green clouds obscure the red star
we’ve been here–I think–for twelve years,
making it around 1975 back home, 
allowing for relativity

the animals are intelligent,
speaking a variety of languages,
living in societies bartering
with The Others
for dwindling resources

we don’t bother trying to learn–
there is no point and

body language doesn’t work so well
here, with species from different 
cultures, histories,
planets

we’ve been left alone–mostly–
after the initial battery of tests
to which we were all
subjected

pen and paper work well in this atmosphere,
so we keep notes to share with one another
but we find we have less to say
as time (whatever that is) goes by

we don’t think we are going home,
nor could this place ever become home–
we are stuck out of place in this universe,
living, but not advancing

I can’t remember the sound
of laughter

Sit down to write a poem,
first word to come to mind
every
single
time
is “toothbrush.”

Why in the world?
What rut in the neuron path
sends my thought in this direction
every
single
time?

What could possibly cause such a fixation?
I even wrote a poem about a toothbrush once,
how it somehow worked its way to the back of the drawer,
and I had to search for it
every
single
time.

Was not a good poem.
Maybe the universe is waiting
for me to write a good one.

This ain’t it either. 

I stand at the station,
waiting for my train.
The world smells sticky wet,
the fresh rain painting the 
morning with the smell of
petrichor.

I want to breathe deep but
I don’t trust that I won’t catch
an unpleasant whiff of that
smell that comes (the only
downside) when you’re a
part of the living city.

Came like a whisper
The grandiose theatrics
The faulty facts
The bravado
The self-aggrandisement,
It all seemed so surreal,
Could not be reality
Would not be accepted
So outlandish
So contrary to our culture

Yet here we are,
Masked and unbadged hoodlums
dragging people from courtrooms,
schools, churches, their cars,
to places and fates unknown,
Ignoring due process

Legislative bodies heavy
with the kowtowing spineless
who love 
    their lifetime pensions
    their lifetime medical insurance
more than their Constitution

And the dissolution accelerates,
people, mores, social safety nets,
decades of progress
dismantled
chipped away
devoured
by the endless cycle
of graft, grift and greed

And we sit in our (mostly white & college educated) privilege,
and we gasp, appalled by the amoral
police state that’s now our country

truth is, this didn’t happen overnight
our  privileged perch let us
ignore those deep-pocketed malevolent male millionaires
with the patience to plan for decades, saying
“Crackpots” “Extremists” “Impossible”

racism and white nationalism now run rampant, and
all our national shames have come home to roost
(Jim Crow, Isolationism,restrictive suffrage, misogyny to name a few)

The time for rhetoric (and gasping) is over
our country needs bold, focused, informed citizens,
rolled up sleeves, commitment
And grit, lots of grit

Painted black panthers
on an 8-string
remind me

Of holy hunger,
Hegel,
hevel.

Rushing blood
copper veins
The Lion
rapt by the ascetic ideal, still

power and conflict
grief and disbelief

anxiety
anguish
uncertainty
indecison
about the future
about the past

strife
instability
ignorance
indifference
fearing un/known
filling a/void

tyranny
apostasy
corruption
decadence
deception
decline
and bears
oh my

well shit the byzantine bed man
maybe mahler no. 5
i left out slaughter on purpose

I use my teeth to pull tab off cream rinse.
       Frequently I find myself
near the front of the buffet line.  I’m mindful

I don’t run out of gas, toilet paper, milk, tea.
       My garbage and recycing
are out to the curb every Sunday night.  Backing

out of the garage, I look each direction and then
       look again.  Don’t tell anyone
but I check out new acquaintances on the internet.

My reptialian brain knows you can’t be too careful.
       All my forebearers would attest
to that, long resilient survivors that they were.

I.
Rain greens the leaving,
drops like needles prickling skin.
The path still beckons.                    

II.
Still drops, skin needles,
leaving greens the prickling path,
beckons like the rain.

LaDee, my Mountian Curr
plays squirrel games-
runs them up a tree 
then tracks them
in the canopy
as them as the jump from 
tree top to tree top.
A Woooooooooo!!!
A Woooooooooo!!!

She has been known to 
catch them,
before she trees
           but that is no fun
-ends the game
           quickly,
before it really starts.