There once was a lass from Ohio
Who blushed when she said “Me, oh My-oh
I put on my shirt
And forgot my skirt
Now I sit in jail and just cry-oh”
ljm

Lost - reality in multicolor shatters
Scattered by the breezes from the sunrise
Gaping holes with ragged edges
Filled with swirling mists of sadness

Perusing maps of certainty
The tick-tock of the day grows louder
But the tide washed out the roadway
And the darkness didn’t leave at dawn

There is no clay for making bricks
So nothing will get built today
And the penny found along the walk
Will only buy a feckless dream

A can of worms not good for fishing
Sits atop a dusty shelf above
A dog that wants more petting
Than you or I have hands to give

The echo of this joylessness is deafening
And there’s no reason to go on.
      ljm

He chopped my head off.
He wanted a son and I gave him a girl
I miscarried twice and one was a boy
It was an unforgivable sin.
So desperate for an heir was he
He evicted the Pope from England
And created his own kind of church
So he could get rid of Catherine,
The mother of his daughter,
And have me, against my own will.
My sister was not enough for him-
A mistress can not be a queen -
And the successor he so keenly longed for
Must be the issue of a queen.

With 2 daughters, Henry needed a son.
Catherine gave him Mary
And I bore him Elizabeth.
He didn’t know - nobody could know
How that rivalry would one day end.
When Henry looked to Jane Seymour,
Something told me I would die.
Hoping for kindness, it was brutality instead,
And Henry fell into a chain of desperation.
With seven murdered wives as links.

He chopped off my head to clear the way
For marriage number three
And buried me in a leaden box
In his ongoing quest for sons.
He thought that was the end of me
But my daughter was made of my same stuff
And through her battles over time
She claimed the throne that once was mine
And the Elizabethan era came to be.
ljm

The feast is over
All the guests have left the table
I hung around until the very end
But never got invited
Looks like I’ll have to make my dinner
From the crumbs.

The party’s ending
The orchestra has packed it’s violins
I kept the beat and wore the smile
But no one signed my card
And I suppose I’ll have to hum the tune
And dance alone.
                                  ljm

Like walking into a massive spider web
Feelings of doom wrap around my face.
I frantically try to brush it away,
But sticky tendrils yet remain
And I have trouble moving on.
ljm

Crying will not help.
  It only nourishes the weeds
    That block the entrance to your goals.

Crying never helps.
  It only muddies up the path
    That takes you you to a better place.

Crying is a waste of time.
  It just delays the work it takes
    To get around the obstacles in life.
              ljm

Gaia is totally ******* -
Her world mistreated for so long,
She has finally had about enough -
Vowing revenge for her mistreatment.
She has gathered every weapon
At her command and flung them at us
One by one:
Fire and Flood and moving mud;
Snow with icy coverings;
Wind that trashes homes and lives;
Ground that moves and breaks apart;
Rain that drowns the roadways;
The changing faces of disease
That replicates among us.
But we refuse to hear her cry
The bombs and bullets ever fly
And the clock is striking midnight.
ljm

