With love we have
An alibi;
Sometimes,
A somewhere else
White lie.
My defense?
My innocence
Compels me to
Give evidence.

Dig deep.
Trolls are nice people,
But nobody
Likes them.

Speared on the trident tines
Of a new world order,
Wiggling, dripping,
Unable to close eyes
Staring out both sides of faces
With an astonished, unbelieving pall.
Some will be fried with rice,
Some eaten raw with *****,
Some battered with fries at Disneyland.
Out of water, gasping,
Coaxed from the shallows
With blinding light,
Baited from the depths.

I've been shot,
Yet dodged the bullet.

Thanx anti-vaxers
For reducing my
Time in line.

Lest We Forget!

From the tip of my toes
To the top of my head,
This world
Is suffocating me.

I'm up to my ankles with Jackals;
I'm up to my tibia with Libya;
I'm up to my knees with Refugees;
I'm up to my thighs with Counterspies;
I'm up to my crotch with Iraq;
I'm up to my groin with Muslims;
I'm up to my waist with the Displaced;
I'm up to my belly button with Christians;
I'm up to my hands with Iran and all ...stans;
I'm up to my rib cage with Renegades;
I'm up to my sides with Genocides;
I'm up to my chest with the Oppressed;
I'm up to my neck with Egypt;
I'm up to my nose with Jews;
I'm up to my cheeks with Sheiks;
I'm up to my Irises with Isis;
I'm up to my eyeballs with Jihads;
I'm up to my ears with Syria;
I'm up to my forehead with Baghdad;
I'm up to my cranium with North Koreans.

My Christmas Wish:
Is for them to do
The anatomically impossible:
****** Themselves.

I was born.
I was born male.
I was born white male.
I was born white, male Caucasian.
I was born white, male Caucasian in a Republic.
I was born white, male, Caucasian, in a First World Republic.
I was born white, male, Caucasian, in a First World Republic,
     in a large, loving family.

I was born white, male, Caucasian, in a First World Republic,
     in a large loving family, and I'll never work as a talking head.
Why, tell me, do all the others have all the luck.

A cancer's eating
Through our core,
With tendrils gnawing
Every shore;
A virus leaping firewalls,
A dis-ease too apalling;
Advancing by some sick allure.

No use in praying for a cure,
The saviour is the saboteur;
No vaccine can **** its spore.
Its mucous is racist;
Its nucleus is sexist;
Its atoms are prejudiced;
Its carriers are bigots;
It's hungering for more;
And it's at my front door.

So, you wanna be a poet;
Well, tell the truth.

Nana's house is on the market,
Perfect location beside the woods,
And a few hundred feet from the water.
I can hear the patter of feet,
The closing of doors,
The squealing of feral animals
Nana fed with peanuts,
The condo bird houses
And broken blue eggs.
The cries and sirens and confusion.
When Nana died,
She was sealed in the wall of a mausoleum,
But continues to escape
In the eeriest of ways.

I remember.
I forget.
I wonder why.
You're so easy to remember.
You're so hard to forget.
Time ticks out no respite.
Today I am wrong.
The other day,
I was right.

Some cops,
Are one bullet
Short of
A full clip.

Troubador keep your happy songs
Of love and sin;
Sing for the lost in night and day;
For those that crossed
And cannot say
That love lies lonely
In the grave.
It's dark,
Cold and stark;
Colder than
A cold dead heart
That shuns one's love today.

I heard Tarzan
Swinging through the jungle
Calling the wild ones,
The fringe dwellers,
With, Ungowa!
They answered,
Dragging their knuckles
Along the I-94,
Then stampeding to crown,
Their *King of Apes.

If I'd written
My love poetry
Years ago,
When our passion
Covered college sheets,
When we were sleek
And bared our bodies
Boldly;
When we wore our hair,
Your ******* unbarred,
When we rolled
In your backyard,
Wetter than the dew;
That's one verse
I'd write for you.
Scratch out lines
On your legs,
See Venus rise
From the nubile shell,
Type stanzas
To compare your eyes,
Your neck,
Your lips,
Vis a vis;
The tender terror
Of our first kiss.

