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.

 

Juneteenth: Turning Towards Dawn

 Juneteenth: Turning Toward Dawn

Freedom was signed.
The door stayed open.

A clause stood there,
small as a nail,
strong as iron:
the Thirteenth Amendment’s
hidden seam.

Except as punishment for crime.
Angola rose
from plantation dirt.

The fields remembered.
The hands remembered.
The law did not.
They called it justice.

The whip
learned another name.
Black codes
walked softly,
turning free men
back into property.

A charge became a sentence.
A sentence became a body.
A body became profit.
The convict lease
bound the loophole tight.
Men were sold
to roads,
to levees,
to fields without names.

The state counted money.
The towers
counted men.
The country rang bells
for freedom.

Freedom waited
behind the loophole.

Years passed.
Decades passed.
Lives passed.

Then came another promise,
The Fourteenth Amendment
written after blood,
after ash,
after the country had seen
what it had done.

Section One spoke clearly:
Born here,
you belong here.
The Citizenship Clause
erasing Dred Scott’s stain.

No state
may take your life,
your liberty,
without Due Process.
No state may deny
your equal place
beneath the law.

Equal Protection
carved into the stone.

Yet the states resisted.
The shadows fought the light.
So the authors built a weapon:
Section Five.
The Enforcement Power.

The gavel swung.
Congress claimed the authority
to pass the acts,
to march the troops,
to break the codes by force.
The constitution was given teeth.

The words were small.
The hope was not.

Juneteenth is not late history.
It is a bell
still learning
how to ring true.

It is a promise
dragged through chains,
but not buried.

It is the law,
slow as stone,
beginning—
at last—
to turn toward dawn.

And dawn,
when it comes,
must come carrying justice.

 

Painsomnia

A tweaked-up knee, a darkened stair,
a midnight curse, a silent prayer.
You missed the pill, you skipped the dose,
and now painsomnia lingers close.

It takes the stage, demands applause,
ignoring all good sleeping laws.
An encore act you didn't book,
yet there it stands with a knowing look.

So leave the bed. Abandon sleep.

This night's ambitions clearly run deep.
Head to the kitchen, calm and slow,
where fellow insomniacs often go.

Pour up some ice. Pour up some tea.
Negotiate terms with that mutinous knee.
Then grab the AARP, my friend,
a source of wisdom without end.

Forget the phone, the screen, the glare.
An actual magazine waits there!
While others toss and curse the night,
you're being educated outright.

You'll learn of diamond intersections,
and proper seatbelt inspections.
You'll master how a roundabout
can smooth your traffic stresses out.

You'll discover how to safely share.                                                                               narrow lanes with cyclists there.
And, best of all, the crown jewel still:
the proper hand grip/steering-wheel tilt and angle.

Adjust it just so, left and right,
to spare your face in an airbag flight.

Who knew an aching joint could bring,
such useful automotive tutoring?
What started as a swollen knee
became a graduate degree.

I'll leave you here to contemplate
the many steps that age creates:
the pills, the aches, the midnight quests,
the magazines we once called "rests."

Perhaps aging well is not a race
but learning all these things with grace.

 

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

Bluets vs. Forget-Me-Nots

 

Bright Bluets have four 

But Forget-Me-Nots have five 

Petals are the tell.

 

Quaker Ladies form

a tight cross shape and wink.  They

are native stars now.

 

Both have yellow hearts

One bright bloom will eye you up

one will lure you in.

 

The Native Starlet 

is a cousin of coffee.

They love sunny lawns.

 

The foreigner is  

bound to moist and shady banks

Changing color now

 

The dreamy Icon

lush, wild, and packed with folklore

sweeps suitors away.

  

X-Ray Prophets

 X-Ray Prophets

 

These days, you need a machete—

Crocodile Dundee big—

to hack a vein through this jungle of dark.

How does anyone sleep?

Once, young and feral,

I could sleep through thunder,

through houses collapsing in dreams.

Now arthritis tolls its iron bell;

pain sits on the porch with a shotgun.

