant a tree,
Not just any tree, but an endangered Palm.
One lonely orphan left in the wild
Needing a home, a small piece of
the earth to hold fast to.
Focusing on 2020
This retired senior captured a sunrise today
in natural light with a full-frame camera.
She is an iPhone witness to birds spreading their gorgeous broad wings, a rainbow in a fountain, and can attest to having spotted the Easter bunny.
She is among the multitudes
transmitting their art from remote locations across the vast wireless divide and
wondering which photographic filter to apply in a world frantically adapting to change. Observing through a long lens
her fellow humans scouring novel viruses from cracked fingers
Flushing the disease down the muddied drain
of remembrance.
In a daze of black and white.
In search of the new normal
avoiding contact, maintaining a six-foot distance, then touching gloveless
the same credit scanner, dollar bills, soda can.
As the idiots spit into the lettuce, cough at clerks,
Their vacant stares mock the establishment.
The rest of us are
scratching itchy eyes, ears, and noses
reckoning our mutual frailties.
A merciful how and when, if now,
will the end come?
I will arise and go now,
and go to Innisfree.
W.B. Yeats, “The Isle of Innisfree” (1888)
Innisfree Gardens
August’s golden dawn
whispers
Innisfree, park you pay.
Cup Garden
fills tranquil
to brim.
Sunshine and shadow
point fingers
woodsy sculpture.
Komodo dragon
stretches
seating for one.
Fountains shower
mist
poet smiles.
Contemplate genius
living art
by design.
Meditate on
mastery
of rock, water
wood, sky
Alice
drinks spiked tea
with Mad Hatter.
New World Order
Should that annoying Lone Star tick have a large following:
Administer Muse CPR.
Make a List
Lower Your Expectations
1. Insult all ticks near and far.
2. Dig out the disgusting Dictator head
3. Hold a rally in the Deliverance woods
4. Invite All Your Friends and Some Enemies
5. Have a Tick Eating Contest
6. Force the defiant to watch as you ingest their loved ones
7. Build walls
8. Shout and March as IT controls and limits basic tick rights
7. Celebration Party for The New Politically Correct- (Lots of Balloons, Fireworks, Dancing, Rioting, Wars, Fires, Ruin, Mass Graves)
8.- 10. Make History (All good, all fair.)
Tick Types in Office(s)
One may misinterpret this lone star tick
for another
do not be hasty.
If it continues to rule
that will be your last self-governing choice.
Make no mistake
this tick is tricky and nasty
it can and will make you sick.
Not to be mistaken for the deer tick or the brown dog tick
which are something else entirely.
This spangled lone star tick
has a white dot under that coif
and very large incisors which it sharpens
on a wit tick a new tick on the block,
not funny at all.
It has an even smaller stick,
if you get my drift
which I sense is why
this Lone Star
lacks any standards at all.
Don’t let it kiss your babies.
In my unbiased opinion
this tick
will only trick the nitwits
infecting us all with
nervous party politics.
Golfers Senryu
Chipping-in from rough
white ball disappears at once
swallowed by the hole.
You’ve got a birdie
usually is good, unless
it tweets back at you.
A greenie in golf
means that your aim is steady
and your ball behaved.
Having a low score
is highly desired but
tough to accomplish.
Bionic golfers
one putting keeps the pain low
control beats power.
Focus, concentrate
soon you will beat us
winners grin in place.
Lives Lost in The Fire: A Reckoning
(An excerpt from- The Katya Chronicles)
Katya was clearly in danger. The prince was deranged. It was time to travel again, time to face her fears. Where is Tiki?
Clean the black mirror, the Prince commanded, the private room is no longer secure.
I need to see past my reign.
I'll fill you in later, Katya replied, not anything we need to discuss at length.
I am a lonely hero, crooned the Prince, reclining on the bed pillow behind her, arching his back, ready to pounce on a moment’s notice.
" Get up, my brother, she meowed get down with this badass kitty and talk dirty to me.
I don't speak your language, he sighed,
got lipstick stains on my passport, and no exit visa.
What is this chemistry you speak of?
She leaned in
put her face inside her reflection, it swirled as Katya M. Cartouche, April's Fool
danced alone in the moonlight to Alicia Keyes, “On Again,” and looked back at the comfort one last time.
