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

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

My need to pack a bag or two for an exciting trip 
supercedes the urge to spend this hour writing
doggerel in hopes someone will think I am a poet

I’m taking more than I will need. I do it every time
And bring back brand new clothes still neatly folded
Having never left the suitcase or tried on at all.

My poetry is over packed more often than I’d like.
The need to make my feelings clear approaches
Supercedence over litereary form and rhyming.

and the chorus:

A pair of jeans and 4 tee-shsirts is really all I need.
I wondere why I bring so much - it puzzles me indeed.
I wonder also why I write long verses you must read.

I’ll try to cut the wardrobe down, take just one duffle bag.
I’ll try to use far fewer words to raise my poet’s flag
If this should work out either way, I’ll be the one to brag.
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

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

When an era ends a bell should ring
Even if it’s only tiny.
When the Curtain falls for the final time
The cast should get a flower.
When it’s all used up and there is no more
Someone should close the cupboard.
When the time is up and the whistle blows
We should all put down our hammers.

Sometimes the end is loud and brash
Sometimes as silent as sunrise
But which-ever way it comes to be
It always seems to be too soon.
It seems there should be one more try
Or even just an epilogue, instead
A note was posted on the door
And the era of folk music quietly ended.
             ljm

I hear the clanking of the gears and ropes
As the curtain starts its slow descent.
I’m rushing to get all my speeches in-
I thought the final scene would go on longer.

But I somehow forgot my lines, the prompter was asleep,
And I tripped across the brace cleats on my entrance
The apron edge is way too close.  I feel lightheaded.
I can see my understudy waiting in the wings.

I thought that I could play my role with some elan
For the entire duration of the local run
But seven shows with matinees to total nine
Have strained my voice and dulled my ears

So I can’t hit the high notes any more.
I know the lyrics and the tunes-
I play them in my sleep instead of waking up
But nonetheless I miss my cues and every note is flat.

The audience is unaware.  They haven’t read the book.
They cannot know the words left out, the blocking gone awry,
My struggle as I patch it up and try to hide
Behind my past reviews - when everything I did was right.

Tassels shimmy on the bottom of the velvet drape
As it slips down behind  me - out in front when I should be in back.
If only I could juggle - no one would suspect
That this will be my final curtain call and I have got it wrong.

Lost:
Her
   Wedding Ring
         in the ashes
  of a fire
  Home burned
            to the ground

