Cobras of the desert
Copperheads and Rattle Snakes
Never seen in coiled up form.
Multi-jointed, multi-colored,
Listen to their clickety
Clack clack rattle
As they slither quickly
Across the scorching desert
In segments one mile long.

Their tracks are almost hidden
Beneath the scrubby sagebrush
Baking in the sun beside Route 66
And arcing off across the sand
In every which direction.

They scar the empty wasteland
In a spider web design
That goes on until forever,
And meets itself at
Precise angles
In the burning emptiness.

Serpents of the God of Commerce,
Following the tracks of others.
Kaleidoscope of moving patterns,
Always changing, still the same.

Cobras of the desert
Never rearing up to strike,
Fleeing as if somehow startled ,
Never turning back, they fly
Off to unknown times and places
Leaving flaming desert sands behind.
ljm

I have no use
For the military Boys
Prancing around
With their nuclear toys.

I have no use
For the heads of state
Ignoring the climate
‘Til it’s too late.

I have no use
For Supreme Court Judges
Bending the law
To their personal grudges.

I have no use
For the lovers of Trump
I have a nice lake
Into which they can jump.

I have no use
For the trolls I attract
Attack all you want
I’ve never yet cracked.
             ljm

After a long, frustrating sojourn in the wilderness of error 500, the light has come back on and we can see each other again.  Eliot has conquered the dragon and the Holy Grail is within our ken once more.  Odes of joy and thankfulness spring forth from the fertile pens of the faithful.  Thank you, Eliot, and don’t you DARE do that again with no warning.  Some of us almost bled to death.
                                                           ljm

My little plot is
Shared with nothing else
Alive and growing.
I struggle
But I somehow survive
In a sprawling field
With all my many brothers,
Each with their own
Similar sized space,
All reaching for the
Seldom falling drops
That mean we live or die
In this Mojave land
Of blazing sun,
Where nothing moves
But two-hundred car
Container trains
Pulled by four orange engines.
I am the King of
Thirty-six square feet
Of gravel, rock and sand
Nothing that intrudes
Will live for very long
Because I put my roots down first
And any rain that falls
Is mine.
                 ljm

Desolation
All the should-haves stacked like prison walls
Make it impossible to see the sky
What was big is now too small and
Cannot hold the folly on it’s way to bury us.
Crippled by the scorch, it won’t be possible
To rearrange ourselves out of this crisis.

Desperation
Incapable of letting go the few nice things
That beautified our former lives,
We know the tide is rising and we will sink
Beneath the weight of all the detritus we clutch,
Paying triple for the privilege of watching
As we drown in bad decisions and remorse.

Depression
Midnight tears that vanish in the arid air,
Stifled sobs that can’t repair the breach
Or heal the wounded vision of tomorrow
That inches ever closer, in the waking hours
Once designated as the time for sleep
Now put to dreary use as time for weeping.

Denigration
Too pale for the blazing sun but briefly,
We cower in the no less burning shade
And guard the meagre treasures of our lifetime,
Heaped in unmarked cartons in the corner
Where they wait for designation to the dump
Or hauled off piecemeal to a resale place

Denouement
We could have seen that this would happen
And lanced the hoarder’s boil before it broke.
It would have been so less expensive
In the pocketbook and in the soul
But here we sit at midnight crying
As catastrophe knocks on the door.
                                        ljm

Wrapped around by dawning
cotton candy clouds,
I turn and turn
to scan them all.
Squadrons of Starlings
punctuate the quiet
as the crooked moon
decides it’s time to maybe set.

On a gravel hill that
overlooks a minor wasteland,
I selfishly enjoy
a time that’s mine alone;
reminding one who felt
hard-done-by,
that in reality she
rolled the dice
and won.
     ljm