Posts for June 14, 2018 (page 5)

What is just punishment when war
Is declared on little brown children?
Their screams echo cold terror’s play,
Brain cells shrink,  fear steals the day.  

Mothers’ grief drills death so deep
So comforts offered wind up thrown
Beneath brown feet. Anguish awash
With babies snatched beyond their ken.  

Once we sold black slaves’ families away,
But America had grown a conscience.
How Now do we face this shame besmirching
Red white and blue? Take a knee and cry.  

Shout and rage, refuse to let our country
Become a haven for those who trample
Babies to place them in a concentrated pen
So far from love their souls are stunted.  

Do not forget Arab camps where little ones
Learned to hate and all of us lived to pay
The dearest price for that ignored folly.
And we never, never learn. Take a knee and cry.

If you can’t say something nice, say it in Esperanto
A penny saved is nothing to brag about
All work and no play is not a guarantee that you’ll be able to pay all of your bills
Never count your chickens, because they don’t like being treated like numbers
A stitch in time is visible, so just buy another pair of pants
When life hands you lemons, sell them at the Farmers’ Market
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes—if he’ll let you borrow his shoes
Life is like a box of chocolates; actually, it’s not; forget that one
It is better to have loved and lost—the first few times, but after that, it’s a real drag.

if it will move you                                 
                                  at last

if the gods breathe
                                  mercy                                
                                  thereafter

if the auger has seen its truth among the gulls–                           
                                                 
                                  i will do it.   
                                                
                                  i will bring that                           
                                  truth down

if the currents demand a trade–                                                       
                                                          blood for wind,
blood for wind, blood for wind, blood for wind—

let it be
mine.

i am not afraid.

i will have loved
well and utterly

sing a song for me,
a good one, for my at last

becoming
the waves.

May I please
get straight to it
apply formatting
fix pagination
delete extra spaces
style headings nicely
repair the miserable headers
update the TOC
make it seemly, comely, lovely
—without costly side trips
—while others wait
and push “Send” today?

This could be the motto for the human race. “Driver carries less than twenty dollars.” All are racing down the busy, broken highway with one deficit, or another. Perhaps, with many deficits. We would all like to have full wallets and purses, nice sunglasses, quality driving gloves, and good brakes. Instead, we have engines that are slow to start and quick to die. Brakes that squeal like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Other drivers are constantly swerving into our lane or tailgating or forgetting to be polite and use their signals. I’ve got a certain signal for those drivers. As for me, I’ve always carried less than twenty dollars. Many times, I have only a few coins, and the damn toll booth is right there, ahead of me.

When my sand dollar is only fifty cents
and my shore is broken shells
I stand knee-deep,
close my eyes,
and wait for you to come.

The television played on the wall as we huddled around in the waiting room after he died

after they “cleaned him up” 

after we saw his lifeless body and my grandmother said, “That’s not him.” 

The television played on the wall as we filled out paperwork to tell the hospital where to send the dead body and who should cut him open 

The television played on the wall when we remembered his favorite suit. “He will want to wear that suit,” she said

The television played on the wall as we explained to my grandmother that she did not need to put his dentures back in- the mortician would take care of that

The television played as we retold the story of my grandfather coming out of surgery and giving the doctor a thumbs up before coding twice

The television played on the wall as the stranger walked by and stopped to say, “Oh, are you all watching Star Wars?” 

The television played on. 

Every way that it might be used (or misused),
name it CLOCKFACE, control the namespace,
and sync all types to streams.
The stage does not have to be very big for
snake-like motion, content creation.
Ingestion or playback of a plant growing up from soil
is a good time to call others in to help.

That Jacuzzi was a tub with a fancy foreign name
Cause I was just too dumb to turn the damn thing on.
As I soaked in that hot water, I loved it just the same.
And then I closed my eyes til consciousness was gone.

Soon I was in the ocean, with a captain and his kin
playing volleyball on a dusty wooden floor.
And the captain’s daughter spiked it and rattled my poor brain
sending me into unconsciousness once more.

I had tried not to get caught looking at the pretty girl,
Cause that old captain had a temper and a sword.
But now that I’m unconscious, well the captain scares me none,
And now I’m talking with the girl who had me floored.

I pleaded with the darling, “Honey, kiss me on the lips,
but please be careful not to wake me from this dream.”
As she did feeling came back slowly to my finger tips.
“Oh no, I fear that you have woken me, it seems!”

As I woke up on the floor, I found myself in her embrace.
The old captain wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
She kissed me once more as I gazed upon her pretty face,
I began to choke and I left that wondrous scene!

I coughed up warm bath water as I cried a couple tears,
“Why in the hell did I have to wake up today?”
I pushed my head back under, trying to go back to sleep.
Reality can ruin a man’s life that way.

Re-living my past
lost the spark when I realized
I’d be without you.