Because I’m sore afflicted
And burdened with many ills
I seek to find a hem to touch
From a Spirit passing by.

Mustard seeds don’t work for me.
My faith is like a summer breeze
That gently sways the blossoms
But is often deathly still.

I need vast hurricanes of trust
If I have hopes of healing
But I reach out to emptiness
And my candle doesn’t waver.
ljm

I enjoy all kinds of music
Though Country suits me best
I like to dance the Two-step
To the rhythms of the West

I  do enjoy Top 40
I play Long Hair in the car.
But when my heart is breakin’
I want to hear a steel guitar.

Jazz is not my thing at all
Least favorite by far
There is no sound in music
Better than a steel guitar

I went and learned to Disco
Though the two-step’s more my style
And I can handle RB sounds
If it’s only for a while

When I’m happy, I like boogie
When it’s played loud in a bar
But if my heart is achin’
Nothing beats a steel guitar

When everything’s considered
I like all the songs there are
But when my soul gets weary
I need to hear a steel guitar.
                            ls/ljm

I live in a wretched place
Where only hookers wear perfume
And nobody even seems to own
A proper pair of shoes.

Neither of two department stores
Bother to sell dresses,
And women get lots of their attire
From the nearby Goodwill store
Which sometimes sells remainders
Along with what’s been used.

Jeans are formal wedding clothes
And the minister is armed.
So is the bridegroom’s mother
And several of the ushers.
When the Bride lifts up her
Online-purchased wedding dress
The guests all hope they see
A lacy garter on her thigh,
And not a little derringer.

Guests drive to the wedding
in honkin’ ******* trucks
With mud up to the wheel caps.

Decorations on those trucks
Are often in the form of flags
Mounted by the tailgate hinge
On forty-eight inch metal poles.
Some of them have stars and stripes
Some recognize the Bride and Groom
But most of them are Rebel Yells
Or praises for a disgraced shyster.

Why on earth do I live here?
It all comes down to weather
Not the heat or scorching wind-
that’s just the price we have to pay.
It’s all the stars that hold me here.
I walk at dawn to see them shine
And bathe in Sunrise glory.

I spend the day beneath white clouds
That so resemble whipping cream
That’s been flung against the sky.
As evening comes I do a dance
Beneath the sunset’s flaming glow
When all those puffy clouds catch fire
And tumble down behind the moon
Then rising from the jagged mountains.

This may not be a perfect place
I’m sure those don’t exist
But this is where I’ll end my race:
The desert land I can’t resist.
          ljm

Who nudged that very first domino
Those thirty years ago when
The Klaxon first rang out.
ljm

I want my words back, Lord -
The ones you’ve locked
Up in the furthest corners
Of my wounded mind.

The ones I have to search
For endless seconds to discover
Hiding in the brambles and the fog
That renders me an imbecile.

I need to have my language back.
There are visions I must paint
In vocabulary’s medium
On the canvas of my life.

Please give me back my words again
I can’t go on while this bereft,
Not knowing what to call a flower
That I planted years ago.

So on my knees beseeching you
Unlock the vault that hides my words
And let me be who I once was
So I can find my way back home.
ljm

Wasted paper - murdered trees
Must such beauty die for memos
Write a line and toss the page -
One more branch is sacrificed
To fill the dumps with litter.
Copy things no one will read;
The forest is diminished
And all that we have left to breathe
Is the death sigh of the Amazon
ljm

A pure white dinner taper candle
Sits in a rusty old tin soup can.
It does put out a brilliant light,
But who will ever see it
In this rubble of a desert
Where the tortoises hold sway.

Who lit the flame and walked away?
Who did they think the light would save?
They must have known how hard the wind
Rampages over empty land
And that the flame would disappear
In less time than it takes to sigh.

And yet somehow the candle glows
Impervious and proudly tall.
It’s shadow dances on the sand
And flickers in the breezes.
There must be some soul healed by this
And I suspect that one is me.
ljm