Globally dense, our ailing nation
makes one weep for sheer frustration
thoughts and dreams grow numb.
Tech-addled students scroll on phones,
‘midst scent of android pheromones,
wafting digital dumb.

Pop-culture, narcissist unkind
dispenses with the human mind
which, failing further, falls behind
the grimly global curve.

We read, in writing on the wall
arithmetic’s impending fall
while numbers loiter in the hall
to get what they deserve.

ENQUIRY, tagged as D.O.A,
a sheeted stiff, is wheeled away
her mourners left to grieve.
entitled maiden, full of sass,
LIBERTY begs a bathroom pass
her bladder to relieve.

When zit-faced rebels run the show
the dismal ratings plummet low;
a vulgarized cartoon.
Descending to unfathomed levels,
Ignorance applauds her devils
calling out their tune.

PATRIOTISM, tarred and feathered
headless, claws its cage untethered
foul, unloved, unfree:
Another casualty of time
which fell for want of noble rhyme;
to water FREEDOM’s tree.

CURIOSITY, half asleep,
now stirs and murmurs from the deep
uninterested, untaught.
She grows yet duller in her ways
returning to her ocean daze,
(her schools of fish uncaught).

HISTORY, dormant, lies in dust
a narrative no man can trust
a book no scholar reads.
Events unstudied as designed
wherein the heart of humankind
for want of context, bleeds.

DEMOCRACY degenerates
until God wills and activates
a nation’s drive to learn.
Curricula will be made void;
disheartened teachers unemployed,
their wisdom fit to burn.

You think the past was less obtuse?
Less prone to youthful thought-abuse?
Perhaps…  back in the day.
And though it may have been the same.
this poet opts to place the blame
on digital delay.

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
declare if thou knowest it all.
       Job 38: 16-18

Oh that the desert were my dwelling place,
With only one fair spirit for my minister.
That I might forget the human race,
And hating no one, love her only.
       Lord Byron,Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

I walked alone into the waste
in search of rivers—not a taste
of water could I find
to liquidate my mind.

Under the sun in vanished lakes
alive with scorpions and snakes
I sought within my soul
her limpid watering hole.

The mogollón once hunted here
as piñon pines disclosed the deer
but now not even bones
remained among the stones.

Scattered beads and the odd spearhead
my visionary soul misled;
the moment was my home
and I was free to roam.

Burial caves of ash and silence
spoke in tones of bygone violence—
grinding stones lay broken:
her archeological token.

I found a *** within a niche
still balanced well, despite the pitch
as if the owner’s urn
awaited her return.

Amidst the fragments, free at last
in potsherd patterns of the past
I followed ancient streams
through arid zones and dreams.

Exploring a dry riverbed
unraveling her golden thread
while stepping off a ledge
descending from the edge,

I almost trod upon a snake
and quick adjustment had to make.
Reluctant viper-battler,
I flinched. It was a rattler.

As my right foot continued down
I saw the scales and dusty brown;
Mere inches from its head
the imprint of my tread!

The serpent was too cold and slow
to strike a poisoned morning blow
The sun still in the east—
I swerved and missed the beast.

The desert’s charm advanced from there;
She showed me sights I barely dare
to tell lest I sound singed . . .
My mind she so unhinged.

I stood before the gate of vision
rapt in shadowed indecision
gazing in the maw,
unsure of what I saw:

A ruined mineshaft’s empty grin
that mocked and whispered: “Come within.
The words of Job are here
in wisdom born of fear.”

Necropolis; a gaping  portal…
Feeling less than weakly mortal,
deep I stared inside;
allured yet terrified.

A passage to the depths of dread:
the Book of Job, the sleeping dead.
I barely now recall
yet understood it all…

Still thirsting through her arid land
divining truths in shifting sand
I ventured on in vain,
beseeching God to reign

The javelinas mocked my quest
beguiled me onward, further west
where Dutchmen hide their gold
and Apache tears are sold.

Her rainbow shades and distant mesas
silhouetted, paint her face as
nobly as the lands
her presence still commands.

Her beauty smiled: a virtual face
of glyphic pre-Columbian grace
decentralized desire
in sublimated fire…

She led me to the springs of life
my moonlight maid and desert wife;
my nights upon the mountains
in search of spectral fountains.

Ex-nomad of the mythic west
my unfound treasure now confessed;
her deserts had me smitten…
for her my poem’s written.

The oil lamp cast its noble glow,
while shadows darkened all around,
on leaders in the global know
whose darkness by its light was found.

Just then, the lantern's leaky wick
flared up. The whole benighted place
ignited like a Wiki-Leak
inflaming each tyrannic face.

The Media pitched their low-ball gloss
and tried to polish up the mess
by spinning such a global loss
as sure electoral success.

white winged water walker
filled my dreamy head
sliding, gliding on shimmering glass
far from my land locked bed

once a child and filled with awe
my visions shamelessly bold
a water walker I would be
and straw could turn to gold

but spinning orbs wash one with age
and weight one's wings with years
flights of endless prowess
are grounded by groundless fears

yet when blind night blocks the light
and one's mind is free to explore
childhood's chirping vision
is again allowed to soar

In the land of liars,
the honest man
must
be
crucified.