Again the dream creeps in....
It's a gray dreary day
The sky is crying just like every
one else there that I dare look at
Leaves are falling down dancing
In the wind until they land on the ground
I see a hole and dirt beside it
I hear someone talking a male's voice
but I cannot understand what
or who they are talking about
Then a chill sweeps over me
As a sudden realization about where
I am hits me as my sisters squeeze my hands
One on each side of me and I scream
out and say NOOOOO
Momma doesn't want to be all alone
A silent prayer is lost in the wind
As they lower the casket
I start to feel weighted down
and start slipping from
The grip of my sisters and my family
People are talking to me but it feels as
if I'm in a tunnel and they are a long way off
Then I feel dirt being thrown on me
I think this isn't right why am I in the hole
Momma cannot breathe
Now I cannot breathe
and then... I wake up

“…Take your place on the Great Mandala as it moves through your brief moment of time…
Win or lose now
You must choose now
and if you lose, you’re only losing your life…”  Peter, Paul, and Mary
___________

Stitching the hem of a prom dress to the
Chicago Convention on TV
Pink brocade, white gloves to the elbow

Night sticks snap skulls

“...and a time on a 27 will always shine a light”

Seven Day War
but neither of us dance

Whispered under weeping willows
“What will become of us?”

“The New Left” scrawled in my yearbook
under Danny’s name
I stared at him puzzled, half-attracted

The New Left came
from Harvard, Radcliffe, Mars?
to the grimy streets of Lowell
to teach us “worker kids”
‘bout our sorry selves

Aloof
from our bad teeth, unplanned pregnancies
stuccoed bungalows
chrome kitchen sets circa ’53
So far beyond

Alienated
by our worn out dens
with proud TV’s
the evening’s beer proclivity

They, weren’t “Right on!”
with the smell of furniture polish and
lifetimes of motor oil on overalls

We were okay to be organized though
before they left—

Because they knew what mattered!
…and “How could WE  know so little!
‘bout Lenin, Marx?
the exploits of profit and endless war?"

How could THEY know so little—
  
about the death down the street
‘bout the conflict caused by *in-house “Pigs”

Husbands in Canada
Brothers in Nam

Dying small-town, piece-work kids
Labor's legacy
Lost bourgeois

Freezing on street corners
Telephone’s tapped
Handing out leaflets

to talk of guns...

“Our people blew up the Bank of America!
You know”

To talk of guns…

While Black Panthers were dying
No ******' around

Hell’s Angels—  graphite ghosts
hover in ****** shadows of shared back yard
Revolutionary panic as
mafia muscle makes an appearance
comes-on to me
sped-up and pulls a pistol!…
_____

Guts ran out the holes in my head

Lonely now
…and not so… ready?

Someone suggested “experience”
to explain for certain
the face on the clock
the of wince of Time
and all the reasons there were to die

Should ‘ave asked why— they called it “acid”

Connecting the dots of despair
I saw it all— for the first time

and lost— everything

The spider was watching Cathy finish her cake.

Thank God, it thought, she hasn't seen me
green me hiding in the green grass, it was grinning.

Why are you so scared of me, Cathy?
do I look ugly, mean, harmful?
once I saw me in a dewdrop
on a blade of grass
the reflection was quite majestic
my eyes were dark as the deep sea
held only peace and no malice.

You too are so cute Cathy
a butterfly in the meadow
on the sky a sparkling rainbow
and how I would have loved
spin my web right there
in the thicket of your hair.

Cathy was singing.

It needed her one glance
to see the spider dance.

Dry my tears, but do not touch me.
Go away, but don't leave me alone.
I am tangled in terror, tiredness, confusion.
So tell me again how I am safe, strong, and free.
Go ahead. Tell me again.

What is death, but a life’s futility?
Futility of truth beyond the lie.

The relief of spring’s first golden sorrow
beats down on my brow rousing my heart’s warmth
enlightening love by way of what’s lost.

He, whose glistening, shimmering glimmers
of hope seem to stutter on to no end,
Waits for for any such little late effort
in such slender threads to deign a blessing.
A deal only to pass after the part
on ones part comes to pass.

Although buoyancy of hope
Ebbing away,
Seems to foretell of total dissipation,
Icicles lit by the blue moon
Nonchalantly morph into stalagmites
Soaked in the light more golden than the sun’s.

Shadows of hope hang behind slender threads
That the equation can be crafted;
Pulling strings to put in our place
contributions mirroring our own.

From the storm of his eyes
he made an ocean for all life
but nobody spent time
to hold the ground beneath the storm
Nobody tried to contain the falling ocean
but let it fall, sea by sea
but then again, nobody saw

From his hurricane of words
Did the truth come aboard
nobody listened, nobody heard
he was forced to contain his own hurricane
nobody attempted to calm the wind to a breeze
or show the direction to blow in
but let it push his world further from reach
but then again nobody saw

He ran around on the ground
on the ground
picking every dandelion he saw
he picked the dead, he picked the new
nobody waited after him
held a vase to place them in
but let them fall, onto the ground
decaying as they did
through a bottomless pit
but then again nobody saw

From a rip in the sky,
the sun dripped till it burned
he savoured the burning
till he felt it no more
but nobody held the clouds to help the dying sun
but let it leak and leak till light became dark
but then again nobody saw

So he did not save,
the water
the wind
the dead dandelions
the light
and they did not know
but then again, nobody saw.

You know what I mean
that person who seems
to you in your dreams
a bit more than lust
but just shy of love
who can drive you mad
with only one glance
and I'm not talking about
getting into those pants
no, what I mean is
something beyond desire
more than a fire
but not quite the one
that would leave you broken
hearted and alone if she danced
with every man in the room
but, man, I sure do like the way
those butterflies in her *******
make me feel like a lepidopterist
rather than an archaeologist.