The mirror smoldered as Katya turned and fell through the looking glass, tumbling down into the fiery maze.
" Help, I don't understand,” she cried
Katya, the gypsy, thought, lately, I've been losing sleep, but I'm happy
counting stars in this faraway country, where there is evidence of past lives.
Let go, Katya, the mirror challenged
Here I will stay until you find your way back. Let the storm rage on
take that money, watch it burn, everything that kills you makes you feel alive
and besides, the heat never bothered you anyway.
So here comes goodbye, she cried, her meow echoing down the proverbial rabbit hole,
The gravel road beckons. Don't let the door hit you…
…
I am Katya, the many-faced feline
I seek the way.
I bow before no kings or fanatics
My modes of transportation are alien
to those who cannot see
cannot bend time
cannot reckon that every little thing must be considered
in its proper sequence.
Katya confronted the fruminous Bandersnatch
It was a liar,
had to be shrewdly dealt with.
These nonsensical creatures clearly had a problem forgetting her.
One of the pitfalls of time travel.
Another Day on the Roof
The cock crows
as the blinking moon slips into a dark corner.
She crawls out of bed and pulls on her faded jeans
long stiff from the stench
that no machine can wash away.
Soon her well-worn shovel will crack the old tar and gravel, splitting it into thousands of shiny black chunks, the black dust settling everywhere.
Fragments become tons and are hurled into a lumbering truck caked with dirt.
The roof is swept and swept again, exposing an acre of plywood and a growing mountain of debris; as the boom box drones in cadence, to
Shovel, hurl, sweep
Shovel, hurl, sweep
Shovel, hurl, sweep
The body learning what the day requires.
By eleven a.m., the roof is sporting a black tar paper suit studded with silver nail buttons
to be finished by day's end, when it will be complete in modified bitumen torched down to create a seal. A silver reflective coating is later rolled over it, as the sun continues its onslaught, frying her soot-soaked skin.
She works until sundown, and they drive to dump the debris. Then, to Safeway to buy dinner, looking like a trio of grimy vagabonds, hungry and bone-tired. Drawing curious stares as she brusquely fingers moist cash and blows black snot into wads of brown paper napkins.
Hours later
sinking into the couch
her feet are propped up on top of the coffee table
ten painted toes pointing and flexing
inhaling Rocky Road ice cream.
Exhaling slowly as exhaustion sets in
as she steels herself to begin again tomorrow
for another day in paradise
another day on the roof.
Send THEM to War
Send the gangsters,
the murderers, rapists
the terrorists, the child molesters
the ones with more than their fair share of piss and vinegar.
Send the bad attitudes and the free-loaders.
Send the ones that want to die with their boots on.
Send the experienced ones
A few good men
the Dirty Harry’s the Brave Heart’s
the Rambo’s and
the Rock’s, the ones
with the snot-free noses.
The ones that know-how
and won’t think twice
to fuck you up.
Send the salty, the psycho
and the drug lords, permanently stoned
on their last leg.
Send the ones who want
to leave this earth making
a statement, leaving their mark
their sweat
their blood.
Send Them!
Let’s leave our youth alone
and their wives and children
with their minds and their bodies intact.
Leave them to care for this country
to bring us back to sanity
to give us hope
to revive our economy
to renew our faith in humanity.
Let’s harness those hormones to rebuild our bridges and dams
to patrol our borders, and to forge new alliances
without any preconceived ideas of what they can and cannot do.
Let’s sit down and think about how we treat each other
Reassess wants and needs
How we teach our children
Let’s take a lesson from history
and send the Neanderthal to fight the age-old feuds
leave our kids to save the planet
and send the apes-- the missing links.
Send Them!
There was a young girl from County Cork
was rumored six times with Sean O’Rourke
She was a strong Philly,
seduced his poor Willy
then delivered twin pickles, the stork.
…
You’ve shot a respectable Birdie
Applauded the sweet crone, Miss Purdy
Your score is quite good,
But you’ve misunderstood
Save it, tweets now loud, proud, and flirty.
..
In Galway city at Kelly Greens
Lives a bonnie lass we’ve named Paulene
She has a soft shoulder
It couldn’t be colder
Lads, steer clear of her critical stream.