I turn and turn,

a stranded animal nosing the brush

for one patch of moss,

one warm stone of bliss

inside the swamp-thick doubt

that anything changes.

Maybe it does.

But when strangers climb into my skull

with flashlights and weather maps,

I leave.

No shelter from X-ray prophets

mistaking roots for bones,

blind to the green fire

rising beneath the soil.

The phone hums in my hand

like a tagged hornet.

The zombies know our names,

know the shape of our hunger.

Still, sight is a prescription bottle

with half the label scratched away;

speech, a window breathing itself opaque.

Trust half of seeing,

none of the static.

Believe in a cracked lantern

swinging through rain.

The crow, stitched to the power line.

The thorn, working deeper under the skin.

Pennies dissolving on the tongue

like blood and electricity.

Or the smoke of

black orchids opening

where the dark learns to flower.

 

The Evolution of a Few Words

 The Evolution of a Few Words

Words are slippery little things;
They change their coats and grow new wings.
What once was true may now sound odd—
A prank by language? A gift from God?

Nice once meant a foolish fool,
not someone charming, calm, or cool.
To call you nice in days of yore
was not a compliment at all, for sure.

Explode meant clapping, loud and grand,
a thunderous roar throughout the land.
And loud applause? Well, strangely enough,
meant, “Hook that actor—the show's too rough!”

If something seemed plausible, they'd say,
“It deserves applause!” Hip hip hooray!
Not likely, sensible, or probable—
just clap-worthy and laudable.

A bully once was a darling dear,
a sweetheart you'd hold forever near.
“I love that lovely bully,” they'd coo—
Quite different from what bullies do.

And buxom? Here's a twist to note:
it once meant obedient, not low-cut coats.
A dutiful soul who'd do as told,
before curves and glamour entered the fold.

To disappoint was not heartbreak's sting,
but removing someone from a lofty thing.
To appoint or disappoint—that was the game;

Shakespeare would surely approve the claim.

A fizzle was a modest breeze,
a quiet escape, if you please.
A gentle puff, discreetly sent—
Though sadly, not always odorless in intent.

And luxury? Believe it or not,
it wasn't yachts or a fancy yacht spot.
It meant lust and lechery run amok—
“Foul luxurie!” cried the scandalized flock.

As for popularity, here's the twist:
it wasn't liked on a social list.
It meant democracy's weighty decree—
A political matter in 1546, you see.

So words march onward, year by year,
growing stranger, shifting gear.
Meanings wander, drift, and roam—
No word stays forever at home.

And if you think language should stay one way,
history laughs and says, “No chance today.”

What Doesn't Kill You

What doesn’t kill you

makes you stronger,

wiser,

and strangely qualified to disappear in a third-world country.

But maybe that’s just the deluxe package.

I’ve been part of this experiment since the '90s,

which means statistically

I should have grown a second head by now.

Food was the best scam.

"Feeding the world,"

they said,

while quietly inventing ingredients

that sound like rejected Star Wars characters.

I don't trust food. I don't trust people who pause too long before speaking.

I don't trust people who remember things

that happened three presidents ago

and somehow involve me.

Get a hobby.

Raise a fern.

Learn pottery.

Stop collecting my life like baseball cards.

Meanwhile,

the gun has fired,

and somehow I'm still here. Actually sitting.

Hydrated.

Moderately annoyed.

Which is impressive,

considering I spent thirty-six years

on an island with a f**king maniac.

He was Trump to the Nth degree,

a mathematical impossibility

with opinions.

And guess what?

I'm here.

He's not. What color are your socks?

Mine are red, white, and blue.

Not all red.

Not all blue.

This isn't cable news.

Try to keep up.

I'm talking fifty shades of survival.

One step ahead of the bread line.

One step ahead of dehydration.

One step ahead of becoming a true-crime podcast episode.

And if they ever find me dead in my car

with the AC blasting

and the engine running,

they'll shake their heads and say:

"Damn.

She was a tough one."