"Transporting a Dream" by Old Poet MK, brought back to mind an episode when I was in my 20’s, and working in an insurance office with a coffee house side job.  I was in love with a wandering folk singer who was then performing in a club in Oklahoma City and I missed him terribly.
He called late one Friday night and said why not come there and drive back to California with him.  At first I told myself all the reasons it would be impossible. Then my heart told me I had to find a way to do it.  I called my supervisor and told a fib about my mom having had a stroke and I had to fly to Washington State for a few days.
I emptied my piggy bank and the tip jar from my coffeehouse side job, but I didn't have enough for the ticket. I had a series E savings bond tucked away, but no where to cash it in on a Friday night. This was before I had a computer, so I had only my land line phone to help me.  
I called Greyhound and got their schedule and the stops they made along the way to Oklahoma City.
As it happened they had a 15 minute rest stop in Mesa, Arizona at 10:15 AM. which was about as far as my gathered money would buy a ticket for. Good enough!  I grabbed some clothes and raced to the bus depot. I gave them all my money, much of it in coins, and bought a ticket for Mesa, which was as far as I could afford to go. When the bus was loaded I settled in, and it rolled on through the night.  Too excited to sleep, I wrote several poems along the way.  When we got to Mesa for the rest stop the next morning I leaped off the bus and flew into a nearby bank (Talk about miracles - it was just across the street from the depot ) I pleaded with them to cash my Savings Bond. The handsome teller listened to my story and then called the bank manager over to hear it as well. That was the day I learned that pretty girls can do things ordinary folk could never manage.  Without knowing me or really checking out my ID, the bank manager and handsome teller actually cashed my savings bond for me.
Had they not done that I would have been stranded alone and penniless in a strange city.  Only the confidence of youth could lead someone into a situation like that.
I raced back to the bus as it was loading again and bought my way on to Oklahoma City. I wrote some good things as I looked out the bus window. on the way.
There was tragedy though. I filled one little note pad with  poems and was well into another when it came time to change busses.  I somehow left the first notepad on the bus as I got off and didn’t realize it until on the second one and away. All I could do was write a poem about lost poetry - which I did.
When I arrived I was met with love and wonderful moments.
The drive back to LA. was exciting and romantic.
What an adventure that was. The folksinger was a lovely period in my life, but alas, not permanent. He didn’t last but the love of Folk music music did.

Twenty five years later a similar adventure befell me, but that’s a story for another time.
LJM

Seranaea told me I should
Write the skeleton of a poem
And wrap a scarf around it’s neck
And hang ornaments about it’s ribcage

If only I could do that
I’d plant Hollyhocks around it’s feet
And sprinkle glitter over all
And fire up background music.

But I am store-brand verse and prose
Arriving in a plain brown wrapper.
I’d be a good reporter, so they say
But what would that vocation do
To the kaleidoscope that is my soul.
ljm

The first Winter-colored sky of Autumn
Presented itself as a water-colored sunset,
Somehow reassuring; not as dreary as it should have been.
Last week it was Summer, hot and clear and windy -
Then the clocks fell back an hour and Wintertime crept in.

I wasn’t finished yet with Summertime.
There were lots of plans that slipped away,
Put off until another week or month and lost
In the relentless turning of the pages that are time.
Leaving me with wistfulness and guilt.

So many verses started and unfinished.
So many places I somehow ever went.
So much culture I let pass me by.
So many fellow travelers left unmet.
I wonder where I was for ninety days.

Later, as I step outside again, the sky is dark.
A gentle rain is falling very quietly,
As if it knows it’s here too soon, but
After years of parching draught, can’t wait a second longer
And I love the wetness on my upturned face.

The seasons change with subtilty, but they do change,
And there’s assurance in perceiving them.
No need perhaps for winter clothes
But still there is an Autumn frame of mind
That bridges sun to shadow and proclaims the march of time.
ljm

I’ll never own an aeroplane
But I’ve jumped out of one a dozen times
And felt the freedom of a Meadowlark.

I’m not an expert on French wine
But I’ve been up the Eiffel Tower
And looked out over the City of Lights.

There is no building named for me
But I stood on a scaffold in a burned out cathedral
And saw it as a beginning, and not as the end.

I’ll never wear a giant diamond ring
But I’ve glued sparkling bits of glass
To a thousand hand made things of beauty.

I’ll never walk a long red carpet
Though I have starred in more ‘productions’
Than any actress with gold statues on her shelf.

They’ll never give a dinner just for  me
But I’ve fed hundreds with the best meal of their life
And cleaned up all the dishes afterwards.

I do not need a body guard
But I’ve watched guardsmen stamp their feet
Outside a Palace that looked nothing like a home.

I’ll never write an acceptance speech
But I’ve seen lines I’ve written in print
And read them to various audiences.

I’ll never stand upon the moon
But I’ve seen the Fjords and Hula Girls
And stolen my very own iceberg.