I hoped,
Before the old girl died,
She'd request to meet me
Eyes to eyes,
And apologize.
I never got the call,
And it was getting late
For a death bed confession,
A plea bargain absolution.
I would have blessed her,
Held her hand,
Let her know I understand;
Seeing, as I'm a man.
So, I went to meet her,
Eyes to eyes;
Held her face
And apologized.

When she speaks of me
They will think Granda
Is an old man, who wears
Corduroy pants
And a cloth Paddy cap.
They will also think
I wear wire-rimmed specs
And slippers.
That I have a loving heart.
I do.
I'm so pleased Aine
Speaks of me.

Between autumn's offerings
And spring's wings,
Our winter lights are everything.
Crisp sky nights string tinsel streams,
And crystal air heils winter's dreams.

Poplar trees that snowed in summer
Are treasures held in winter's slumber.
Bare branches reach in silhouette
For crowning stars where none now sit.

Here dreams of flight and fancy thrill
Shimmering eyes on a gift-wrapped hill.
Shorelines once rubbed with reeds,
Are splashed by our moonlight beads.
Knolls wrapped in wreaths of herring bone,
Like sirens call us from our home.

Stars held in place by poplar fingers
Ring our ponds like carolling singers.
There nestled by framed winter scenes,
Our winter lights glitter red and green.

These lights that through our window stream,
Bring to mind warm Christmas dreams

Winter's pristine blankets
Have seeped into the ground.
Animal ****'s like scattered landmines;
Cigarette rubble and plastics
Are strewn about like the aftermath.
I look for survivors.
The thaw has people
Stumbling out of winter
With hands covering faces,
Hiding tears and smiles.
They wave,
As if okay.
Now the reconstruction
Begins.
I like the simple garden. Grass.
Some vegetables,
No ponds or waterfalls,
Or barrels with trickles.
Lost two limbs out the back
Last fall. More sunshine.
A *****, a mower, a compost box,
And a watering hose.
Equinox, **!

I met you with a full bag of promises,
Leaking out a corner hole;
Leaving a trail even Gretel could follow.
You were lurred, picked up the droppings
Til you were sated,
Then turned back home,
Turned away;
The hook fell out -
We fell out,
Those promises lost their flavor.

To feel good
I must indulge;
To be good
I must abstain.
Like cemetary paths,
Everything is circular
And everlasting.

I like being liked.
We do.
It matters who likes us too.
Do your parents like you?
They have that option,
It's obvious in adoption.

My friends like and are liked by me,
Or they aren't friends.

Teachers liked me.
Some students are hard to like,
But succeed.

Co-workers liked me.
Had their ups and downs with me.
Some didn't like me, but once did.
My status changed. Their's didn't.
I moved from their likeness image
When the bosses liked me so much,
They made me one.
Bosses have fun, but with more cash,
And less time to enjoy it.
But when the time arrived,
I liked the bosses too.

My spouse liked me.
Denise likes me.

Most importantly, my kids.
They like me,
So much so,
They gave me a sign:

          If Dad Can't Fix It,
          We're all *******.

Do I want to be liked?
Don't you?

Like I said,
I like being liked.

These walls are wet
Where I've kept
Myself entombed
Too long.
Shoulder to stone
I'll push and wiggle
Until the light is warm,
Until the dark is gone.

I step unseen
From the grotto
Where I wallowed
With my song;
The stupor echoes
Of my voice,
The only voice,
Of an aria
That went wrong.

The music's sounding
Better now,
I'm distanced from
My cave;
I'll keep moving
East for now,
For westward
Is my grave.

Consider the couplets
Cohen sings,
And the rhyming lyrics
Rappers bring;
And tell me
That ain't poetry.

If I say
I hate you,
I mean to say
I know you
As much
As if
I love you.

From what I understand,
To get a poem to trend,
One hides
With pseudonyms.
Then you can
Start over,
With a newer formula,
And trending
Is the end.