       Firemen dig
        Where the bathroom
           used to be
Now 2 storeys deep
      in charred rubble
           for the drawer
          where the ring
was last secured
~~~~
  
        Somewhere in a different
   state
   Another wife was
   praying that
          all who lost
           their homes to fire
              might find some
       family treasure
                           in the ashes to hold onto
     ~~~~

        Something  sparkles dimly
    as the ashes are removed
    Is it the wedding ring?
      It is.
          Black and crusted, yes it is
    Still round and every stone in place
   Such joy and celebration in
the midst of tragedy                                ~~~~

Miracle:
            
    A prayer has been answered
        for a Christian
       in Nevada
             And a treasure been
    delivered
   to
         a loving wife
       in California
              who may have lost her family home
    but now has faith in miracles.
ljm

I sat down to write the Great American Poem
And ended up with just a bromide.
I looked in the mirror and saw another bromide.
I was so upset I had to take a bromide to calm down.
ljm

It was such an exquisite marriage
The bride was lovely
The groom on his horse
And rain that fell as a sign of good luck.
The guests all arrived in their festive array
And it went as smoothly as carefully planned.
But the wedding cake - Oh my Heavens the cake !
A cake with no rival in the annals of time.
A cake that was baked by a host of proud bakers.
It had so many layers and so many flavors,
But way too much icing in billowing excess
With overgrown meadows of fondant flowers.
There was extravagant scrollwork around the edges
And even surprises baked coyly inside.
But it took way too long to light the tall candle
That finally decorated the top tier.
It was served up in dozens of little small wedges
To the multitudes of the invited guests
Who never saw the whole cake as presented
But only the dainty slice that they were served.
The party went on far into the night
And everyone had a fantastical time.
It must be agreed, twas a world class reception
Except for that cake - that too fabulous cake
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

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

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

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

The sky looked like rain but no rain came.
The wind made a visit instead.
Fine grain sand swirled in the vortex
And dust devils ruled over much of the land.

The dark clouded sky promised thunder
And lightning’s unexpected flash
But none of that transpired and we were perplexed.
The weather diverged from its script.

The temperature fell by nine degrees,
As a gift from munificent currents,
But we were confused, unsure what to do
In this new land where everything is different

ljm

When the rules say you must rhyme
I’m a muggle every time.

I muggle through the alphabet
And haven’t found the right word yet

They’ll throw me off the “Hello” site
Unless I finally get it right

I feel as slow as Sancho Panza
Looking for a perfect stanza.

Nothing I can do but quit quit
And say I took a muggle hit.
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

The Muse who promised I could write
Has shamed me in a public way
By dressing me in Poet’s gowns
And nudging me into the light,

While all my songs are in one key
And the words I paint are common.

The shining glow of that first bow
Reinforced my fantasy,
Encouraged me to carry on
And offer up my skimpy soul

To those who know the Emperor
And what he does and does not wear.

Calliope assured me I could sing
(With fingers crossed behind her back)
And handed me a lyric pen
That didn’t hold a lot of ink.

She told the orchestra to begin
And handed me the microphone.

She promised hollyhocks and orchids,
And pillowy clouds in pale blue skies.
She said I’d write harpsichords and Temple Bells
And paint sonatas in the morning sun.

I held out my basket but it remained empty
I extended my hand, but it was not taken.

I stand ashamed at center Stage
Immersed in beauty I can’t create;
Red faced at my lack of talent
To even manage playing chopsticks.
              ljm

The tiny river in the gutter
  Flows inexorably  on
   Crossing over two wide streets
    In it’s determined journey to
     The storm drain in the cul de sac.

Rocks impose no barrier;
The river simply flows around,
  Creating little islands in the stream
   That make the water ripple in the sun.

The small end of a cigarette
  Becomes a tiny  boat
    I watch it as it sails along
     On a journey to oblivion.

I follow to the storm drain grate
  Where the falling water makes no sound,
   As it slips quietly down the maw
    To become part of some other flows.

Will it end up at the Waterworks
  To be freshly cleaned and sanitized
   And pumped back through those miles of pipes
    To quench thirst at the kitchen sink

Or will it join the other storm drains  
  Making their winding pilgrimage
   To join the nearby Colorado
     River and begin the trip again.
                                              ljm

I think the proof is in the air
For those who love and those who care.
So many things that we don't share
Hallelujah
ljm

Starting from well behind the line
I ran the race as best I could.
I do not have the newer shoes
But I have legs both fast and strong.

I held my own through
The very first curve
And pulled ahead
On the straightaway.

But then the oval straightened out
And it became an endless road
So my advantage faded off
And others started catching up.

In fancy shoes
And running clothes
They gained on me
With every step.

Now in the middle of the pack
