I'll Show You the World

 I'll Show You the World

He said, I'll show you the world,
and Gina—still soft with the faith
that good hearts recognize good hearts
mistook a wolf
for a man carrying flowers.

Anthony knew every beautiful sentence
that sickness could wear.
He stitched himself from borrowed sorrows,
made every old lover a villain,
every scar a medal,
every lie sound like survival.

She believed him.

She believed tears meant truth,
that broken men only needed love,
that promises were maps,

not traps.

So they married
before the echo of warning
could catch its own breath.

He gave her rings,
stories,
and ghosts with different names.

Lola became the monster.
Laundry became betrayal.
Cold takeout became proof.

Children became witnesses
in a courtroom built from his delusions,
where Anthony was always innocent
and someone else carried the blame.

Then came the Chevy Blazer
iron crashing through the fragile theater,
truth arriving without knocking,
headlights cutting straight through
his careful performance.

Still he called.

Still his voice wrapped itself
around her hope
like ivy around a gravestone.

Still she believed
the next apology
would be the honest one.

So they crossed an ocean together,
newly married,
chasing the paradise
he'd painted in impossible colors.

Hawaii waited,
green and breathtaking,
while beneath every postcard sunset
his darkness unpacked itself
one lie,
one wound,
one cruelty at a time.

He had promised her the world.

He never mentioned
he meant
the one he had already
set on fire.

 

Purpose Driven

 Purpose Driven

In the bicentennial year,
when flags bloomed like bright weeds
from porches, windows, courthouse lawns,
Katya moved through the city
like a small question with whiskers,
listening.

She met a man whose thirty years on Wall Street
had folded shut like a ledger at dusk;
his good shoes still shone,
but accusation followed him
like rainwater in the seams.

She met a young woman carrying degrees
as carefully as glass bowls,
only to find the cupboards bare,
the jobs gone thin as soup,
the food-stamp office lit with tired fluorescent mercy.

She met a mother of five
with three jobs knotted to her back,
her children turning keys in empty kitchens,
learning too young
how silence can sound like supper.

Rich or poor, guilty or only tired,
they carried trouble in different pockets.
Some hid it under laughter,
some under lies,
some under the hard bread of habit.

And then there was Gina—
wealthy Gina,
who lived behind gates polished bright as silver,
where roses climbed the walls
and silence learned to keep secrets.

She wore pearls at dinner
like small moons at her throat,
smiled when the room expected smiling,
and lifted crystal glasses
with hands that had learned to steady themselves.
Her house held marble floors,
fresh flowers,
locked doors,
and words sharp enough
to leave bruises no mirror could prove.
But somewhere inside her,
a window had not closed.

It was Gina who made Katya stop,
who taught her that suffering could wear perfume,
ride in black cars,
and sit beneath chandeliers without being seen.
Pity became purpose,
not like thunder,
but like a match struck in a dark room
small at first,
then certain enough
to show the way out.
No one would think to ask a cat for help;
cats belonged on windowsills,
in alleys,
in stories told to children.

What could a cat do
against fear dressed as marriage,
against a voice that closed doors,
against a mansion that felt smaller than a cage?
Perhaps not break the lock.
Perhaps not silence the voice.
But perhaps she could sit at Gina’s feet
until Gina remembered
she was not alone.

And perhaps, one morning,
Gina would open the smallest door first
a phone call,
a packed bag,
a name trusted enough to say aloud
and the house that had kept her
would become only a house,
while the road beyond it
opened like sunrise.

But Katya was brilliant
in the quiet way moonlight is brilliant
on a kitchen floor at midnight.
And Tiki, tall enough for foot pedals,
drove the Time Machine
while she planned beside him,
her paws folded like prayers.

He gave her more than motion,
more than miles bending backward.
He gave her friendship,
that small, steady lantern
money cannot buy,
and loneliness cannot blow out.

Blank

 Blank

Face it, Gina
you are clueless,
the perfect rube
for his brutality.
And not much has changed.

You tried to leave,
but he kept pulling you
back into the maze,
where every exit
looked like forgiveness
and every promise
turned into another wall.

You stayed mired in the bog
for years,
calling survival

something nobler than fear.

Now you're old.
The Rose of Rosendale
has wilted,
yet somehow
you're still wet behind the ears,
still believing
the next apology
might bloom into spring.

It's 101 degrees, baby.
Maybe you could cool off
in the Dunk Tank,
let the shock
wake you from yourself.

