Dark Money
A shadow moving across the land
Sowing a crop of bitters for a harvest
To feed something monstrous and dark.
For, if it was pure of motive
Pure of intent, it would not hide
In the shadows, choking the fruits
Intended for innocents,
Who surely will go hungry.
I’ll Be You
I’ll be you, you’ll be me
Then we’ll know and see
What you mean to me
And I mean to you
So we may love each other’s
Unique perspective and view
And knowing what it means
When I’m you
And You are me
Long Poems
Long poems are not portable
They require a wheelbarrow
And multiple trips
To dump them in the backyard of your mind
By the time you feel their meaning
They weigh too heavy on you
I promise never to write long poems again
For the sake of your back
And for the sake of meaning
Migraines are rare these days, but they still happen for me… this one came as the baseball game was just starting… and the field and view was distorted, and it came unraveled in short order… here is how I think of it, and a way to explain what happens…
Two People, One Mind
One is in control and rational
One is childish and irrational
One knows all is wonderful and fine
The other, lives there too, but barely
Co-existing, while playing around
The corners of my mind each day
Until seemingly unprovoked
A tantrum it must throw,
Shattering windows
And making a mess
Giving no peace between us two
For five hours of irrational hell
… If I only knew what sets the little shit off…
New Replaces Old
A new one arrives
Packaged in remarkable efficiency
Showing that it was not born
Of craftsmen,
But rather engineered
Everything in its packaged place
So this means the old must go
The disassembly begins
The air of life is let out of it
The wrestling away the pieces
As the old, still with luster and shine
Vainly tries to resist, but loses
And becomes a carcass
Stacked in the garage…
The new is assembled, she of a modern style
The new functions no better than old
The new just sits there and looks pretty
As we breathe life into new
And wonder what to do with old.
If I Could
If I could find the quiet word
Never thought or even heard
If I could live with spirit lifted
So all felt loved and gifted
If I could be a source of happy joy
And never, give cause to annoy
If I could find the rhythm and rhyme
I would sing it out loud all the time
If I only could …. I certainly would…
Irony and Fate
Irony is a bitch, with little thought
While Fate a future carefully brought
As Irony cackles in our head
Reminding us of what we once said
Fate whispers of a future time
A future fair, and of synoptic rhyme
For Fate is a lady of balance and grace
While Irony is wild with smirking face
Fate has a twin that may intertwine
Thus finding company as they align
While Irony remains lonely, bitter and cold
As it seems, from stories that’ve been told
The Bear
He’s looking around, slinking
Always hungry, always thinking
Of a way in, and what he’ll find
For our house is big, but our mind
Is lazy and our attention to the locks
And alarms are as miss-matched socks
So varied and so many ways into our life
He tells another story, a way to cause us strife
Undermining our faith and belief, of what we know
So that in our house, in our minds it starts to snow
And it is we who hibernate, we who give in
To a stinking ugly bear living with us again
As we slumber and dream of past images of glory
While believing in a wretched, bear-given story
We are now as weak as goldilocks, quietly asleep
In what has become his house,
…. for we gave in, without a fight, without a peep
The Contest
Sports beautifully have winners and losers
Complete with joy of winning and sorrow of loss
Borne by the efforts and passions of competitors
Living within the bounds and rules of the game
We who play, those who coach, and spectate
All know that there is no perpetual winner
And we root for the underdog to perform
As if to rise, as Phoenix from ashes of defeat
We cheer performance, but are moved by feats
Of sportsmanship, that show the humanity
Of this game of life, and camaraderie of contestants
And we boo the ones who cheat us of this experience,
We despise and ban the ones that bring hate
And violence that represents the worst of us
Because we don’t want to see, this worst of us in us.
Sports shaped our psyche as Nation
It is how we first defeated the notion of Nazi
Superiority, and replaced it with American
Determination in 1936, giving us a lesson
In resolve, in how to win…. we love these stories.
We love who we were then and can be today.
We carry that notion of fairness into our contests
Of a political nature, and we know ideas matter
We know discourse is necessary, we cannot be
Divided, though they may try.
We can not be cheated of fairness
We are all playing in a game with rules we agreed
So very many years ago.
We are protecting the democratic principles
We are supporting each other because we
Know that we need each other.
Without players there is no grand contest,
Without compassion there is no democracy.
We must seek understanding and empathy
As we are part of the greatest sport ever.
When it is over, let us congratulate and shake each others hands!
This is One Way Mister
I’m only going one way
I cannot go back I say
Until I go forward or around
If that is a way to be found
In a world of happiness and dreams
In life’s complicated streams
Can you believe in tomorrow’s ever
Changing possibilities or maybe never
It seems too outrageous to hope for,
Yet in its time it will knock on our door
As tomorrows always and sometimes seem never do
But this tomorrow means hope for me and you
If ill gotten reason left us today
Leaving us only one more way
To open this door to tomorrow
To embrace an enlightened morrow