I’ll never be Mother of the Year
With many outstanding Children
But I created perfection once
And she’s my legacy to the world.
                      ljm

It’s very quiet now
My sobbing has subsided to small gasps.
My face is wet and needs a drying but
I have no tissue and the air's
Too still and close to do the job.
It’s dark outside and even darker inside
Where the corner begs me to come huddle
And the blue screen mocks my efforts
To concoct a riddle that will save me.
I’ve tried every single thing I know
To find a way to change the past
But it remains immutable,
And I am locked inside
The Amber of regret
9/17/20

She walks out in the morning sunrise
And never notices the sky.
She sees the cracks across the blacktop
And the cigarette butts hiding there.

She see the runnel in the gutter
From overwatering the lawns
But never looks above her shoulder
to see the cloud-forms in the sky.

Her gaze is always pointed downward
As if there’s money on the ground
And she will be the one to find it,
Not caring that the sky is gold.

She maybe sees a flower blooming
In another neighbor’s yard
But doesn’t spot the humming bird
That darts among the blossoms.

A fog of gloom hangs over her
Obscuring every scene
She has no wish to brighten up
She is depression’s Queen.
                               ljm

The fabric of society dangles by a feeble thread
That trembles with the the heavy weight of anger
And is stretched beyond what possibly
Can hold it all together

Weavers rush to reinforce the ever thinning yarn
But the sheep that usually supply the wool
Are scattered in the meadows of contention
And a worthy shepherd can’t be found.

How long can the tapestry, once honored and revered,
Remain in place upon the walls that form the room
Which shelters us from the visisitudes of living
In a world of hatred and divide.

It must not crumple to the floor, cut loose from
What sustained it through the centuries,
Leaving walls with gaping cracks that let inside
The freezing winds of vengence.

Will there be a place to hide and recreate a loom
In hopes of managing to learn to weave once more
And patch the rends in what was rescued from the floor
And seal the walls of hope again.
                                                         ljm

Like a pack of yowling feral cats
Fighting in a ghetto alley
We snarl and hiss and arch our backs
Baring claws at one another.

We wound our spirits and our souls
In endless rounds of recrimination
That swings like a giant pendulum
But never moves the clock hands.

There’d be catnip enough for everyone
If the fat cats didn’t hoard it.
There’d be beds for all of us to sleep in
If the slumlords didn’t lock them up.

Maybe we need to band together,
The Tabbies and the Calicos,
The Tomcats and the *******
And see if we can find a way
To build a world we all can live in.
ljm

God sent a sky that promised in crimson
Aflame with the rising of the Sun
Sailing a sea of apricot and indigo
That a boy child will be born this night.

Not in the storied Bethlehem stable
Not in a far land we'll likely never see
Not in a book passed down through the ages
But deep in the heart of all we believe.

Were it not for the glorious sunrise
The clouds flung across the sky
Would bode an oncoming storm
In the cold of the Winter weather.

But the light of the angels was glowing
And the darkness turned pinkey and orange
As it faded into a cloud haloed morning
While the world in all its Winter splendor
Waited to hear the angels sing.
                                  ljm

Though some might like to wield a sword, a pen will have to do.
A row of x’s marks the spots where the ogre may be vulnerable.
We must with surgical precision find those areas and mark them
For eventual good riddance to, or at least containment.

The Chinese have a torture named “Death by a Thousand Cuts”
We must revise that to become “Death by a Million Votes”
Death to evilness and discord, to ego and self worship.
Death to everything that’s wrong in hopes to make it right.

For every X that’s penned in blue, another’s penned in red
The future hangs suspended in the pen with the most ink.
You cannot blame the other side, mere soldiers in a war.
Delusions are an easy sell to those with too much money.

If one is right, one must be wrong in this perverse equation.
The middle ground turned battlefield with multicolor bodies
Rotting on soil stained with blood both red and blue
As the exhausting siege creeps to its conclusion.

