No chemical or drink can assuage the
Agony that knows no respite
The loss of love from a careless concern
Has a memory that burns and burns and burns

Even sleep is no release
For she’ll relentlessly invade your dreams
Calling out in abstract schemes
As dreams often do they are there to remind you
To attend to something while awake
That you pretend is sorted but actually was forsaken

Aching aching aching
Anguish anguish anguish
Can walk a million miles
To vanquish the missing smiles
Even then the motion is no distraction
No catharsis, no abreaction

Talk talk talk said the therapist
It will do you  good
To pay heed to the  actions
That have resulted in no respite

For Erica.

"Doesn't sell," so what
the crap that does matters not
so much pretense so much affectation
little is genuine any more
like the liars infecting this nation
they are  pustulant contagious festering ******
one off the wrist
some pithy whine
laugh while you can
civilization is in decline

Like a miser I collect words
Some obscure, some rarely heard
A quest with no ending
Both illuminating and mind-bending
A search for the grail
Words that tear apart the veil
Trying to see more than eyes allow
Futilely attempting to define the Tao
For words are really only so useful
Except when they are the most  truthful

These past five years I’ve been an insufferable  mess
lie after lie after  venal lie,  my nation in distress
too ashamed, angry + embarrased to look others in the eye, I must confess
this January 20th though, I feel quite blessed
though this trial has passed, so much to be done
reconciling America to her rightful place beneath  the Lord's  righteous sun
hopping mad, youngsters won’t get it, that  I understand
but our democracy + Republic came close to being ******
a profusion of demoniacs stole power
the 4th estate was assailed + almost chased her from her tower
but common decency prevailed like a magnificent flower
and a garden of hope has replaced the dour
marauding despots who hurt her
we won’t forget the damage done
for out of many, we are one

As you hear thunder
you are safe from its  lightning
because  you have heard the past

When you look upon the stars
marveled  by their  spectacle
what is  present is  past

Thee is no way around this
there is a before and  an  after
then  and  there  and  now

I have a small  office
It looks out onto a store
I saw a young couple
arguing in a roar

I watch concerned for her safety
not knowing them, I’ve seen the worst
he was crouched inside his car
she had him cornered and cowed

she reached into his window
to hand him some sort of paper
then he raised up the window
catching her small arm in the door

by the time he freed her
she was beset and beside herself
in frustration she tore the paper to bits
and threw it to the ground

after they departed I  ventured out
to see what could be found
perhaps to understand the commotion
maybe some logic behind the row

and there in the bits and pieces
I picked up the shapes of  ripped paper
a jigsaw puzzle of jagged sorrow
the torn image of a life-force
an  unwanted baby that will know no morrow

The Hill We Climb

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We've braved the belly of the beast. We've learned that quiet isn't always peace and the norms and notions of what just is isn't always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it, somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished.

We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.

We are striving to forge our union with purpose, to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried.

That we'll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.

If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade but in all of the bridges we've made. That is the promise to Glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It's because being
American is more than a pride we inherit, it's the past we step into and how we repair it.

We've seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy, and this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.

In this truth, in this faith, we trust. For while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption. We feared in its inception, we did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked 'How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?' now we assert: How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

We will not march back to what was but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce, and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.

Our blunders become their burdens, but one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children's birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left, with every breath of my bronze, pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise through the golden hills of the West. We will rise from the windswept Northeast, where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it, for there was always light if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it.

Amanda Gorman speaking at President Joe Biden's inauguration.