it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction
and
disillusion
to
write
a
few
good
poems.
it's not
for
everybody
either to
write
it
or even to
read
it.

O, Traveller
They were glorious
Our boys in gray
Tho the blue carry this day
We shan't forget
No, never.

O, Traveller
Did you see them march
To beating drum
To smoke and fire
Our boys in gray
We shan't forget
No, never.

O, Traveller
This rain and mud
Virginia awaits in sorrow
The day is gray
For our boys
We shan't forget
No, never.

r ~ 5/26/14

People
don't
change;

opinions
      do.

The crimson tips of
Sundown's deep orange
Fingers
Trace each detail of the
Landscape; slowly yielding
To the wall of steel gray
Promise of storm
Swallowing blue.

Let us bring this bottle
And a chair out onto the
Entrance stairs; under shelter.
Sit on my lap as
It all hits.

Everything is drum.
A roofless room
Water walled
Deluge draped
Pink noise of drops;
Multitudes of molecules.

I love you, my woman.  
I love you slightly more
When it rains.

My ink may run
as black as coal,
as dark as
a dark night
of the soul.

Or flow red hued
like the morning sky;
as red as love,
or red man's blood
on hard-baked clay.

Yellow ink hues
my many suns,
my moons
the color of
dry bone.

Blue-inked waves
may wash my
blues away,
or sing the blues as blue
as muddy waters.

Gray ink clouds
on a fog-shrouded
empty highway
take me from here
to the Blue Ridge
mountains.

White-capped sailors
sail the arctic
as lost as
my white ink
on a blank page.

r ~ 5/13/14