You have planted your feet
into the ground, as if the roots
of oak and willow trees
will bend and grow
around you

But the land is cruel
and unremorseful, it will
flood or famine or even
walk. The flowers full
of pollen, singing as
they sting

Yet you will tend them
tenderly, unaware of
the rage of a buried
thing. You will water
them and name them,
talk to them, sometimes

Your feet are in the ground,
now, and you cannot run
away, fight or flight, stuck
in time, in land, vegetables
surfacing, ivy climbing, as
you are forced to eat the
orange petals, that rebelled
against your claim of
ownership

You must have a mind of winter...*

A gelid wasteland.
Your mittens disappear.
It feels cold without hands
and a ***** when your nose runs.
Winter chips your heart away
like flakes from a butter sculpture.
You are writing the secret history of Ice.
You never can discover the end.
Time has frozen into fragments.
Each fragment blasts a finale.
Let your reader choose the period
Crawl back into bed.
Clutch the covers to your chest.
Dream of laughing flamingos.

You spilled my half full glass of living.
You clumsied it onto it's side
And everything poured out.
Now how am I supposed to play
The game that says it's half way full
Not half way empty?

Any fool can plainly see
This glass has nothing in it,
Even if I Pollyanna up a smile
And spell out all it used to hold,
It's absolutely empty now
And nothing I can say will fill it.
                    ljm

early morning sun
your Maw Maws love on a plate
biscuits and gravy

A person will make a mistake
And mistakes will create the persona.
A person will wear this fake
Guise to musk the odour.

The scent of an imperfect idea.
A spontaneous thought so mighty
As to command action without fear,
Yet atrophies in the absence of sovereignty.

The fearless becomes the fearsome;
Tactful and timid we conceive a new face.
From the angst of letting go; we succumb
To duality, tightening the noose

Around our inner gumption.
All this for an artificial reputation.

We still meet
as friends
in rooms, but
not the home
we shared for
thirty years.
My sadness
is not for
what we lost.
My sadness
is for what we
might have been
and won’t.

mce

I dreamed I saw Tom Paine last night…*

The dream became a nightmare. Ride it. Fall.
A Republic if you can keep it. You didn’t.
Every four years a buffoon appears in TVs
who can bleed the American people to disaster.
Burnt Knees. Hill artillery. Hearts not Trump.
An article on now. The inherent absurdity of politics.
Infamy. Liars in public places. Old lies. New faces.
Abandoned factories. Angry workers, Abandoned. All.
Pick a pack of proven paupers. No one cares.
We lust for the stud who can wave his thick wand
and magically make everything better. But won’t.
Even if that he is a she. Show me the money.
How can the one percent eat everything yet never ****?
Faceless bureaucrats cannot be held responsible.
Zombie politicos bought and sold like cats in sacks.
Still the mindless parade charade continues
off to the public polls to be pummeled. ****** on.
  Get down on your knees and set lips to *****,
  Due your duty, turn your trick.