I have missed me
I have missed us
Things have not been the same
Maybe someone else is using our name

Some days it feels like we are hands on a clock
just going through all the motions
Other days we are never seen at all
Maybe its just our memory that answers the call

So I miss me
I miss us
Could there be anymore space between us
We are not the same
Maybe someone else is using our name

Is there still love between us
Could things go back to what they were before
Don't we deserve love too
Or do we love ourselves more

Oh how I miss me
I miss us
When we are not the same
For so long now
Someone's been using our name

Not even sure if our hearts work anymore
or if those parts have already died
Do we take a chance on love gone lost
Or just give up throw in the towel and hide

I still do miss me
As I do us
Will we ever be the same
We are trapped inside
Screaming out our name

After the Big War,
his uncles came home
(some of them)
different men but
bearing souvenirs
of devastation.

One was a rifle,
a Karabiner-98,
with stains of death
on its wooden stock.

His uncle wouldn't say
just how he got it.

When his uncle died,
the weapon came to him.

It spoke to him
of glory and bravery.

He was proud to hold
that dead German's gun.

Not many years later,
he returned, shattered,
from his own war.

His only souvenirs
burned in his head.

One *** shrouded night
he tossed the rifle into
the Susquehanna River.

Never again did he
own another weapon.

Comes a time for the
circle to be broken.

The church was started years ago.
My brother was a charter member.
But, he’s been a first class ******
Since as long as I can remember.
At first I thought it was hilarious,
And thought not too much of it.
But, I quickly found it nefarious
And told my brother to shove it.

Their services seemed rediculous,
The chants re-written bible stuff,
An attempt to cover up that they
Are doing something iniquitous.
“He that believeth in us shall prosper
Those who revile us shall not.
Go and suffer not the poorer
For heaven is for those who have got.”

My brother quotes this stuff to me
And gets angry when I question.
I have tried hard to make him see.
He takes it as an imposition.
They work to take over Congress
So their church can get paid money.
The plan is to clean up the DC mess
So religion is the richest industry.

I asked him if the church has plans
To share some of that with them.
He laughed and clapped his hands
And said they were going to pay him.
He would be blessed by their deity
For being a righteous servant.
All he had to do was maintain piety
And be Holy Church rules observant.

They were to vote down everyone
Who had another way of seeing
And to vote for their guys who run
Then, claim the rest are not human beings.
By this time I was no longer listening
Because I thought his intelligence gone.
But a close replay of his rambling
I realized it’s all close to going on.

The people in charge really are
Seeming to be saying all of this.
They’re selling us to the guards
Without even that dreaded kiss.
We are close to those wacko creeps
Controlling all of our land of freedoms
And ripping us all off while we sleep
Then even outlawing any kind of wisdom.

the myths of birth and rebirth
are as old as humankind

scratched onto cave walls,
tablets of stone or clay,
scrolls of papyrus or  parchment,
for hundreds of years on paper,
and nowadays typed onto backlit screens
   that are recycled faster
   than old hieroglyphs were understood

in our time
when refugees are tens of millions
on our globe

let us remember that these myths
have celebrated for millenia
    not battles, war, or death
but the survival of the human race    
the joy we feel when new life has arrived
   often against all odds
the hope that emanates from godesses
    or mother saints of yore
    who symbolize fertility,
    have brought forth saviors and new tribes

these are what has propelled us to our current state

and we do well to not forget that our fate
does not depend on people slain
but on how we can save the joy of life
and celebrate all humankind again

I must have been raised wrong,
I believe in being generous.
I think people should be loved;
That meanness can be onerous.
I have seen what evil does
And I want no more of that.
I don’t think that selfishness
Will really feed the captain’s cat.

I have watched back biters
And gossips and thieves
Bring themselves all unawares
To the point where everyone grieves.
I have witnessed liars who get
Tripped up on their own tales;
Regular folks and politicians
Get the air taken from their sails.

I know well that our elderly
Have already done their job
So it’s fine with me if they just
Sit around and act like slobs.
They took care of us when we
Were the indolent folks kids are
So, they are entitled to rest,
More than we are, by far.

I was raised to let people be
If they had some philosophy
That did not match mine
Or even the vast majority.
Someone thinks a different way
That’s fine if it hurts no one.
Not everybody thinks the same
Carnival rides are that much fun.

I saw for myself that people
Were individual in so many ways.
Different in how they dressed
And what they had to say.
Some liked sports TV
And many preferred the soaps.
All of that is fine with me
So, why call each other dopes?

Is there something wrong with me
That I don’t go along with the crowd?
That I don’t enjoy the fights,
The sports fans shouting out loud?
Am I silly for not slowing down
When I pass a wreck on the highway?
Well, if I am, then that is fine.
I will go on doing things my way.

The white side
Is not the light side
But a crown
Of discontent
That breaks
Beneath
The winds
Which sought to bend
Good men
To its will
To take the beauty
Of diversity
And classify it
As binary
Good and evil
Dark and light
Black and white
Brown and Caucasian
People displaying
Undue bias
As hope falls
Off the flat side
Of a cold cliff
This classification
Is the opposite
Of what I wish
But my brothers
Swim and sink in it
Like broken fish
Blood fills their gills
With ignorance
While I wonder
Why they do not see
That brown
Is just another shade
Of you and me

Some nights I stand at the deck rail
To watch the day burn out across the lake.
Behind me darkness devours the remnants of the
Waking world; transforming what we know
Into things we fear.

The waves, here all my lifetime,
Are gone leaving only the
Growl and hiss of an angry, unseen beast.

The flaccid light of the moon is no help
As it sends shadows like twisted beings from
A nightmare racing from structures
I thought could be trusted.

Even the wind blows colder, sending a shiver
Down my back as I stand tense in the belly of the night

I think, therefore I am not digested by night…
Unless the morning fails, as one day it must.
I hope this is not be what the endless will be,
I want what the nuns promised.