Back in December it felt like you,
Would never leave but I guess it's true,
That nothing gold can ever stay,
and so you have to go away.

I wont lie, I'm going to miss,
Your lips and how they feel when we kiss,
but I have strength and I have hope,
That without you I'll somehow cope.

In a place where my head is full,
Of thoughts like "hes so wonderful",
Is when ill need your touch the most,
Instead of just some wispy ghost.

Memories will help to ease the pain,
On the nights loneliness drives me insane,
But even so, in the darkness ill weep,
Myself into an uneasy sleep.

Maybe all I need is one more day,
To fix our problems and convince you to stay,
but time is the one thing that I can't suspend,
Because all good things must come to an end.

A super 8 film
Flickers on the screen;
Sprocketing film sounds
Comforting in black and white.

One clip:

A boy in chef hat
Dances gleefully with spatula
At a barbecue with family.
Memories made visible with
Backyard in background.

Another:

He looks like a chemist in the wading pool
Water sploshed from bottle to bottle.
There he is, happily pulling tails of kittens.
Perhaps a future biologist?

There he is:

In line with nine siblings
And matching striped pajamas
Running to rip presents open
From happy boxes under the tree.

Year to year,
The siblings age;
Black and white turns technicolor.
Pops shoots more movies.

A baby falling over;
A sly smile to the camera;
Chocolate covered lips at Easter.
And always a shot of mother smiling.

Who will chef-hatted spatula dancer
Chocolate lipped-
Proto-scientist
Future clown grow to be?

Me.

I look up and see an unnerving gaze
From the Old Man in the Moon.
He’ll witness a man whose life hangs
In the balance, and sure will leave
Him soon.

I’ve seen it before too many times
As these limbs sway in the breeze.
For more than these limbs sway in
The wind on this old hickory.

The horse is slapped and the rope
Goes tight, and another man fights
For air.
He struggles as he dangles with all his might
For that last breath that just isn’t there.

Some people below shake their hands
And boast that justice was done this day--
Still others below shake their heads, say
Nothing and regretfully turn away.

It was the break of dawn one cool
Spring morning in the year of ‘75.
There’s commotion in the forest as
A man is dragged, beaten badly and
Barely alive.

Hands behind his back, he’s thrown on
A horse, and a noose is thrown over his
Head.
He looks up at me, the old hickory tree,
But I know he’s as good as dead--
He knows he’s as good as dead--
And they know he’s as good as dead.

As long as I’ll live, I’ll never forget
That morning in ‘75;
When against all odds a man that is
Hanged gets a second chance at life.
He’s cut down by a woman who knows
He is innocent--
And they ride away on a horse called Vengeance
To exact their own punishment,
Avenge the innocent,
And to tip the scales a bit...

The circus is here
For all of America and the world to experience.

Hats off to you, Mr. Clown
Seated in the Oval Office,

Juggling our country
As if it is a toy for your own amusement
Dropping ***** everywhere.

You sit there with arms crossed,
Your pockets full
Your heart depleted.

Rich in dollars
Poor in spirit.

You are the fool
Ready to jump from cliff to cliff
Taking our country with you,

Never looking back
To see the sewage you leave
In your muddy tracks.

You are the itching powder
That gives our country a scaly rash.

You are orange dye
In a well-preserved tube of poison
Ingested by fools
Rejected by those with common sense.

You pretend to love women
Secretly fearing them
Knowing that if it weren’t for a woman
You would not be here.

You, the all-powerful king would not exist
If it weren’t for a woman.
So, you must show them who is boss
Because you are so **** afraid of them,
Of your own loss of control.

You fill up your angry gut
With know-it-all tactics
And then you crap all over the sick
With your insurance plan for the rich.

You knock down people with preexisting conditions,
People that can’t afford a bottle of Insulin,
Heart surgery,
Cancer medication.

You knock down babies and children
Diagnosed with lifelong illnesses
They fall prey to your ugly world of disillusionment.

You help the insurance companies
Handing them a free pass,
a pass that lets people die
If their wallet isn’t deep enough.

You just nod in approval
As the large companies thrive
Murdering the sick with their indifference.

You know nothing about people
The people who make up this world
The people who count
And you blame everybody but yourself.

You bathe daily in your power
Yet you leave such a stench
An odor of greed,
Obnoxiousness,
Racism
and Homophobia.

You drip profusely with your own self-importance
As you clumsily trip over your giant orange ego
As it follows you everywhere
From tweet to tweet
From fiasco to fiasco.

You leave the public With jaws wide open
The White House becomes an unprofessional screening
For your larger-than-life Reality TV show
As you continually play games with our country and world.

We chuckle at the daily puppet show
At your do-gooders and cabinet members,
As they are dragged across the floor
Right into your madness
Hanging on for dear life
To your fickle coattails.

We watch daily
As you slowly implode from the inside out
Your ice-cold exterior doing little to reassure us
That you are not simply insane.






2017 Stacey Handler