What color will the banners be when we wake up tomorrow.
Who will weep with happiness and who shed tears of sorrow.
Who  will try to analyze the reasons for the outcome
For those of us who have to live beneath those waving banners.

ljm

They said I gotta write some things down
But I don’t liketa write and what can I say.
I disappointed my Mama and I’m real sorry for that
I tried to stop once, I truly did.  But it was so much fun.
I enjoyed cowboyin’, and all the guys too
They called us The Wild Gang.
Them months in jail was not any fun.
I promised 'em that I’d be good, but
The banks was there, the trains was there
They called to me and I had to answer 'em
I don’t feel bad for them that died.
They all had it comin’
I finally got tired of bein’ chased,
And me and Sundance tried to lay low,
But there wasn't no place to hide any more.
Both Robbers Roost and Hole in the Wall was known to all.
And them dad-blamed Pinkertons was ev'rywhere.
So we lit out on a boat, and Etta tagged along.
San Vicente was pretty, but the bank was a’callin’
Nothin’ else we could do but hit it.
Hiding didn’t work out so well that time.
All in all I think going to Bolivia was a big mistake
That’s about all I got to say.
-Butch

Looking at a blank screen
With a blank stare
And an even blanker mind

Where are the words that
Used to tumble *****-nilly
From a churning creativity
ljm

We live in a world where starved dogs
are left out in the blazing summer sun
wearing brutal heavy collars attached
to chains fit for a logging truck.

We live in a world where pickup trucks
plow through flocks of geese to **** them
and go nonchalantly on their way.

We live in a world where animals
are are bred to fight for fun and wagers
and losers are killed in grisly ways

We live in a world where industry
can lie for years while savaging
the ecosystem and pocketing the dollars.

We live in a world where it’s OK
to torture and then butcher creatures
in the name of research science.

We live in a world where six black robes
can force a young woman to bear a child
she doesn’t want and cannot feed
then scorn her for needing welfare.

We live in a world where far too many
want to rule as ****** did
and see no moral hindrance.

We live in a world where supposed truth
comes in countless clever guises
and far too many of them are false.
         ljm

Scissors roam my hallways
Cutting through the spindly legs
Of things that want to harm me-
Things that wear a different face
Every time I meet them.

Hammers gather in the yard
That’s overrun with trouble,
Ready to march up and smash
The jagged rocks that trip me
And would ******* me forever.

Saws line the bedroom walls
Where nightmares lurk in corners,
Hoping to devise a way
To spring to life in daytime.
But the saws keep them at bay.

The scythe hides in the garden shed
Keeping watch for dangers,
Waiting for the purple moon
That signifies the time is right
To sally forth and take me.
ljm

Gnarled words from crippled fingers
Inch their way across a crumpled page
Never sketching anything that’s real.

The burden of the thinning air
Makes casting sighs more difficult
And the wounded heart beats faster.

Yearning turns the morning purple
And the ache consumes the sunrise
While the symphony packs up and goes.

Letters from the alphabet form up
In arcane ways that somehow never
Say the thing that crowds all else out of the room.

Eyes that drip with longing blur
And try to focus on what’s left behind
When that tiny drop of blood is gone.
         ljm

A ******* bird watches over the days
As grain by grain the mountain slides away
He perches on a jutting rock
And sees the river’s level drop
While wind that should be felt elsewhere
Ruffles feathers just like hair

He knows that time will have to end
He has no further strength to lend
It seemed like there would be more time
And everything would turn out fine
If he could just maintain his post
And oversee the rocky coast

But watching will not be enough
Though he be made of sturdy stuff
It’s up to mankind to step in
If there is any chance to win.
Some brave soul must take the helm
To save the future of this realm.
             ljm

Trying to sweep back an ocean of flames
With a bucking hose until the truck’s tank is empty.
You ride through choking smoke and grit
To sleep ten minutes on the littered ground
While the giant tank is filled again.
Then back to find the area that your water saved
Has burned again, and then enlarged
So for the third time you retreat -
The only progress that you make is backwards.