Got back successfully,
From weeks of ecstasy;
Coming down from a high,
Still not measuring up.
My hill is daunting,
The valleys so low;
I watch my step
From backsliding below.
I know there's reason
Where the light's up this road.
I'm still plodding
Where I need to go.

Squeeze, squirt and smear
A pimple,
Keep it disgusting,
But keep it simple.
Like lance a boil
To release its ****,
Describe it well,
Make a fuss
Over the putrid sore,
Use poetic words
To enhance the gore.
Drive your finger
Up your nose,
Spit green lugers
Like gargoyles.
Present yourself
Like a loser.
Pick morning goo
From you eyes,
And wipe it on
Your naked thighs.
Don't clean the dirt
Beneath your nails,
Au natural seldom fails.
Don't brush your teeth
Til afternoon,
This should make
Your lover swoon.
When you pass
The silent bomb,
Take the blame
With aplomb,
Smile as though
You've done no wrong.
Clean the wax
From both your ears,
Use something white
Your love holds dear,
Be ruthless,
Don't show a care.

Use some or all
Of the above,
I guarantee,
A cure for love.

After sixty years,
Easter morns
Still give me a
Resurrection.

The maple was neither proud nor noble.
No more than a buck in the cross-hairs.
Chance is out with certainty.
The tree is pieced out,
Like fingers in a cigar clip gangster clip;
Or a gangerous WWI leg.
The sound the tree once made
By catching the passing wind,
Falls to the ground,
Never reaching the roots.
The cutters are as sure as orthopedic scalpels.
They notch limbs that give the final thump.
A sound I dread.
And yet the most pleasant irony
Is the chipper.

These verses filled the void;
Contributions from 'round the world;
From men and women, young and old;
Creating something out of nothing.
A prosaic mosaic, a collaboration,
From HP poets, a celebration.

A blank line
Awaits my thoughts
A blank line
It’s an invitation
A blank line
Patiently empty
A blank line
It calls on creativity
A blank line [sic writerunblocked]

To comment on this I cannot resist
The daily poem takes a new twist
At the top slot a poem that's not
A poem that doesn't exist [sic. Martin]

For the life of me -
I cannot think the words -
refilling blanks, and slots -
not coming across, absurd -
at least, not in, so many, words [sic Temporal Fugue]

Farts are nothing,
but previews for ****,
just like most
Movie
trailers
at
the
theatre. [sic Hasani]

Please fill in is the Story of My Life The Invisible lines the Unseen pain I walk among the crowds but I am not there all they see is a shell when the truth of myself is withdrawn deep inside lost between the invisible lines [sic James M. Vines]

When at 12 midnight
And my heart beats a certain pace
I finally turn off the lights
As tears stream down my face [sic jace]

the vacuum
Empty yourself of
From...
What u retain
What u contain
What u detain
What u abstain

Draw the lines of...
Your Boundary
Your territory
Your trajectory
Your sanctuary

You....
Draw your lines of action
Define your confinement
Create your vaccum

And now....
The love flows in
The bliss moves in
The happiness gushes in [Jugnu-the-firefly]

THESE underscores from a your keyboard--
Bored-as-hell I can see
The creative act has been forced-in
This outsourced work, taking our
Outsourced words, during work-hours [sic Sean Murray]

Lines
Lines Blank call
like void of creation to birth.
They grab my attention
luring poet mind
to commence firing away.
It fires in blasts of gratitude,
jarring empty spaces of thoughts
Phases that have no connections
until pen touches paper
or fingers touch keyboard.
Until I shout out to another writer
named Francie who inspired
to fill the void.[sic Star BG]

i would have described my frustrations
what i expect from u
but i decide to keep my lips shut
its not what it seems
sometimes my lips cant depict my problems........ [sic Gucco]

It's a new year, yet are we, new people
although many others have been extinguished,
my star still shines and twinkles (although not as valiantly)
and so does yours
and I pray that it may twinkle,
for the longest time indeed. [sic sincere humble cowardly Song]

