Whispers that morph into screeches
Disturb the strands that tenuously hold
The ragged edges of reality aloft
In storms of self recrimination and regret.

Slender stalks of rationality bend down
Beneath the weight of foolishness
Grown fat and heavy in indulgence
That is justified by cobwebs of desire.

The music in the background plays
On bagpipes and a penny-whistle band
While the conductor tries to turn them in
To violins and harpsichords, and fails.

A river jumps it’s muddy banks
And floods the playing field with muck
As strands and stalks give up their load
And it all falls to nothingness.
ljm

In a world with far too many people
With way too many things to do
In so many places that are
Just too hard for them to get to,
We can only wait.

The traffic lights are slow to turn
And the phone is never answered.
The vending machine does not give change
And Fed-Ex never stops out front
Even though we wait.

In a world where real is mostly fake
And Fake becomes a brand name,
We spend the funds we do not have
On things we’ll never ever use,
Not even if we wait.

The processes that make things go
Are grinding to a halt.
The future mimics yesterday
And we can’t see tomorrow.
So we can only wait.
   ljm

he called from the edge
of a cliff
             “look to the stars”

a peach pit
or plum stem
in orbit

adrift

he thinks
about
being forgotten

in the garden
overgrown
no chemical
in the memory

and the room
is more open now
halved
with nectar
dripping

the cosmos
exposed
and he
enters
through the
stone
of a
lychee