Beneath your heavy fireman’s gear
You’ve sweated off a dozen pounds
And that is just this week.
It seems like you’ve been doing this
As long as you remember.
The whole world seems to be on fire.
The forests should have been enough
But fate decided homes and towns
Were more to its demented liking
With a few lost lives to spice things up.

You join the men who’ve become your brothers
While the Earth is Mother to you all
As you battle that which would destroy her
And the lives of innocents who cower
In the shelters praying that their home
May be among the lucky few and
Still be there tomorrow night
For little Polly’s Birthday
Where the cake waits on the counter.

Hero is a tiny word that carries giant meaning.
It should be the middle name of everyone
In fireman’s gear who wields an ax or hose
To tame the beast of smoke and flame
To give us back our homes and future.
ljm

If only I could just forget
The woman I once was
Maybe I’d be happy with
The woman I am now.

If maybe I could just forget
How much I could do then
Perhaps I could accept how
Much of it I can’t do now.
ljm

Just had major back surgery.  Sending her my get well wishes along with those from everyone who puts a heart heart on this post.
Get well Scarlett - we miss you.

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

Meadowlark Oratorio
Trees decorated with birdsong.
Wildflowers in full bloom way too early.
Bougainvillea rehearsing for their big show.
The never-ending wind has blasted Springtime
Into Laughlin while May’s Lion takes a nap in his den.
ljm

Fifty years of heart and soul
Sweeping back the ocean.
And what was my reward
A cardboard house in a redneck state
And memories I can’t remember.

Fifty years of heart and soul
Climbing every mountain
Reaching for a prize
Tied to a string
That every time ****** it away.

Fifty years of heart and soul
Giving and not getting
Being first to lend a hand
And last when hands were lended
All the while pretending not to notice.

Fifty Years of heart and soul;
Could it have been an error?
Should I have walked the crooked road
Instead of down the righteous path
That left me stranded in this desert.
               ljm

Waves of depression
That have no linkage
To the phases of the  moon
Ebb and surge
In a rhythm that confounds
The metronome by which
I calculate my moods
And face the horrors
That bedeck my daily life.

Winds of malaise
Appear from nowhere
On an otherwise
Still day
And rile the curtains
That protect
My fragile fabrications
From the vicissitudes
Of living on.

Claps of thunder
Rattle all the windows
Where I cower
In my futile hopes the rain
That they portend
Will not become a flood
And wash away
All the tiny flowers
That my hope has planted
In the dreary garden of my life.
ljm

I was given Carte Blanche
To fail spectacularly
At unlimited endeavors
And I utilized that perquisite
With determined concentration
To the maximum that it allowed.
I’m waiting for my banquet.
And the silver plate award.
              ljm

I cry for things I might have done
And who I might have been.

I cry for opportunities missed
And enterprise that failed.

I cry for hands I might have held
That somehow I let slip away.

I cry beause the time is short
With so much treasure left unfound.

I cry because it’s the only thing
That’s somehow left for me to do.
                  ljm

Fox News has been
So successful
At stitching together
The bits that suit them,
They’ve just been appointed
Official Tailor to the Emperor.
ljm

Unfit to be loved
Not even by God
Who’s promise is
Love everlasting.

Unable to heal
From wounds too deep
The scabs that were hope
Are constantly oozing.

Covered in scars
Generated within
There’s obviously no use
In praying for help.

Huddled in corners
of futile existence
The Sun never rises
And rain falls as tears.

The clock never wavers
The moments roll on
And time has no meaning
Unless there is love.