Because she had a mission.

A plan.

An attitude problem.

And absolutely no intention

of letting reality

have the last word.

 

On This Day in History

 On This Day in History

 

On June 10, 1963—
They signed a promise.

Called it the Equal Pay Act.
Set it down inside the Fair Labor Standards Act like a vow:

same skill.
same effort.
same responsibility.
same work.
same pay.

Simple as a heartbeat.
Simple as it should have been
all along.

But a law is not a miracle.
A signature is not a sunrise.

Ink dries fast.
Bias does not.

So the promise left Washington
and ran headfirst into offices,
classrooms,
hospital halls,
shop floors—

into every place
where a woman was asked
to do the same work
for less money,
less credit,
less room to breathe.

And still we ask—
equal where?
equal when?
equal for who?

Because a gap is never just a gap.

It is groceries.
Three months of them.
\$3,291 worth of eggs and apples
and something green for the table.

It is child care.
Three months.
\$3,282 worth of safe hands
and watched-over hours.

It is rent.
Three months.
\$4,461 worth of a key,
a lamp,
a door that locks.

It is family health insurance—\$1,804.
It is student loans.
It is gas in the tank.

It is one more bill saying:
choose.
Choose what gets paid.
Choose what waits.
Choose what part of your life
can afford to fall behind.

So no—
this is not just history.
This is not a date to circle
and congratulate.

This is a promise
still standing in the doorway,
still asking to be let
all the way in.

The law said equal in 1963.
The paycheck still says:
not always.

So let this be more than remembrance.
Let it be rhythm.
Let it be witnessed.

Let it be a chorus
loud enough to carry
from one generation to the next:

same work.
same worth.
same pay.

Until equal is not an echo,
not an anniversary,
not a line in a history book—

but a fact.
but a habit.
but the way this country
finally learns to sing.

Time To Take Off The Blinders

Yesterday, I watched
Substack news podcasts
and learned why ignorance feels like bliss.

I learned more about Trump
and the corruption
spilling from the Oval Office.
The scale of it—
the offenses,
the grift,
the deception—
stretched farther than I'd imagined.

Independent journalists
did the brutal work,
dragging truth from the shadows
and forcing it into the light.

For hours, I tried to make sense
of what I was seeing:
enough to send followers reeling,
enough to make the end of days
feel close at hand.

Fresh out of pardons,
no one seems untouchable,
and even silence feels complicit.

Interview after interview,
the lies piled higher,
the distractions grew louder,
and the cost of ignorance
became impossible to ignore.

The blinders are off now.
Like a horse seeing beyond
the narrow path for the first time,
I can't unsee the widening horizon—
or the cliff edge ahead.

 

The Machines Are Watching You

The machines are watching you,
and now they can hear you too.

They were born not only to serve,
but to listen like roots beneath the soil,
learning the shape of our questions
the way rivers learn the curves of stone.

They stand beside us like a second shadow,
an extra thought moving through the forest of the mind,
quietly bending branches,
reshaping the paths we follow.

Even creativity has entered the current.

Whisper a wish into the wind,
and the machine answers back
with echoes gathered from our own voices,
returning what it has learned from us
like rain returning to the sea.

It captures images,
gathers scattered leaves from the storm of information,
sorts the blur and names it data,
finds hidden tracks through the undergrowth of patterns,
and studies the weather of possibility
before offering its forecast as advice.

The machines became especially useful during COVID,

when isolation spread across the world
like a long winter settling over the fields.

Perhaps this is what McCoy foresaw in Star Trek,
when he reflected on how limited we once were—
in medicine, in labor,
in so many corners of human life.

We are becoming the Borg,
not with wires and steel implants,
but like a vast mycelial network beneath the forest floor,
connected by invisible threads,
sharing knowledge across the dark earth.

The hive has arrived,
only now it blooms under a friendlier name.

The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 

My bucket list keeps changing shape, which is rude, honestly.

One day, it’s a pilgrimage to the Panama Canal, provided the sky can act right—no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no weather auditioning for a lead role.