Words can be over-rated,
its the blank page that often inspires,
images tumbling over themselves,
waiting to be scribed by word-squires. [sic Pagan Paul]

Like this goose of a poem I'm holdin'
The deliberate silence of this is golden

Now don't be cheap
and don't be crass

hold your words until the last
without donkey ears your still being an a... [sic Green Trees]

The symmetry of her eyes collapsed into the void............
....sixteen teardrops spilled on the morning sky............
............Colorless and absurd............................
............the sunrise misplaces past happiness............
Future was you [sic Kyte]

Your poem is good but mine is better
You should feel the poem, writing doesn't matter [sic Daman Singh]

I do nothing
Others do it for me [sic Dennis Faulk]

To all the confusing things that roam my head and heart that I cannot read what it’s actually telling me. [sic Sara]

The eyes sees genuineness that mind yearns
The heart feels what it needs to learn,
Yet all is but God's ultimate plan!
Life amidst it's hustsles goes on and on. [sic Saumya]

Broken Chains
Free me,break these chains of *******
Chains that bound and confine me to rules
Shackles that control me against my will
Fetters that make me submit to emotions
Irons that make me less humane,free me
Till all that's left are broken chains. [sic Abi]

Feelings so fierce as they swarm inside
No escape as theyey spin and spin
I try to open a door
To let them out
At last, the page is blank [sic Lin]

light for sure
shy of ardor
less is more
why try harder? [Ian Woods]

And thus the blankness left,
And the void was filled.

This mortar bowl
With a pestled mixture
Of distillations
And impurities
Deserves a Latin name
For the apothecary's label.

A few causes for the concoction:
Pails, shovels and sandcastles;
A child bundled against winter;
A father's shoulder seat;
A son dressing for his wedding;
A daughter walking her child;
Kids with backpacks;
A soldier's farewell kiss;
The return kiss;
A nursing mother;
The wintery smell of a letter
And the anticipation of opening.

The symptoms are systemic.
The heart cannot contain,
The brain define,
The pit retain.

The symptoms are the remedy.
I am
Ground into a fine dust.

A posthumous letter came today:
My Dear Brother Fran;
I assume it began;
Your Loving Brother Sean.
It ends.
I'll never read those lines;
I know what's down between his lines;
His words and thoughts would break me.
His ink would stain my hands;
Leached through lines with real tears,
Dropping like time's sands.

He'd wax on our youthful days,
Wane on years we let slip past;
I don't need to read the words,
You know all things must pass.

I'll not sit to read his letter.

I'll recall how we were before,
When he was six and I was four,
Skating on the basement floor,
Or sliding down the new clothes line,
As pennants waving in the wind.

He taught me much of what he knew,
Just doing what big brothers do.
And always had my back.

I don't recall, but I'm pretty sure
We had our dumb-*** quarrels;
But I remember hitting *****,
Kicking, catching, throwing curves,
Rackets, sticks, clubs and bats,
Our cruel crew cuts beneath our hats.

He raised my game in everything;
Said I could do anything.
I'll remember his glance in the mirror
Going out the door.

If I ever read that letter,
I surely would regret forever,
Miss saying, I Love You too.

No, I'll never need to read his letter,
To remember Sean in his prime;
To recall the days when we two shined.

Lace the blades, Sean.
I'll be fine.

A roomful of virgins
Sat before me
Ready for an auction.
The bidding began.
Allies, and other less noticeables
Raised their paddles.
Tensions mounted
As the cannons were sold off,
The arsenals grew with each arm,
The bidders knew
The value of money
Decreases as anger rises.
Truckloads of boots
Emptied into
The streets and homes.
The auctioneer placed
His cap on his head
And left them counting
In the snow.

Between autumn's offerings
And spring's wings,
Our winter lights are everything.
Crisp sky nights string tinsel streams,
And crystal air heils winter's dreams.

Poplar trees that snowed in summer
Are treasures held in winter's slumber.
Bare branches reach in silhouette
For crowning stars where none now sit.

