Ice melts cool on the tongue
but is no cure for fever within.
The mind races ever faster
but fails finding godspeed.
The time of ages does not reverse,
but memories, live on in aging time.
And yet this fog of the past,
inspires clarity of present
and winged hopes for the future.

In ten easy steps:

1. Understand Definitions:
   • Humanity – Everyone else in the world
   • Domination – Control Humanity
   • Leader – Dominate Humanity
   • Followers – Humanity
2. Be a Narcissist
   • Look in mirror with abstract admiration
   • Insist on praise from all around you
   • Cheat so you win at everything
   • Comb your hair again
3. Grab Power
   • Tell people what they want to hear
   • Be ignorant of history – it gets in the way
   • Get Lawyers, Guns and Money
   • Corrupt everything you touch
4.  Alternate Facts
   • Truth is your enemy
   • Invent new facts
   • Tell Alt facts to everyone
   • Reinvent your history
5.  Control the Media
   • You are your own publicist
   • Wrestle CNN to the mat
   • Close non-compliant media outlets
   • Jail critics
6. Make Friends
   • People who need your power – like White Supremacists
   • Who will wear your red ridiculous hats
   • Others who can teach you the fine art of dictatorship
   • Discard all those you don’t need
7. Get Money
   • Sell more hats and flags
   • Borrow from banks and don’t pay back
   • Don’t pay taxes, because you are smartest ever
   • Sell more hats and flags
8. Rid Yourself of Rivals
   • Have your minions investigate rivals
   • Get foreign friends to cheat for you
   • Create havoc and division
   • Bait your rivals to anger
9. Dominate
   • Attack weaker neighbors
   • Sell your red hats your audacious story
   • Tell everyone you are making peace
   • Remember everyone loves you
   • Ask for Nobel Peace Prize
10. Get Beaten and Die Alone
    • By the corruption you enabled
    • By the weight of history
    • By the red hats who turn on you
    • By all humanity who now know!

A sign said Retail Space
and I thought of, selling space?
But then who built space?
And decided this space,
could be bought or sold,
which is in-between something
and another in order to be retailed-space.
While open-space can be found
right between nothing and nothing.
Then there’s luxury-space,
which must be somehow
more comfortable than living-space,
maybe less so or more is inner-space,
which is vast if we remove walls,
and outer-space which
seemingly empty is massive,
and yet is a destination for some,
where there is a space-station,
with space inside, protecting
from so much space outside.
Space is remarkably versatile,
which reminds me of flex-space,
which maybe more useful, if
I could bend space and time.
And possibly find the words
and thoughts which rid us of
useless        space         between us.

I ask my watch
who won the game last night?
…….. “UNC beat Duke, eighty-one to seventy-seven”

I ask my watch
what the temperature will be at noon?
…….. “Seventy-three and cloudy ”

I ask my watch
where are my shoes?
…….  “I don’t understand… check your feet, idiot”
(I made the last part up)

I ask my watch
what is the meaning of life?
……. “No one knows for sure, but there is no harm in extra love.
For family, your friends, and most importantly, for yourself. ”

Smart watch!

Keep stress outside the wall
do not answer, no matter
its mindful mournful call.

Call the archers to the fight,
light all the fires you must and
bring light to the darkest night.

Never tire defending, for the stone
laid in your castle walls are strong
and look and see you’re not alone.

If it breaches, it fights eviction,
like an unwelcome tenant
challenging your conviction.

And if it’s already thru the door,
and it is howling at you, then
you must wrestle it to the floor.

For you can and will surely win
you have weapons and help,
so never give up or give in.

If you had one wish
what would it be,
something to do with you
or something for the world?
Would it involve something new
or something old you remember
but would like to change?
Would it be money to buy
happiness, which it isn’t for sale
or happiness, which has a
mind and time of its own?
Or rather be about health
and long life, but what if there is
forever, without happiness?
Or maybe something clever,
like enumerated more wishes
to avoid dreaded choices?
There are many wishes
we all seem to imagine, but
no one said they’d be granted.
Wishing, and doing for others
and self is our path and nature.

Lyrics once were
to tell a story
of heroes and great deeds.
To entertain with stories of great
conquest and fools failures.
Or to impart moral lessons
of great import and value.
Or to soothe babes with
lullabies and inspire wonder.
Tell of great causes and
rally thought and hope.
Reaching for imagination
reaching for the stars.
Or to woo a young
woman to love.
Lyrics were song
with a melody and
rhythm that all who
might hear could sing along.
But today so many are
of deeds of madmen,
gangsters are the monsters,
drugs are in the streets,
the rap is poetry with
vulgarity as stock shock,
For whom will it inspire,
for whom will it soothe,
for whom will it woo,
and bring solace or love?

Part 2
I arrive at the car under the tree
now green with pollen washed
down by the pitter-patter
over, then starting-over rain
and it just sat there in its
impertinence getting green
all night long, as if it was my fault.

I opened the hood not sure
what I would do, but I thought
it looked good to open the hood
cause doing nothing seemed
obviously more stupid,
than looking under the hood.

I touched the battery cable,
because why wouldn’t I?
The crackle of spark as
the negative cable moved
suggested the last idiot
who worked on the car
didn’t tighten the cable.

I found the right socket
for I was the idiot and
knew which socket fit
and it was the only one
not of perfectly clean chrome
and tightened the cable.

Walla.. if that’s a word?
The car started up, once
again Repaired, and
I, the idiot, was grateful
to drive it home, with
the realization I should
stick to poetry versus auto repair
and listen to the rain,
pitter-patter.