The times we live in

There is always a bite to looking different whether mild habanero or sharp like the ghost the flesh is game to be dragged across man-made barriers invisible to nature which never divides the difference. The twitting of words that brings out groans is a venom that looms over language profound, the poet can but wander

Malignant normalcy

“Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” African proverb A duck is not a goose  quack, quack. Call it what it is quack, quack. We stood on the old stone steps, my sister and I, steps that watched over Lake Huron and there she was,

Channeling Langston Hughes

Exhaustion is my mantra when bullies are deified, and the very word itself is redefined. Let us take a peeler – free the orange from rind, perhaps the hate will dissipate, turning into kind.

I wish I were a mockingbird

I wish I were a mockingbird beyond the reach of human cant – can’t step  around the hate of all that is different. So easy is the blackbird life who squawks at me upon the beach – his reach is plain for all to see he has no use for human greed. Newborn babes are

Favorite things

The eye of a vireo like Dorothy’s ruby red, when I actually see it my grin opens wide. The carpet newly vacuumed, the dishes put away, the sheets when pulled from dryer, the smell of them laying down. My father’s voice resounding with ‘How great thou art’, my mother’s apple pie, no birthday went without.

Cups running over

It has always been the age – hasn’t it, when children are raped and pay for it with a nod to sorrow. The guzzlers then move on with laws that punish vessels. You would think perhaps in the world of new, whether York or Orleans, we could see our way through the rage that strikes

Red Yellow Brown

The American beauty rose And a single prick Of blood that flows Marking all the land The male cardinal Everything grand — Sunflower opening And seeking the sun The sun! from Which all living Comes – The canary in The coalmine Will the people Be undone? — A female tweeter Seeking seed The sand Beneath

Black

i coat of goth body of coot morning joe the best soil for things that grow ii. it is 2:00 a.m. clouds no stars this unlit deserted lane I know it by feel not sight a split rail fence is there this landmark means I am almost there but not 2018

White redux

i What is it? A great egret The ivory gull Valerian And falling snow What isn’t? Me ii. They stick like glue to the hands that beat them since the sole alternative is the hangman’s noose. I try to sympathize with options unbearable but the rope around my neck cuts my breath in two. 10-11/2018

The walking blues

Come with me on a trip to bountiful where the trees hide little mysteries. We can move our hips on liberty’s highway a red winged blackbird will shout and up above the owlets gaze while we dance on venom’s grave. Yes! Democracy must ring true while we sway in nature’s view. Our shoes are made