I felt the breath of those behind
Who wanted me out of their way
And nudged me over to the edge.

The tatters of my shoes fell off
And I was running barefoot
Over rocky ground that cut my feet
Not on the turf inside the track.

The race went on and I fell back
With with each and every painful step.
I was last of all the rest
As everybody passed me

The finish line came into sight
And though I had a painful limp
I struggled on to get there
The cheering was for someone else
But I was still a winner.
ljm

Coming down the street I see
20 folks with masks just three
I ask them why they don’t comply
They offer me a fast black eye

They say they have a legal right
To infect anyone they might
And I should stifle what I say
Or they will send a sneeze my way

They say the bug is just a myth
Nothing they’ll be dealing with
They say they take their cue from Trump
And if he tells them, they will  jump

But til that day they won’t believe
There’s any germ they can receive
And if their Gramma catches it
It was just a bad luck hit

They’re going to a rave tonight
They know that it will be all right
The hundreds there are super cool
And no one there will be a fool.

One of that group, a guy named Weaver
Said feel me - do I have a fever
I think I maybe don’t feel well
I may have caught it - who can tell

They all laughed and walked away
To them another normal day.
I cross the street to give them space
Can’t chance them breathing in my face

I find it so mysterious
That any group could be so dumb
So selfish and oblivious
Of reckonings that soon will come. ljm

We’ve given our souls to Facebook
We naively took the hand
Of those who offered us candy
Laced with mind controlling words.

And we, like sheep, converged around
The lies and obfuscations,
Believing everything was true,
Ignoring shadows in the looking glass.

Everything keeps changing
But it always stays the same.
Those who see the stop signs
Are run down by those who don’t.

Our lives are full of ***** dishes
And our dreams are thick with dust.
The sun comes up, so we feel fine.
Who notices the storm clouds.

We worship at the small blue square,
Heeding the Siren’s deceptive song.
We offer up intelligence
On the altar made of midnight tweets.

Sleepwalker-like, we stumble on,
Convinced there is no cliff ahead,
That what the Judas Goat proclaimed
Will see us safely on our way.

We put up photos of our meals
And morph our face to kittens.
We have a thousand friended friends
But not a one who knows us.

We’ve sold our souls to the internet.
It cost us everything we had,
And now we can no longer see
We teeter on the precipice,
ljm

Waiting while the white ball spins
Hurry - I’ve got other stuff to do.
So many corrections yet to make.
Why didn’t I type more carefully
Rushing through some new ideas
Throwing words out like confetti
Only to be scattered by the wind
That never seems to take a break.

Watching while the ball still spins
Pounding mental fists on walls
That make the labor twice as hard
As Bragi promised it would be.
Breaking up what’s newly writ
And stomping on the pieces
That turn sharp and cut my metric feet
Which then bleed through my stockings.

The ball will never end its spins.
The buffering goes on and on.
I might as well go dig a grave
And bury all the honeyed words
And clever phrases I created,
Fighting iMac all the way.
Their use-by date was yesterday
And there’s no hope to salvage them.
The buffering has done me in.
ljm

Fictitious love was all you had
You offered it like it was gold
But it turned green in my warm hands
And all my happiness turned sad
It wouldn't do much good to scold
For not becoming wedding bands

The slate is clean, as it should be.
The chalk’s beside it on the table.
But this is not a quiet room in
Peaceful calm surroundings.

The table is knee deep in mud
Of the most obnoxious ugly kind,
Spread deeply as far as eye can see
That must be somehow waded through,

Avoiding getting mired in it or even
Falling down and getting coated
With the muck that won’t come off
And will smear the pristine slate

To make unreadable any words
Of kindness, justice or fair play
That those unsullied might have written there
In hopes that all the fear was fog

And somehow we will find a way to
Sweep the mud into the drain
And justice wash away the stain
So Democracy can rule again.
        ljm

TP’s back on the market shelves
Easy to find Purell
Lots of bleach for you to drink
And lots of gloves to sell
Clap Hands

Numbers go up instead of down
Nobody’s staying home
They all go out without a mask
When they decide to roam
Clap hands

Everyone’s invincible
“It couldn’t strike me down”
I’m an invisible carrier
Busy all over town
Clap hands, clap hands

I feel a tickle in my throat
And a little raspy cough
It’s getting sort of hard to breathe
I need to take time off
Clap hands, clap hands, clap hands

NO more clapping of the hands
Now is the time to pray
That you’ll survive this killer big
And live another day
Go wash those hands, don’t clap them.
ljm

I seem to pass by largely unnoticed.
My foot leaves no marks in the sand.
I carry the burden unassisted
And do not receive thanks in the end,

The things I create are admired
But too often my name is detached.
I float through the view of so many
Who don’t recognize that I’m there.

A zephyr, a whisper, a phantom,
A shadow that fades with the Sun;
I’ve been and I labored and managed,
But few people know I was born.
ljm

An artificial crimson blossom
In the garden of God’s roses
I’m made of silk and wire and glue
On a slender stem of green bamboo.
Artistry makes me look real
And though I turn to face the Son
I can’t create perfume to offer
And I stand out painfully
Among the genuine creations.
Waiting for the Gardener