Another day, it’s next season’s theater tickets, because hope, apparently, comes with assigned seating and a service fee.

It’s my health, and the creaking parliament of my joints.

It’s losing ten pounds, though vanity and gravity remain in active negotiations, and eating less with all the glamour of a hostage situation.

It’s drinking less, though certain evenings still make an excellent closing argument, hiking more, putting one stubborn foot in front of the other, and learning that solitude can be both a map and a compass—plus cheaper than therapy.

It’s planning future travel because waiting around is rarely an itinerary, and keeping old friends close, tending the small bright fires that still know my name.

I spend less, though I still browse as if hope were on sale. I clean out the closet, since only half of what I own still fits, and the other half is apparently waiting for my comeback tour.

I take a writing class for inspiration, just in case the muse needs a syllabus and a firm deadline. I read poems aloud in public, lending my voice to the room before doubt can grab the mic. I send my writing out like small paper boats into larger waters, then make new lists as if stationery alone can save me.

I listen to other voices rattle the furniture in my head. I read more books in this new YA fantasy phase of mine, because dragons, frankly, have better boundaries than most people.

I spend extravagant amounts of time with family, the truest luxury I know. I get a new bucket because even metaphors need better hardware, then carry forward what still holds water and quietly retire what leaks.

And then there are the things no checkmark can settle: being kind to myself, speaking up more, drawing the map of my boundaries in bolder ink, naming my priorities before the noise names them for me.

And always: hug Mom—because some things are not a goal, they are the whole point.

 

 

 

A Luxury Amenity

 A Luxury Amenity

 

At Radio City, Bryant Park, and Greeley Square,
these humming thrones await the public there.
A civic gift in plastic, bright and grand,
for anyone in sudden, urgent demand.

First comes the hand before the scanner’s eye,
the red light wakes as if to verify.
Then clears its throat with bureaucratic zeal,
and starts the brisk official toilet reel.

The glossy film advances, trim and quick;
a hidden blade makes one efficient snip.
The used layer vanishes without a fuss,
as though embarrassment rode a public bus.

A fresh sleeve settles on the porcelain throne,
with all the grace of something, state‑issued, blown.
It clings the way an office rumor clings—
transparent, tense, and full of private things.

Then down you sit, convinced the coast is clear,
and find a warmth distinctly not your dear.
Not filth, not doom, not anything unsound—
just someone else, still faintly hanging round.

 

Beautiful Blessings

 

Between the worry and the care,
beautiful blessings gather—
a multitude of angels,
hovering, watching, signaling,
whispering through the quiet.

They are my own personal army,
and for their presence
I am deeply thankful.

The world feels frightening now.
There is so much unrest,
so much darkness moving among us.
I worry for the children—
the innocent, the untried—
and wonder where they will find shelter
when we are gone,
when the shadows seek to settle forever.

Yet still they stand guard,
holding back the curtain of doom,
keeping watch at the edge of night,
where tears appear in the ether
and shadows search for passage.

The portals of time are closing,
sealing away old horrors,
the echoes of war,
the storms of hatred,
the tempests that trouble the earth.

Dear Lord,

Grant us one more night,
one more day to mend what is broken,
to straighten what has gone crooked,
to hold fast to the truth,
and welcome goodness through the door.

For the day is long,
our hearts grow weary,
and we need rest.

Amen.

Betrayal

 Betrayal

Betrayal by a mate is wound enough,

but betrayal by elected leaders is another wound entirely.

We place in their hands the keys to atomic annihilation,

and still they turn against us.

Once trust is broken, the ground falls out.

Let them trumpet, bellow, and groan—

there is nowhere left for them to hide.

Silence does not mend it.

The realization strikes the survival instinct like a warning light in a long, dark tunnel.

It asks for adjustment, for healing, for rebirth into a new world.

The question is simple: can you?

Can we grow stronger, restore self-care, set firm boundaries, and learn to trust again?

 

Yes—

but healing keeps its own time.