Forget the past.
It has already taken

more than its share.

Hypnotize yourself.
Plan a future.
Hop on a new freight train
one that doesn't circle back
to the same forgotten station.

Wreck what's left
in cat years,
shed every borrowed skin,
and walk away.

You do remember
how to walk away,
don't you?

Because the door
was never locked

Only your hope was.

Crepuscular

 Crepuscular

Katya was naturally hardwired to be most active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk. Tiki was not. Their different rhythms caused more than a few hiccups.

Tiki was diurnal. He rose early each morning to fish in the pond, where he loved catching tilapia and catfish. By dusk, however, he was exhausted, snoring like a buzz saw before Katya's night had even begun.

Although he had been born in Indonesia, Tiki rarely spoke of his past. Katya simply called him "Cousin," and that became their truth, especially during difficult times.

One of those times came during the U.S. Bicentennial. Katya had just celebrated her own two-hundredth birthday. Returning from a 

nighttime hunt, she proudly left a plump, juicy mouse where Tiki would find it, believing it was a thoughtful gift.

Tiki's response puzzled her. Fastidious to a fault, he calmly picked up the mouse, tossed it over the fence into the farmer's field, dusted off his hands, and returned to fishing as though nothing had happened.

Katya preferred fish herself, but she couldn't understand Tiki's complete distaste for the mouse. Rather than confront him, she filed the mystery away. Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in the past.

So they climbed into the Time Machine.

Their destination was New York Harbor during the Bicentennial celebration, where the Tall Ships filled the harbor with towering masts and billowing sails. It was there they first met Gina.

Gina was young, beautiful, and painfully naïve. Having lived a sheltered life, she was unprepared for someone like Anthony.

Anthony was older, confident, and controlling from the very beginning. He believed Gina needed to be shaped into someone more like himself. She resisted in small ways, but he remained convinced she was trainable.

Katya found humans endlessly fascinating. Their mistakes, misunderstandings, and emotional entanglements were often more entertaining than anything she encountered on her nightly prowls. But there was one thing she could not tolerate: cruelty 

masquerading as love.

She watched Anthony begin a familiar routine. He blamed Gina, pointed accusing fingers, and raised his voice.

"What are you talking about, Anthony?" Gina asked, genuinely confused.

"It isn't what you did," he replied. "It's what you didn't do."

The accusation made no sense because there was nothing Gina could have done. Anthony wasn't reacting to reality; he was creating a problem she could never solve.

Katya had seen enough to recognize the pattern. When Anthony behaved this way, the safest response was to avoid eye contact, say little, and wait for the storm to pass.

But Gina didn't know that. Like a mouse caught in a trap, she searched desperately for the mistake she believed she must have made.

Why is he so angry? she wondered.  I need to understand what went wrong so I can fix it.

There was no riddle to solve. The problem was Anthony himself—a controlling man, exactly the kind her father had once warned her about.

Watching Gina struggle awakened something in Katya. What had begun as a search for answers about Tiki's mysterious past became something much larger. She became determined to save Gina from a life she could not yet recognize as dangerous.

Tiki, whether he fully understood Katya's mission or not, came along for the ride.

Their misadventures would last a very long time.

 

Wild Thing...You Make Katya's Heart sing

 Wild Thing…You Make Katya’s Heart Sing

This morning I was greeted by a rabbit.

He looked me up and down,
didn't bother with a hello,
judged me completely,
then hopped off
into the green jungle—

the jungle that will
soon disappear,

the jungle that provides
shade from the blistering sun,

the jungle that is also
a luxury condominium
for snakes
and other mysterious creatures
of the wild ilk.

Don't get me wrong.

Katya likes wild.

She likes birdsong,
time travel,
and trees that mind their own business.

She does not like
sharing her quiet,
her porch,
or her abode
with freeloading wildlife.

A heroine needs personal space.

How else is she supposed to create
fantastical stories—
stories of hope,
of inspiration,
stories where the heroine
or her cat
wins?

The rabbit, however,
is a terrible villain.

Sure,
he'll nibble your prize-winning flowers,
stare at you like you owe him rent,
and disappear into the shrubbery
before the HOA can identify him.

But that's where the criminal enterprise ends.

Rabbits are pets,
for crying out loud.

Mice—
now those are villains.

They eat plastic.

They poop in your kitchen drawers.

They carry viruses.

They hollow out your couch,
move into the stuffing,
and leave tiny deposits

to commemorate the occasion.