To notice me and **** me out
To die among the brambles
I tried diigently to escape.
              ljm

In this instance,
I have an insidious inclination to
incessantly remark upon the
repeated incidence of your
innocuous inability to integrate
your irascibility into an immutable
impression of inceptive incertitude.  
So There!
                 ljm

TRADE IN

I hate all this business
Of trying to do
What I want to do
And hampered by a
Creaky old body.

It ****** me off
When something hurts
And gets in the way
Of doing the things
I had carefully planned.

I want to complain
And go pound on God’s desk
And ask him for a refund
Or at the very least
Refurbishment.

I haven’t got time
To fall down in pain,
I’ve got hills to climb
And rivers to swim.
I can’t do that if I am crippled.

So dig out the warranty
Read the fine print
See how to get
Some replacements
So I can continue
To conquer this world

As the force of nature
That my Mama loosed            
On creation that
New Year’s day
Eighty-three long years ago.
     ljm

The face they see when
I walk past and smile
Is not the face I see
When I gaze into my bathroom mirror
And manage to fantasize away
The wear of those long decades.
The face I see in
That soft-lit mirror,
Practicing a youthful grin,
Is not the face I’m forced to view
In photos that refuse to lie,
And offer me a reality
That breaks my heart to look at.
How can such a  buoyant spirit
Come packaged in such a shopworn case.
ljm

My great job had me in my heyday
The virus then cancelled my pay day
Now I’m sending out a grim Mayday
I can’t bear another away day.
ljm

If your Daddy was a Pop Star
Two Gold Records on his wall,
A&R men listen when you sing.

If your Mama was a Movie Star
Getting an audition is no sweat,
Just say your name, and you go in.

If your Dad was in I.A.T.S.E.         (Pronounced "eye-AT-see)
You know you can get in too-
Just learn a little of the trade.

If your Mother worked for Disney
There's a job there for you too
Unless you have no skills at all.

The Moguls talk diversity-
But that is only for their casts.
It's nepotism for the rest.

It is no longer who you know -
It seems to be who gave you birth
If you think you'd like to work
In that phony place called Hollywood.
                                       ljm

When evilness is dripping from the trees
And blades of grass are real and cutting you
When the wind comes from a raging furnace
And singes the hair on your trembling arms
When wickedness becomes the music in the air
And treachery the key that starts the engines
When a handshake is somehow pernicious
And wretchedness the flavor of the week

You are in the land of jealous lovers
Loathing what has long been gone
Winners who despise the losers
Living in a boiling rage
That seethes for over 40 years
And taints the mercies of the present
Making it impossible
To ever quench the fires of hate.
           ljm

The sky is absolutely wrong-
Clouds just never look like that.
The tumbled shapes are so not right.
There is a norm for tumbled clouds,
But this sky isn’t even close.
The shadows on their bottoms also are not right-
That’s just not how the sky should ever be.

And…Oh My God !….Is that a rainbow?

But rainbows are supposed to look
Like horse-shoes planted upside down
With one end hiding a *** of gold-
Always, always, always…
That’s the way a rainbow works.
This one is a glowing orb
Shining on the tip end of a shaggy cloud.
It has all the colors it should have
And in their proper rainbow order but
It doesn’t have the requisite two ends.
It shimmers into disappearing edges
In the middle of the tea-time sky.

No chance of any *** of gold
From a rainbow never touching ground.

It’s absolutely wrong to be there
In the middle of those misshaped clouds.
Raising questions that have no answers.
Is this the sign that the Bible promised
To welcome in the final days…
And tribulation for a thousand years
When judgement comes to everyone
And all the hens come home to roost.
The world below, in utter chaos mired
Must somehow look above the trees
To see the Portents in the sky.
             ljm

There are flowers that bloom only in the dark
When the moon is hidden by gray clouds.
They add aroma to the dawning gloom
And live but only for a day.

There are birds that sing when there’s no moon-
When magic is afoot and fairies dance
In complicated patterns of Gavotte
In secret grassland meadows.

There is music in the midnight a
The sound of violin and lute
Wafting on an errant breeze
That brings with it the scent of Jasmine.

There are footprints in the Stygian sands
That lead away from blighted rivers
Past the meadows and the flowers
While a nocturne greets the apricot hued sunrise.
                ljm

Raised mid fire and brimstone
Religion every day.
It wasn’t oh-so-very long
Before I walked away.

With my back turned so completely
I soon had lost my way.
I squandered all my treasures
My foundation turned to clay.

It seemed like fun for many years
But there were dues to pay.
Too many lovers came and went
While I forgot to pray.

I had a chance to make things right
And wicked dragons slay.
I only managed for a while
Then things began to fray.

I traded for a different one
Who wanted just to play
And lived the last years of my life
In many shades of gray.

I could have chosen uphill roads
I picked the easy way.
I worked so hard to hurt myself
And every trust betray.

I find myself in sunset years
Beneath the sun’s last Rays.
My life did not fulfill my dreams
And I must face that fact today.
                                              ljm

A microscopic drop of red
In a place no human eye can see
Erased the blackboard of my mind
Of all the words that make me, me.

I’m left here with chalk in hand
Trying hard to bridge the gaps