Here dreams of flight and fancy thrill
Shimmering eyes on a gift-wrapped hill.
Shorelines once rubbed with reeds,
Are splashed by our moonlight beads.
Knolls wrapped in wreaths of herring bone,
Like sirens call us from our home.

Stars held in place by poplar fingers
Ring our ponds like carolling singers.
There nestled by framed winter scenes,
Our winter lights glitter red and green.

These lights that through our window stream,
Bring to mind warm Christmas dreams.

I measured the steps
From the back screen door,
Past the rock water well
And the garden plot,
Down the gravel drive.
The crush of stones beneath
Were the sounds of anticipation.
At the end,
The road stretched and ribboned,
Grey, beneath the harvest sun.
I numbered the fence posts
Up to the tree with embedded wire,
Demarcating the next acre.
The telephone poles like guards
With cats-of-nine tails,
Red-winged blackbirds and wrens
Hanging on trapezes, upsidedown,
With rigamortis clutches.
The few cattle stood cooling in the pond,
The chickens pecked the farmyard dung.
Each day my steps imperceptibly decreased,
Speeding up the monotony of my walk.

I missed the sheep shaped clouds,
But saw them move
Across verdant dales,
Following the stream,
Like lambs.

Today, I look out my kitchen window
To see where my son,
My disheartened, lonely boy,
Counts the steps to Brigden Sideroad,
Feeling the gravel
Hard beneath his feet.

I went out for some air
As Ophelia's winds ripped Cavan
With whips and cracks,
Swaying wires til they met like Gothic lips
Whistling a lilting melody
In a wave winding along the Carrick Road.
They wailed as banshees,
Warning men with crosses,
Women in seclusion,
Screeching in their ears,
The fairies left their hillocks,
The cairns are empty vaults;
Ophelia drowned out prayers that night,
And slipped for Scotland's shore.

Wiping clean
The bathroom mirror,
Didn't absolve
The inner sinner.
Two eyes bore through
A remorseful soul,
Like silver pissholes
In the snow.
Then the blood
Ran while shaving,
Red droplets
Not worth saving,
Found design on my neck,
Like the thornless rose
From the tarot deck,
Looking at a lost soul-mate,
Red-faced and forlorn.
Fierce and piercing
Love and hate;
The paradox
Of the repentant's fate.

Spirits are demons,
It's alluringly clear;
Cordial at first,
With smiles
Cloaking sneers.
Devils in bottles
Of liquor and beer.

Turn on.* He preached,
A psychodelic mantra.

Turn off, I rejoin.
Recharge your battery.
Hear the place.
Don't skip out.

Tune in,
That's what he proclaimed,
Like a hallelujah chorus.

Tune out, I respond.
Extract the buds, and smell the flowers.

Drop out, his litany ended.
Alone, or with drop outs?
Distances and depths vary.
But his voice carried.

Drop by, I invite. Stay awhile.
Have a cup of Yorkshire Gold,
And walk in the garden,
With me.

I have an unusual friend. A small man with charms of a gentle redneck. He holds court in his garage for his acquaintances, those free or at large. His demeanour is rustic, but his wisdom self-taught. His name is Byron ( I know, it's too good to be true),  not lordly, but Byron likes the girls and light brew. Byron says, “I'll kick your ***.” every time we play golf. Not yet. His voice is chasmic and often influenced by distractions. And then on a cold, witch-***, heathcliffe driving winter's day, with the wood stove well-fired, a rascally friend opens the door, and Byron yells, “Shut the door. Do you think wood grows on trees.” On leaving the same day he advises me, “Don't slip on the ice. It's frozen.” I didn't tell  you Byron has one eye. Better yet, a patch on the other. He looks more like post Frodo  ignoring the “Don't run with scissors" warning from Mother Baggins, than he does Lord B. I dropped my pipe once on his garage floor. A special pipe. It's my bowling pipe. I don't smoke tobacco.  Byron thinks it clever to call me at work and tell my secretary he and I are bowling after school. Byron mixes metaphors. So, my pipe has dropped. Byron says, “ Let me help. Three eyes are better than two.” His cleverness can backfire. I tried to be sensitive, but there was neither an honourable or dishonourable way out. Byron hung an oak wood sign near his stove. He makes his own stain, and rubs it evenly in circles with his wife's old nylons. “It's great for the *******,” he'll quip. The two ***** of the sign are joined with leather straps and stainless steel studded to the wood. The letters painted within the stencilled lines are a dark, rich mixture. The joke. “Lift flap in case of fire.” Normally one lifts the flap. “Not now stupit. In case of fire.” I discreetly pointed out the t.The sign quietly disappeared and was never mentioned again. He'll never kick my ***.