Mice are the politicians
of the animal kingdom.

They ruin your day,
promise they're gone,
then show up again
for a return engagement.

Get a cat.

Let Katya write.

Kill the mice.

Have some peace.

Remembrance in a Garden

 Remembrance in a Garden

Groundhogs
eat the daylilies,
and usually leave the dahlias.
It is a small lesson,
but important
when you're trying to grow something beautiful.

So I plant dill.
I plant basil.
I plant mint
around the edges,
a fragrant promise.

Why dill?
Why not?

We're German.
We love pickles,
the sharp comfort of memory,
the taste of summer preserved.

The heat settles in,
a heavy quilt of July,
thick with humidity—

the kind of afternoon
when they say you could fry an egg
on a country road.

Maybe bacon, too.

Happy Birthday, America.

Two hundred fifty years,
still learning,
still forgetting,
still beginning again.

I remember another anniversary—
the Bicentennial.

I was almost twenty,
certain I understood the world.
I wore my red, white, and blue dress,
danced beneath fireworks,

believing tomorrow
would keep its promises.

It was just after Watergate.
The country was bruised,
but still breathing.

Gerald Ford stood quietly
where history had left him
and offered no victory,
only healing.

"Our long national nightmare is over."

Not a boast.
A hope.

He served,
then stepped aside,
accepting both office and defeat

with uncommon grace.

His farewell was not about himself.

It was a prayer:

May God guide this wonderful country,
its people,
and those who choose to serve them.

Amen.

Now, fifty years later,
the groundhog returns,
testing the garden once again.

Still, I plant.

I tuck hope beneath the soil,
ring the borders with herbs,
believe that what survives

can bloom.

Because remembrance
is not longing for a perfect past.

It is choosing,
season after season,
to tend what is worth saving,
to gather what is good,
and to leave behind
a garden of faith
for those who come after us.

 

Reclaiming My Territory

 Reclaiming My Territory

Breaking news:
The house sparrows have annexed the airspace above my front door.

The eaves, of course, were occupied years ago
an old colony with squatters' rights
and no interest in negotiating.

Now they're skirmishing with the fat, fuzzy bees
who insist the windows are disputed territory.

No one consulted the humans.

I have concerns.

Birds are tiny, feathered landlords.

They decorate with twigs,
redecorate with droppings,
and then look at you as though you're behind on the rent.

They're absurdly adaptable.

Tenacious.

Ridiculously fertile.

Four broods a year, if the mood strikes.

They don't just survive
they franchise.

Each morning they launch from the eaves
like a squadron of miniature fighter pilots,
all banking and looping in impossible formation

the Blue Angels,

if the Blue Angels wore brown pajamas
and screamed at six in the morning.

Summer has arrived.

Which means I'm preparing my own campaign.

I'll reclaim the front porch
one lawn chair at a time.

I'll bring a novel,
a sweating glass of lemonade,
light the citronella candle
like a ceremonial beacon of human sovereignty,

and keep a fly swatter nearby

less as a weapon,

more as a reminder

that every kingdom
needs a slightly exasperated queen.

Wish me luck.

 

Sunday is Dedicated to the Pigs

 Sunday is Dedicated to the Pigs

On Sunday, we journey to Piggy Stand
The funniest place in the whole darn land.
Where legends snort and jelly jiggles,
And every tale brings squeals and giggles.

Meet Zig the Pig—what a glorious sight!
Four hundred years old and still doing all right.
With a belly of jelly that wiggles with pride,
And a heart so enormous it barely fits inside.

He lives for lemon cake piled up high,
with lemon ice cream reaching the sky.
Fresh coffee, good friends, and stories galore
He'll happily chat four centuries more!

Soft, squishy, pudgy, and sweet,
Cuddling Twig is his favorite treat.

His guitars line up beside his bed,
Next to jellybean mountains of orange and red.
Ghosts and goblins float through each night,
Heading for snacks before the first light.

Halloween makes their little hearts sing,
Pirates and costumes? Oh, bring everything!
Music and cuddles complete the scene;                                                 they’re the happiest pigs you've ever seen.

Except when Zig reads the paper with a worried sigh.
"What's happened?" he mutters, rolling one eye.
Twig would prefer to hide in her bed
And pull the blankets over her head.

Instead, she's writing a marvelous tale,
Where Katya the cat will surely prevail.
With cousin Tiki, they zoom through time
Probably to avoid the current headlines.

