We’re making a garden,
Constructing planters from scrap wood
And furniture I made poorly
Although I meant well
And worked with love In my heart.
I will pry it apart
And make a thing infinitely simple
And more useful:
A place for things to grow,
A means of nourishing you.
Pandemic disease
unrest and unease
stuck at home, Lord
I am weary
Watching the news
like pushing a bruise
writhing in anguish
tormented, teary
Virus and hate reel
corner and still
beat and break ’til
we’re ripped at the soul
What can we do
closed minds askew
not willing to
examine their role
Frustration and lack
of creative attack
stunned, unfocused
we sit, we wonder
Dear Muse, bid come
bring hope, rich sums
Effect resolve
Not to wander
except to a place
of love and grace
unconditional
Get out of ourselves
Work’s overdue and
worthy to pursue
stack cures upon cures
inside heart shelves
I may be tired
plunged deep and mired
but can lay down
mindless chatter
Open my mind
take risks and find
common ground
because it matters
Mother Teresa was smart
Though small I can start
go home and love
family and neighbor
One block, then two
building anew
day by day with
mercy we labor
Don’t turn your heads
nor ignore the threads
nor fall victim
to indifference
Keep company with me
together let us agree
to mend the broken
both sides of the fence
This time
it just felt different.
The photographs
were too obvious,
too egregious.
The outrage
was a given,
sure to spill out
into the streets
because really,
where else could it go?
Peace had not generated
the necessary noise.
With a malicious knee,
we’re back in the history books
and it’s embarrassing.
Didn’t we fight these battles
years ago
when they were just a unit
in a high school social studies class?
Or is that a big part of the problem?
For some of us,
justice was just a test to pass,
a GPA to nurture.
We may not have been truly challenged
or allowed ourselves to be challenged
with the reality
that people once lived in the lack of justice.
They still live in the lack of justice
and oppression.
Now we’re in the real world
and a lot of us are failing our exams.
They’re being passed back to us
on these streets and bridges
where learning the material
has become a life or death matter.
Grading myself,
I am shamed.
I’m sorry for falling asleep,
I’m sorry for my silence,
I’m sorry that it’s taken a knee
to the neck instead of turf
to awaken the outrage.
We had so many chances at equality
for all people.
We’ve put too many bodies in the ground.
Peace has had too many voices
for I can’t breathe
to become the rallying cry.
Now we all hear.
There are new chapters to study
in the next editions of the textbooks
being put together
in our streets today.
It is our duty
to work at shaping
the future of this country
and the wellbeing of all its citizens.
In another sixty years,
when our grandchildren are studying
for tomorrow’s social studies exam,
what history will be told?
What questions will be posed?
And what answers will they be giving
about us?
Sink or Rise
Gull-strewn waters lap
circumferences of each reflected
shadow rising falling as if
a slow & stuttering final breath
of the fabled city conceding elemental
defeat or a willing acceptance
as the child standing against
the damp wall, skirt the color
of wet mosses clawing upward
clambering the tower of paired bells
tolling the dirge, the sullen gondola
that nudges its striated pole leaning
precariously toward the while
pleading for something solid
to believe in.
It should have been a sign
That UB40’s Red Red Wine
Was my favorite song, ages five to nine
(It made me feel fine)
And for narrative symmetry
And if you ask my mom
who’s been saving me a seat since 1999
maybe it was.
I always thought I’d show her
Til the month that I got sober
Of course it was October
For the rhyme scheme and because
I didn’t know then
how much peace the booze was buying me
and it was
Because there’s much too much to forget
I’d ordered up this perfect life and yet
Every night I’d tear apart and set
Aside my blue, blue heart.
(Don’t let me be alone)
I don’t know what it means
Here with my memories
And comorbid diagnoses
In a brain that keeps trying to kill me.
That pressure and time can turn Diamonds into light reggae songs
But it does
June begins most chaotically
against the backdrop of a mad world,
infected now with two viruses–
one of our own making.
Life has carried on this way
for centuries. In many ways,
our New World not new at all.
The rivers of this nation
run still with the tears of
native tribes silenced
to make room for the loud voices
of white men.
Our country built up
on the backs of the broken,
brought here from foreign lands
to forge a nation in our own image.
Freedom for whom?
And when? And how much?
Our black brothers and sisters–
too long they have waited,
so long they have suffered.
And meanwhile this pandemic wages
its microscopic battle for our lungs.
But now while we are able,
let us fill them up,
use them to cry out
for all those oppressed!
Our words only a beginning,
a rallying cry, an act of defiance,
lines of truth in the face
of lies and injustice,
for all those trampled underfoot
in the name of Capitalism
or even Freedom–
the irony thick and sick.
With what can we fight?
We have this month of June
and these white pages
waiting to be filled and shared.
Let’s start here.
His name was Art.
He hosted a TV show called “People Are Funny.”
It was back in the 1950s when TV was heavily censored.
The guests from the audience would end up doing crazy stunts.
There were other shows like that.
“Candid Camera” would set up situations for unsuspecting people, kind of like “Punk’d” decades later.
Bob Barker, before hosting “The Price Is Right,” hosted “Truth or Consequences,” where–you guessed it–people would do crazy things.
It’s hard to laugh right now.
A lot of people are trying to be funny.
Some of them actually are.
But others are saying and doing cruel things to get cheap laughs.
I’m not laughing.
I
I pull the first one from my mouth
My body blooms holes
Open wounds
Snakes come out in droves
II
A school bus takes
The children
We climb Stop signs
But cannot find them
III
A crack in the wall down
Down the fissure grows
The gaping hole cannot hold
No one is safe at home
IV
Police line up
Row after row
Say each name
So many kinds
Of cancer
Hello and welcome to The Government
We own the land around your streams
You must ask Us for a drink
We own the roads around your home
You must request Our permissions
We own the air you breathe
We are free to strangle you as We see fit
We own your necessities
You can not survive without Us
We own your words
You will not speak unless spoken to
We come from power
We will retain that power at any cost
We come to steal, kill and destroy
That We and only We can live free of harm
Behind high walls
Without fear of repercussion
You are not slaves
Because We tell you that We have abolished slavery
But We are owners
We will always be owners
And you will ask of Us, and We will deny you
Because We are The Government
And We are the only ones who matter
Now hit your knees
Say your prayers
And be grateful to Us
We are good, because We allow you to exist
In the world that We own
We are The Government
Welcome
Maybe I look like trash
to some
I may not be able to smooth out
all the wrinkles
but maybe
I could share a part
of the fine lines beneath
Maybe you’d find a match
on one of your pages
Maybe I’d like to throw out a piece
Or maybe
there’s writing so deep
a code of DNA that links
your Father’s image in me