But love is illusive
It’s not bought and sold
It  must be accepted
Or else it grows cold.
            ljm

It’s said a Mother’s love won’t die
But love is like a tender flame
That must be tended, sometimes fed.
It only flickers in the wind
That blows disparagement and loss
And even though it gutters low
There stays an ember that won’t fade
And waits but for a tender touch
To burst into a blazing fire
To warm the home and family
ljm

This ****** Mac is still not working
I know there is an evil lurking
I took it to the Nerd-king’s shop
And told them to give it a pop
I picked it up this very morning
And they did not give me a warning
They said it now was working fine
Yet I can’t type a decent line
All the bugs are still a-bugging
So once again I’m back a-lugging
This thing to them for one more try
If they can’t fix it I will cry
And drown them all in floods of tears
And go to jail for 20 years.
So I’ll be here a day or two
And gone again a half week through
Thanks to those who wished me well
I love you more than words can tell.
Reminding you for one last time
To never say that I can’t rhyme.
ljm

Committees never get things right
Egads they’re thick as planks.
They need my input every night
And seldom give me thanks.

They tell me I’m a gadfly
And I should go away,
But even if I have to shout
I’m going to have my say.

You cannot swat me like a fly
Or swish your horsey tail.
I’ll crash your meeting every night
Until I’m locked in jail.
      ljm

It becomes more clear than ever
to those who follow Christian faith-
Those who know the storyline
But are still waiting for the cast
To be announced and pictured.

There are horses in the stable
Warriors with coats of different colors
Snorting as they kick the doors
That strive to keep them safe inside
While waiting for their riders.

Their riders are donning uniforms
And making preparations
To mount their waiting steeds
And thunder out across the world
To prove the Holy Book is true.

These are the Horsemen Of The Apocalypse -
Stuff of legend and religious lore,
Baring names that generate fear:
Names that now are listed here:
Netanyahu, Xi and Kim, Putin
And his aide de camp named Donald
Who tends the horse but does not ride.

Who will be astride which colored horse?
Putin rides the white one known as Conquest.
Netanyahu rides the red;  
It’s brand spells out the word for War.
Xi rides the Black horse, Pestilence -
Unleashed upon the recent world.
The pale horse symbolizing Death for all
Is ridden by Kim the Rocket Man who sits beside
His Doomsday Toys, waiting for the light to change.

The light cannot stay red much longer.
             ljm

Looking through my mental cupboard
I find I’m a little short on Meliorism.
I’ve been relegated to using Optimism,
Which doesn’t taste quite the same.

Adding a pinch of Sanguine flakes
helps, but makes it a little spicy.
I wish Ebullience wasn’t quite
so expensive and hard to get ahold of.

I thought I was all out of Dolor
But I found a new jar behind
A box of Pessimism, which
Is 2 weeks past it’s use-by date.

So I will dump it along with a
Packet of dehydrated Doubt hidden
Behind a whole carton of Ennui
That has never even been opened.

I think it’s time to clear the shelves
And restock with all fresh and new
So I can cook up lots of good things
And feed them to the hungry world.
ljm

So some little sawed-off *******
Gets himself a big boy gun.
He’s got a plan to make people pay
For every slander aimed at him.

He takes a walk on a crowded street
Looking for a likely victim;
The harried mother, the overdressed man:
Who will have his bullets.

How about the couple in that car,
Fun to shoot through a window.
None of these quite fill the bill;
This is the wrong location.

The only spot is back at work
They don’t know he’s angry.
He smiled when treated like a dork
And they deserve his vengeance.

He enters through the double doors
Walks past the guard while smiling
Strolls into the head-man’s lair
And shoots him at least fourteen times.

He saves the last shot for himself
But this time he miscounts
And security men now pounce on him
And hold him til police arrive.

Hauled onto a cop car’s seat
He has but one regret
Not that he didn’t **** himself
But that he didn’t **** more others.
          ljm

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

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

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

The Bluebells and the Hollyhocks
Continue to elude me.
I reach with aching finger tips into
The gardens of my mind to find them
But only Dandelions bloom amid
The Snake Grass and the Milkweed.

I fertilize my reverie
With verse from other poets
But the lyricism of their words
Is acid on my longing
And my tiny little shoot of hope
Begins to wither, and it dies.
ljm