Once, long ago, Zig taught history,
His students all thought he was a grade A mystery.
They still remember his stories today...
Though some claim the dinosaurs were audited, okay?

Zig also reveres fine watches with pride.
A Ball watch once rode on his stylish hide.
In front of Mohonk Mountain House, he struck quite the pose
A famous watch magazine said, "There he goes!"

Online, you'll find him most every day,
Posting photos in his own cool way.
Watches and music are high on the list...
But belly dancers also can't be missed!

He cheers their talent, grace, and flair,
And has made good friends from everywhere.
Because Zig believes life's simply better
With laughter, music, and good friends together.

So here's to the pigs who brighten our week,
To the cuddly, the quirky, the silly, the unique.
May your belly stay jiggly, your talents soon sprout,
And your jellybeans never...ever...run out!

The Saturday Cat Council

 The Saturday Cat Council

There is a village, tucked out of sight,
Where cool cats gather every Saturday night.
At dusk, they assemble with regal flair,
To gossip and plot with a judgmental stare.

Wise cats.
Fat cats.
Chatty cats.
Brat cats.
Purring cats.
Trilling cats.
Murmuring, mewing, and "Feed me!" cats.

Their fearless leader? Felis catus, of course—
Tiny in size yet commanding the force.
If one gives a slow blink, don't panic or hiss;
Congratulations—you've received a cat kiss.

But don't get too smug. Don't get too bold.
Their trust has a warranty of twelve seconds, I'm told.
One mighty MEOW! and you'll instantly see
They've promoted themselves to your royalty.

Descended from Felidae, Order Carnivora,
Masters of zoomies, chaos, and flora.
With night vision sharp and hearing supreme,
They detect snack wrappers for miles, it would seem.

Their noses are flawless, their instincts refined;
Your hidden tuna? Already they'll find.
They speak in a language no human can crack—
Part Shakespeare, part opera, part demanding a snack.

Some scholars insist, with remarkable passion,
Their dialect comes from Old High Valyrian.
Sadly, the translators all disappeared...
Probably because they ignored a cat and got weird.

And if, late at night, in a shadowy alley,
A chorus of growls begins to rally—
With snarls and spits and chattering teeth...

Do not run,

 or they'll chase.

Walk backward slowly with dignity intact,
Then toss them a treat as a diplomatic act.

For every cat knows, beyond all debate,
The universe spins because they are great.
You're not their owner—you never were that.
You were merely employed...by a high-born cat.

Nothing is Wasted

 Nothing Is Wasted

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.”
—Henry James

The first sentence
is a worn trail marker,
leaning where two paths divide.
I follow it.

Miles later,
it leads me across a stream
inside a story
I didn't know I was walking.

A trail map fades.
Rain freckles its pages.
A route I crossed out
waits beneath the pencil's ghost,
still pointing.

Nothing is wasted.

The dust of the trail
settles into my boots
with yesterday's miles.

The ridge ahead
imagines tomorrow's weather.
Both leave a mark
no stream of consciousness can fully wash away.

Inside the data centers,
machines map every switchback
without ever feeling thin air,
without the weight
of a tired friend
leaning on your shoulder.

Meanwhile,
we climb one more rise
though daylight is thinning.

The summit is still ahead—
a small ambition
lifting its face
against a crag of silence.

Still,
the peak borrows our footsteps
to reveal its paths.

The trails we abandoned,
the wrong turn,
the loose stone,
the single weary step,
becomes the way forward.

We wander.
We blister.
We wait for one another,

exploring new twists and turns

in our boundless quest

to rewrite the world.

 

 

Thinking Beyond the Trope

 Thinking Beyond the Trope

He was a legend in his own mind.

She was the damsel in distress.

When they met, even the lesser gods exchanged weary glances.

Zeus, meanwhile, was having the time of his immortal life.

The getaway car wouldn't start.

In fact, it wouldn't start for almost forty years.

Why does that sort of thing happen?

Destiny?

Nerves?

It can be nerve-racking, after all, sitting in a getaway car, waiting for bank robbers to come bursting out of a building naked and triumphant after the storm.

That had been the plan.

They were supposed to change clothes at the bar down the street—the one where clothing was optional, and questions were discouraged.

Not that the car was going anywhere.

It sat stubbornly at the curb, contemplating eternity.

The bar was close enough to see.

The night was young.

And it was 11:00  on a Saturday. 

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.