Like a giant crystal chandelier
Suddenly dropped from altitude
The flimsy walls of distant Turkey
Now lie shattered on the ground.

All the promise of tomorrow
Was cruelly ended yesterday
When forty thousand lights went out
And hope was buried in the rubble.

The miracles have come and gone.
No one survives beneath those piles.
New holes are filled with lives cut short
With sorrow shoveled over them.

There is no point in cursing God
What’s broken down must be rebuilt.
The Bible warns of things to come
And Turkey is a diverse place.
ljm

My precious Baby
My wonderful child
My headstrong teenager
Gone radically wild.

My breathtaking grownup
My source of delight
My hope that tomorrow
Makes everything right.

The decades have trebled
My efforts have failed
My key cannot open
The place where I’m jailed.

She’s made me a stranger
To the life she’s created
She claims that she loves me
But I sorely debate it.

She married in secret
I’ve not met her groom
I don’t think we’ll ever
Be in the same room

She says I am toxic
All know I am not
Her shrink is the villain
And ought to be shot.

I live on the outside
And only look in
On the life I created-
A game I won’t win.

I’ll swallow my heartbreak
As I’ve always done.
Still reach for redemption
And settle for none.
ljm

Playing near the giant
I thought it fun to pirouette
        And seem to stumble,
Hands thrown out
And thus be captured.

Oh the shrieks and moans
Til I decided it was time
To be set free, and tried
         To twist out of that grasp
That never once relented.
ljm

Ladies,
your standards are the not the problem
your standards are their problem
and your problem is how low
the bar has been set.

Writhing sea of dancing faces
Roiled by electric currents
From a storm that I can’t see-
No high, no low, no ebbing
Just tumaltism from
One Sean cut to another.
In the middle is a wooden box
Painted big and black and square.
On it is a Nereid
Arms out flung, long red hair flying
Turning in the basting of the spotlights
So willow-thin above the starfish in the tide pools.
Powered by the lack of sun
She floats her rhythms
On the breakers
And becomes a beacon
For lost eyes and hopeless dreams.

How I wish I was her sister
Cousin or best friend.
How I’d love to fusion with her
Show her where she got her licks.
But I hold back- I don’t dare it
My time was yesterday
Today is hers alone
I must be jetsam on the shore
So sad that my tide’s moving out as
Hers is rolling in.

If I could only be her peer
Instead of Sea Waif’s mother.
ljm

I’ll be there when you call
I’ll be there if you fall
In you I’ve found my future
I’ll be there
I’ll be there

I will watch while you sleep
I will hold you when you weep
My eternal love won't fail you
I'll be there
I'll be there
ljm

The  purple ripples in the air
Advise you that there’s anger there
Anger that is not contained
By someone who was anger trained.

Listen to the things he shouts
He’s mad as hell without a doubt.
Here he comes towards your door
What is he so ******* for.

You didn’t barge into his lane -
To cut him off would be insane.
You only gently honked your horn
And now you get his shouting scorn.

He bangs the window of your car
And you now know he’ll go too far.
It’s clear he is a total ***
So stomp your foot down on the gas.

Leave him in a cloud of smoke
And give yourself the final joke.
Leave him shouting in the street
And tell yourself “Revenge is sweet”
ljm