...
My class, I’m told, weighs heavily on their plate; they must scale back.
The spoken word must wait.
Things may change sometime down the pike.
We could relearn history or later take a hike.
A world without poems is going to leave a hole.
Admit it, can you face the world without a soul?
So, listen, mister, please, have a little heart
And contemplate my gist; let’s save some time for art.
Because if you take the art out of the E-A-R-T-H,
all that’s left are two letters; all that’s left… is “EH”.
They want to get back to basics,
cos vinyl fencing rules, and plumbing brings home the pay.
But humans don’t thrive on work alone.
Change is a process…in this drug-free zone.
They say that art is an act
for people on the fringe,
poets, painters, performers waiting to unhinge.
But we are not all nihilists on the periphery.
We are not immaterial
or The Walking Dead in misery.
Expressing yourself clearly, as you know, is an art.
Our Slam Poets learn to frame an argument
increase their gray matter
by reimagining their unique purposes in life
thereby translating the sea of information in which their minds swim.
Poetry teaches them to reflect on their choices,
raises their consciousness
enables them to define their place in nature
not apart from it.
Self- Expression must continue to be a part of the healing in force,
because their perspectives without writing or lucid discourse… is “EH”.
I stared
at the silent phone
listened for a footstep
beyond the doorknob
that did not move.
Outside, the sun was still up.
I waited and paced,
wearing a track in the hotel carpet.
The luminous clock face on the nightstand flashed 4 a.m.
You left us there, without so much as a see you later.
To wait and wonder
Forsaking us to the dread that overwhelms me now.
The pimply platoon that reappears to march up and down my arms
soldiers marooned with no place to go and nothing but time and fear to kill.
I share this sad night with our twelve-year-old son, an innocent casualty of your private scheme.
Then open and close the shade in the hotel room again.
Noting that it is finally getting dark. It is July
here in Fairbanks, where nothing is fair,
the days are endless, and we wait sleepless
for you to return from your private
birthday celebration.
Place blame on the fool,
for the cost of fuel,
for global warmth, zealous haze,
the access gap and angst-filled days,
housing costs, tainted meat
the average household debt; good grief.
Microplastic seepage and fish mercury seasoned
Dictators murdered, and rainforest depletion.
Melting glaciers, shifting tides, and temps.
endangered species, common-sense exempt.
To save and recycle waste, we attempt ethanol in corporate haste, in the final hours, doesn’t it sting
to develop E10 and E15 with carbon footprints for the hardworking lean.
When our grandchildren ask about what we did, will we look them in the eye
Dare we show them how far we slid?
It would seem
I have a severe case
Looking at my new hip X-ray
The other day
I saw a face.
The nurse stated
It was my colon
I was extolling
To which I replied
Well, at least I’m not backed up.
She conceded this was true.
Then I showed her the itchy rash on my back
You’re allergic to something
What do you think it is?
It might be the laundry detergent. I had used a Tide Pod in the wash recently.
No, she replied, that’s a medicine rash.
You may be allergic to the antibiotic. I’ll add it to your chart.
Great, I thought. I took that for seven days. But at least it was a different antibiotic. Not one I previously took.
The surgeon was backed up with another patient, so I opted to leave and see him next time.
I had such a good report that I wanted to make the staff laugh.
I promised next time to ride a skateboard down the hall,
But she was unshakeable and serious as a judge
And replied, “Don’t do that.”
I left, smirking, imagining what the heart doctors
would say.
I think my Orthopedic surgeon would’ve smiled.
(More later)…
She'd said she would shoot herself in the face
except for the dog
that lost weight that winter
because he loved to dance in the snow,
the white powder glistening
on his wet nose, Shepherd’s tail, dull fur.
I tried to imagine the depth.
Although I couldn't relate
not like that, but
I sensed that it was time
to let go, to
stop feeling like the world sat on my chest
like it was all on me
so, I thanked her but took another path.
I’d start fresh
lay back
outstretched
into the blank page
sweep my arms and legs
out and back,
to my fragile wings
declare my somber joy.
It was a new beginning.
The salt and the ice pick would come later.
