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A poet whose words I so admire
Once turned my compliment around
And said I was his favorite too.
I didn’t have the word for thanks
Quite grand enough for how I felt.
I’ve never been a favorite -
Not in life, or work or even love.
He put a warm place in my heart -
A Cinnabon fresh from the oven -
That perfumes my day each time
I savor those kind words from him.
              ljm
Haven't seen or heard from here in quite a while.  If anyone knows how to reach him, please send this horribly belated ode to him.
He drove his honkin’ ******* truck through a single line of beautiful geese making their stately way along the road to a place they needed to go.  Traffic stopped to admire and take photos.   But the **** in the truck had a place to go and he intended to get there by the quickest way possible.
That way included  jumping out of backed up traffic, mowing down a dozen geese and going on his way.  He left them there on a bloodied road in the midst of the shocked bystanders, who tried in vain to save a few.  But all had flown to higher skies, and the geese still lined up on the road could only pause to see no hope, and continue on their way.  They didn’t fly and they didn’t cry in terrpr or in pain.  They continued on their steady march with broken ranks closed up behind them.
And where did the **** in his blood soaked truck end up that afternoon.  There was no place that required a cost be paid in gander’s lives. There was no meeting of such portent that a dozen birds must end their lives crushed beneath his wheels.
Was it urgency or savagery.  The answer is obscure but may be clarified in time when Karma or authorities make him stand up to recognize the beauty he destroyed, the watcher’s souls he seared in wanton waste of God’s creations.
Knowing that such brutality and evil so extreme can live among God-fearing people, kept hidden until useful, sends a burning chill down through my very soul.
ljm
On the 6 clock news tonight.  Scores of Canadian Honkers making heir way down the street in a ingle line and everyone watching in awe.  Except one **** who had to **** a few just for fun.
Fate is a neon-lit pinball machine
And I am a little steel ball
Dodging the "tilt" sign as best I can
                                           ljm
How many of you remember pinball machines
How many of you don't know what they are
I sat by my morning table grieving
And feeling sorry for myself
When I glanced out the kitchen window
And spied a strikingly beautiful bird
Slowly pacing among all the pebbles
That cover the surface of my back yard.

His  head was iridescent purple and blue
Flashing in the wintertime sun.
He didn’t seem to be in a hurry -
Just taking himself a casual stroll.
Looking around as if on vacation
And seeing the sights in a wonderful place.

I had no idea where he might have came from
Or if there was a name for his breed.
I only knew I found him a pleasure
Who turned a sad and depressing hour
Into something healing and warm
That I will remember for more than a day.
ljm
Approximately 20 quail have set up housekeeping under our front yard hedge. They scurry across the street if we come too close.  Absolutely charming
Too many bubbles in my life
Too many ding-dings on my phone
Too many engines on my train
Too many cobwebs on my plans.

Too much spinning around like a top
Too much tripping on my own two feet
To much hurry hurry in my day time
Too much worry worry in my night.

How can I expand the hours
How can I cross something out
How can I outrun the tick-tock
How can I survive this way.

So many questions - with no replies
So many efforts - so little gain
So many teardrops shed in vain
So many times I’ve said good-bye.
ljm
Sometimes my life is an exercise in redundancy.
She numbly sits in a ragged sleep shirt
Her life in tatters all around her,
Pieces scattered bent and broken
It’s cold and raining in her soul
And she lost her new umbrella.

Celebration banners flap in tatters
From the New Year party deemed long over.
Confetti pools in puddles at the curb
Staining rainbows in the murky water.
The echo of the midnight chime a memory.

Three hundred unfulfilling days await her
Should she stumble to her crippled feet
And stagger to the place that should be home.
But there will be no cocoa by the hearth fire
Or anything that might engage her mind
Except the fact that there will be no rescue.

Sitting numbly in her ragged sleep shirt
She has no thought of any better place
Available to someone with an injury like hers.
An wound that cripples ingenuity
And renders her unwelcome
In the tangled depths of her own mind.
        ljm
Written 1/3/23   I think I saw her on Douglas Street.
The grass is usually green
The sky is always blue
That’s irrefutable they say.
But then sometimes
The grass turns brown
And the sky is black
With storm clouds.

Deep inside we always know
The grass returns to green.
The sky will soon be blue again.
Identical to Married love
That tends to wax and wane
With the passing of the years
While the basis stays the same.
                         ljm
Simple truth.
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