Hoping to connect the strands
And find myself again, perhaps.

I reach for words and they don’t come -
Simple words used every day.
I substitute less perfect ones
And laugh embarrassement away.

There is a word for what this is:
Lethologica it’s called.
I have it written on my arm
In case it needs to be recalled.

Thesaurus is my new best friend
Where I find the words I need
That are now locked away from me
An unexpected deep brain bleed.

My hand won’t write like it once did
The letters shrink and grow at will
I practice grade school penmanship
But write at third grade level still.

My balance is not what it was
My hands are clumsy paws
Too much saliva wets my chin
And no none knows the cause.

Yet life goes on and I do too
I offer what I can
Perhaps my words will help help someone
To take a braver stand.
ljm

What if John Lennon was correct:
“There isn’t any Heaven and there isn’t any Hell.”
What on Earth do we do now?
ljm

I think I’ve come to believe in God
And that He did indeed create the Earth.
But I think He created lots of Earths
And flung them across the galaxies.

I think perhaps He had some off time
And idly rolled up ***** of clay
Each one different from all the rest
Each with its own pattern of life.

I think He had a wonderful time
Draining His imagination
Of all the possibilities
For sentience of various kinds.

Like a crafter making quilts-
Each pattern varied from from the rest,
The planets took on different forms
And life evolved down many lines.

That’s why the cosmos puzzles us
And makes creation hard to grasp.
We need to spend a lot more time
At art and crafter’s shows.

ljm

As close as the wind that ruffles my hair
As distant as the sun that warms me
She orbits the world I made for us
In dreams of family that could not hold
And spilled our happiness away.

Perihelion when illness strikes
And action smothers need for words
Aphelion at most other times
When lessons learned from
Other teachers rule her sky.

A comet with a gleaming tail
She blazes through my firmament
On schedules that I can not know
And I can but fulfill the needs
That let me revel in her glow.

Longing does not change her course
Apologies do not prevail
Mute obedience is required
To catch a glimpse of what I’ve made
As she flashes briefly through my life
ljm

As busy as a cat
  At a mouse convention

    As happy as a dog
     Locked in a bone factory

       As hungry as
        The winner on Survivor

          As dizzy as a pinata
           At a kids party

             As sick as
              A pie-eating contest winner

                As beautiful as
                 Your Grandmother’s smile
                               ljm

Poetry Challenge 1    One sentence, 17 syllables

a. I’ll get back to you later when I think of something really special

b.  I only enter contests when I think I might have a chance to win

c.  Depression is a dark room I can not escape from though I do try


Challenge 2     10 words, time, place, emotion

a.  Calm desert morning.  Why am I crying?

b.  Night time in the desert makes me homesick

c.  Rush hour in New York - worse than Chicken Pox

d.  Wedding in a chapel - afternoon bliss

e.  Prayed for hours at his bedside, yet he died


* - first challenge entries 12/21/19

Pretty girls get listened to
No matter what they say
The beacon of their beauty
Draws all eyes and ears their way.

It makes no difference what they say
It doesn’t have to make much sense
It only needs to be said to you
And it tears down your male defense.

Pretty girls can change your mind
No matter what your morals.
They make you do some things you hate
Without too many angry quarrels.

Plain girls, on the other hand,
Have a tougher row to ***
Attention passes over them.
They disappear like snow

They may put forth some  brilliant thoughts
Or words that sing with beauty
They may be models of success
As they go about their duty.

But no one really hears their voice
Or sees what lies within them.
They live their life in second place
As it’s the prettiest girls who win
                  ljm

Reality is circling around, all sharp with spiky thorns,
For another go at my fragile little mind
That floats like an over-inflated balloon
At the end of a long and fraying cord

Fantasy comes like a hand-knit velvet shawl
To wrap my heart in peaceful comfort,
Protecting it from barbs and slashes
That would prove the dream unreal.

Uncertainty in the form of wind begins to howl
And drowns the etude in cacophony,
Whipping up the desiccated leaves of Autumn
And stirring thoughts of grave endeavors.

Resignation gradually lays down the scimitar
That once set out to rearrange the world
And now is full of nicks and scratches,
So much heavier to carry than before.

Acceptance like a gentle winter snowfall
Settles on the jagged shards of effort
And the broken bits of unbuilt mansions,
Making it all calm and smooth and peaceful.
ljm

So many pieces of 4x4 paper
So many names written on every one
So many needs that cry out for prayer
So many reasons for tears that will come.

People with illness that doesn’t get better
People still grieving for one that has died
People knocked down by the trials of living
People with terrible secret to hide.

Countries in shatters from climate change fury
Countries in rubble from war’s evil blasting
Countries all broken from the rumble of earthquakes
Countries who wonder if hope can be lasting.

So many villains afoot in our country
So many rifles in teenager’s hands
So many attacks on our family tree
So many arriving from far distant lands.

So many times we kneel in the morning
speaking the names of all those in need
Hoping that God will somehow be listening
And not turn his back on us as we plead.
ljm