When you hear of a new diagnosis
For someone known,
It begins again.
Every cloud seems special,
Every disappointment relative
To the breaking news.
My eighty on the links
Isn't so remarkable now -
Or is it?
Relative or not,
I'll carry my clubs tomorrow too.

I'm wondering
What went wrong;
HP's becoming
An animal farm.

Why did the vet
Disregard the elephant
In the House?
REWSNA: EREHT SAW ON NIARB YTIVITCA.

Your smile foretold
I'd *****-up this poem.
We had foresight then,
And anticipation
Invoking the future.
We leaned back,
Looking down the well,
Swept away clouds
In tea-cups,
And smoke in cauldrons
To seize the summer.
The suddeness of loss
Is not prophesied;
One does not pre-order
Ointments.
If I'd been spiritual
I would've seen a sign,
Like a bird,
Building a nest.
I don't hear voices.
When I slice through
A tomato, I don't find
An embossed relief
Of a martyr.
I only have this picture.

Crosses white, poppies red,
Remember how, remember when
Pale petals fell from blooming roses,
And padded paths where freedom goes.

Fierce fires doused a would be hate,
To quench dry hearts, yours and mine.
Their love and duty burned paper chains
That shackled in war time.

Wise eyes, bright minds, aged souls, young hearts,
Traded rockers for grassy beds;
Gave up gray for blue-black youth,
Now honoured among the dead.

The rose that's guarded by the thorn,
Against the reach of many hands,
Does the same in all God's lands:
Yet still the life sap flows.

This time of year is here again,
But remember how, remember when
Fading pulses beat taps then.
Remembrance Day must never end.

I've been exposed.
Many have witnessed me,
And more have noticed it.
The ones I taught to use a spoon,
Tie a lace, ride a bike,
Arise from a fall.
Those whom I've instructed
On when to listen,
When to question.
They've acquiesed to the knowledge.

The colleagues I once cornered with
In serious situations;
When our decisions effected others' paths;
Those who recognized my signature.
They've acquiesed to the knowledge.

I meet less often with friends.
I ask for less favours, and return fewer.
I don't stand holding meaningful conversations,
Sipping strong drinks.
I wear a cap indoors sometimes  (I once condemned this).
But, here you have it.
They've acquiesed.

I'm on my own now,
Hoping my memories are real and are mine,
And my ideas are new and genuine
(I change my mind a lot).
I seldom check the weather;
I've cancelled my cable (and this is a milestone).

I've enroled in a new world order.
Ask anyone you can find around here.
I no longer run the world.

Alone is my operative word.
It works well in a Republic,
With all those booths and secret ballots.
In Autocracies we are wise to keep to ourselves.
I'm relieved to be on my own
With what I think and what I do.
With others, I'm never alone.
I don't have far away looks;
I'm not fully engaged with me;
I can be spotted in a crowd.
I'm part of the gathering, and so,
I repress alone thoughts and actions.
If you're not looking my way,
I'm still not alone.
Some say they're alone in a crowd.
I don't get it.
I so get:
Shunned. Outcast. Alienated. Isolated. Fringed. Outed.
I knew when someone had the cooties.
But I'm not. I'm beside myself. Next to an idiot.
I'll never leave me alone.