We never learn
Until it's too late
Until the price
Has been paid

We fill the jails
And lock the doors
While the problem
....Is ignored

Bribes are paid
Pulling the strings
Insuring consequences
That they bring

And the objectives
Of political platforms
Belong to Lobbyist
And citizens are ignored

And the poor
Are the victims of justice
A commodity of sorts
In corporate decisions

The whirling worlds His Potter's Wheel
What Darwin sought His fiery kiln
To forge a Man So strong and smart
He takes the nest of stars by storm!

God shapes His clay. Behold a sponge!
He shapes some more. He has a fish
That dances in the waters deep
And Jesus laughs and claps His hands!
As yet they do not know.

God shapes His clay a  little more
Soon a creature stands before
Him on its little legs.
The creature walks but yet still swims!
God calls: His creatures walk on land!
But still they do not know.

God shapes His clay a little more
Soon dancing Dragons, Birds and Bears.
And Jesus dances on and on
But still they do not know.

Then finally, the Dawn of Man
The clay Lump wakes and knows!

A zillion mothers nourish young
a zillion fathers fight and mate

A Zillion years of fear and joy
A zillion years of pain and love
A billion years of work and stress
Of starving times and spilling blood.

All of this the price God paid
To make a Man of Mud.

My lunches are loud
Friends gather around
To talk and chat
But to me
They’re quiet
And I hate that
I miss
The feeling
Of your presence
And those few times
You would visit my table
And I hate
The feeling you left me with
That lingering sense
Of your absence.

I was raised as a mother,
Never as the daughter.
A burden they carried,
Never the healer.

I was the giver,
Never the receiver—
And for one single mistake,
I became the villain.

Sunshine on
fragrant meadows
A metaphor for
my lady
She blessed me
with two children
And another baby.

Between drags of my cigarette,
I lie back on the concrete
and stare into the night sky.

The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they?

Not because the air is clear,
or that the heavens are unusually bright
but because tonight I see their depth,
their quiet elegance,
the way they gather into a canvas
stitched across light-years.

The way they align feels like perfection
a harmony born of distance,
comfort found
in the vastness of the abyss.

I trace the Big Dipper,
Orion too.
Not for anyone else,
but for the stone that cradles my skull,
for the roots beneath the soil,
for the spiders weaving
in the leaves at my side.

I’m almost finished with the cigarette now.
But some part of me wants to stay out here,
just me and the stars
serendipity
in their quiet, endless beauty.