It is dawn,
the lights have just gone out,
the cause yet unknown.
The roosters’ crow at distant stars,
their raucous contest continuing
as the sun begins its ascent into
a cloudless blue, tinted with pink and orange.
The palms stand stiffly at attention.
The Ko’olau peaks loom like ancient warriors,
awaiting the first battle cry. But the Kahuna have long gone.
After electricity,
we will run out of supplies.
We will need to hunt for sustenance,
our way of life will fall prey to illness, and the elements.
Eventually
You will kill all of them.
All the people who have done you wrong.
Real and imagined debts burned on your personal pyre.
The evidence of their so-called crimes is long forgotten.
Existing in an altered state of your drug-addled mind.
The ancients are
Holding open the door to your doom
Taunting you into their final dimension.
You were one
I try to imagine how many more are out there.
Wandering adrift, free to plunder
And we are left here in the dark.
Aren’t we great?
Good Morning, Starbucks!
Venti Me!
I’m going for the bypass tomorrow.
I woke up today and
all my size tens turned into fourteens
and I can’t get the zipper up.
I need EMS to resuscitate me
from the god-dammed fake news
that’s polarizing the populace
and I’m asking Mr. President
what is it all for?
I want off the rollercoaster
I want Opie and Andy
to call I Love Lucy
and tell her that
Ricky is her soul mate
that Ethel is skinny and Fred eats liver pate.’
Good Morning America
I need a Zen moment
a place to exhale all the garbage
from my black lungs
coughed up in the trenches
of foreign wars
because my credit
needs a banker to
prevent my cash from being
blown up in the chopper
in a bombed-out country
that hires kids as mercenaries.
Good Morning America!
We need a plan.
We need Mr. Spock
to beam down
and give us the logical
answer, before the Alien High Council
sends us to a frozen prison planet.
because no one here is exempt.
Good Morning America!
Let’s toast our Statue of Liberty
one last time, before the brute
calls in his note.
Before the polar icecap melts,
the climate stops flustering and
before Voyager reaches its destination.
Good Morning America
Today is the day
we resurrect GOD
meet those ancient aliens
who designed the giant stone monoliths
that litter the planet
like a Burma Shave ad for space travel.
Magnetic
to foreign collectors
from a far-off galaxy
who will surely
calculate the odds
of contracting the human infection
and inoculate their crew
for a close encounter of a shitty kind.
Good Morning America
We are being consumed by rhetoric
and our time is running out.
Pardon me
Excuse my partisan ass
Mr. Speaker but
America is Great, but fresh out of tolerance
and we were wondering
when you people on Capitol Hill
will get up off your rich collective butts
and do what you were elected for
which is to speak for the people
because we are tired of swallowing
your sovereign agendas
and we’re not going to be quiet anymore.
I am balancing on a tightrope
on my right leg
without a net,
circumnavigating destiny’s fork,
and betrayal’s vacant stare.
Breaking free from and the
terminal followers
in their petrified stance.
Alone and on my own,
with my sneakers firmly laced.
Heeding the signs
on this blue-green maze,
driven by a brute with cheese.
She is not cancerous
just a bloody, gushing pain in the ass.
She shrieks for
fiber
should
eliminate the sugar,
fried whites and browns.
Hilda needs to add green
red, orange, yellow, and
perhaps a purple
to her day.
Allowing
her
to cool down,
have fewer flare-ups.
Soothed, now
by the unflappable
Hazel
a witch who
comes
expertly
recommended.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!
Come on dearie
don’t be so Grimm
there’s nothing left to fear.
The big bad wolf
evil prick that he is
is out fooling with some
naïve Red Riding Hood on Facebook
and the wicked witch
has roared off on her broom
to Instagram a novel fashion color.
It’s okay to come out.
The bogey woman has left the building.
She got bored
went off to scare up a new Princess.
All the evil turds are gone
Rapunzel
Oh, by the way, you have netted a pink slip.
I’ll explain later.
Seriously, it’s time to escape
from your ivory tower
color those roots
get out of that frumpy dress
invest in a pedicure.
So join the group
get analyzed
and who knows
maybe in a few years
You too, can
get a divorce
move in with Mom, and possibly
fit back into those skinny jeans.
