you are the moonflower,
and the sweet fragrance
of night blooming jasmine.

the mysterious, magical beauty
of a single night.

It is the passionate night that holds you.

nothing lives forever,
not the stars scattered in the skies
nor the sadness reflected in your eyes.

hold my hand, blue flower.
hold my wistful heart
tangled and intimate
in our distant romance.

the oak trees rustling in the wind.
there is something cold in the air...
the fleeting bloom of the night's flower.

oh, flower of the night,
the night will never release you.

a solitary tear falls. I draw the shades.

…at four in the morning,
the room was sharp and silent
through the stillness of the dark
and yet, I sang those old songs
swaying in the cold wind
with bottle upon my breath
as I dreamt of green birds
and the lonely white lotus
that kept fluttering
into my scratched head
while coming apart at the seams
with tears of sadness
I sat and pondered
where they all went:
those little caramel ladies of brown doom
with novocaine souls and enamel bodies;
you gave me the liveliest moments
even when you brought me
to the brink of death,
you have liberated me during
my most shackled state of mind,
you spilled the truth when you
told me, “I could never be reached.”
and therefore I must come to terms
with the absence of your warmth
as the green birds have flown
into concrete skies
and the white lotus has shriveled
into a curling black mass
I sway with the wind,
rising the bottle
and belting out
those old songs
in a room so
sharp and silent
at four in the morning.

She was an old barn cat, around the place for
a dozen years or more. Superb mouser and
yard hunter. Came from feral parents, aloof
by nature, and breeding, a little wild at heart
I suppose.  In time she developed some slight
affection for some of my family, me included,
eventually a regular welcomed visitor to my
porch, even crawling upon my lap for pat and
scratch under her chin but always declining to
be held by any human being.

She would come when I called her, running
full tilt and jumping fences, ignoring the food
just wanting companionship and attention.
Over the years she and I became good friends.
She came every day, morning and evening to say
hello and oh yes, get an offered meal. Rubbing
her sleek cat body on my feet and legs, offering
up her affection with an audible purring for
everyone to hear even from some distance.

Her age was starting to show, thinner, slower, she
was getting on just as I am, perhaps we both knew
it. Last night she came to the glass door and looked
so forlorn. Though cold outside I put on a coat and
brought her out some food, and I sat in my chair.

She sniffed the food with disinterest then came
over to flop upon my feet softly meowing, I could
feel her little purr motor vibrating on my shoes.
I reached down and gave her a tummy scratch,
she always loved that.

We resided like that for a while, her upon my feet,
me in my chair. Becoming too cold I started to rise
to go back inside, but she did not move, I reached
down and felt no purr vibration, she was unmoving
and silent. In that moment I knew that she had passed
from this earth. I picked up her now limp unresisting
body and placed her on my lap, my eyes teared knowing
that she was gone.

So sudden, one minute there and then just gone.
Not a bad way to go, rather than some long-drawn
-out affair, with doctors, useless operations, hospice
and lingering formidable pain. Just lay down and
go to sleep.

We should all be that lucky when our time comes.

I watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" last
night, I have seen that film many times.
However, in light of our nation's current
chaotic political direction, that theme and
topic have taken on a new unsettling and
dire significance. The implied specter of
the term "National Socialism" is all too
ominous.

73 million people died or were murdered in
WWII when a nation of otherwise normal
rational people were ****** in by listening to
a homely, little possibly insane former German
army Corporal rant and rave their nation into
a frenzy of cultism, and "National Socialism".
Through lies and deceptions, Adolf ******
plunged the entire world into a chaotic and
destructive war.

I can't be the only one to see and be deeply
concerned by the undeniable significance and
similarities of our current parallel direction
towards a National Socialism agenda?
Inspired and led by the newly appointed wonky
cult of administrative dimwits and their newly
self-anointed unstable KING, that appear not
to give a **** about our laws, our Constitution
or any of us as individual free citizens.

Our US government watchdogs the Congress
and Senate seem to have lost their direction and
patriotism, grown spineless and mute under the
spell or fear of King Trump.

Wake up America!
We are headed in a very bad direction.

The yellow morning sun rises out of an Easterly gray
sky bringing the promise of a bright blue, cloudless
new day.

A dozen songbirds are hard at work upon the feeders,
the barn cats lurk in the flower bushes, hunting waiting.
A hawk perches upon the barn roof, preening his feathers
in the warming lemony new light. Our red rooster crows
his morning song from the safety of the covered chicken pen.

I stretch, yawn and scratch my itchy bits, standing peering
out the window at the spring dewy grass scene that reminds
me to check and gas up the riding mower.

My hungry hedonistic house cat meows and rubs against
my bare legs, and hem of my old bathrobe, the aroma of
fresh perking coffee brings all morning ritual attentions
back inside, and just like the outside creatures, I also begin
yet another fine new day, content that for this emerging
brief moment in time all is right in my world. For as long
as I leave off the Television.