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

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

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

If I live long enough, my goal
Is to be the Doyen of Hello Poetry.
Not because I'm the best, though
I strive to earn that sobriquet too.
Not because I'm wise - Oh no-
Wise-guy is more like it;
But because I never ran away
Without a word
As so many others  have done.
                                       ljm

He came to me with the allusion
Of a bump like a contusion.
The circumstances caused confusion.
I thought it just a wild delusion
That would pass with resolution
And a bit of diminution.
When I told him my solution
He declared a revolution.
          ljm

Like a Gingerbread village
Smashed by an angry child
The
     broken
                  pieces    
                            lay
Scattered across the desert.
             ~/#^//~•º#~

Every shard a broken dream
And hopeless vision of the future.
Every
            pile
                    of
                          crumpled!rubble
Hides beneath it bleak tomorrows.
                  ~/#^//~•ª#~

What can ever be constructed
From the
                frac
                        tur
        ­                        ed
                                      shards of
Hopelessness and heartless evil.
That bar the road to being whole again.
                           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

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

An honest and fair election loss will surely cause the red-hatted people of the USA to foment violence on the non-red-hatted people and the institutions they serve and believe in.

A dishonest and unfair election win will foment the end of constitutional democracy as the non-red-hatted people know it.  The pitchfork and banner market will experience sudden growth.
   ljm

Twas the month before Christmas
And all through the town
The early bird shoppers
Could scarcely sit down.

The turkey was eaten
With ravenous passions
The quicker to race out
And grab the new fashions.

The bargains were lurking
Inside every mall
Inviting the greedy
To dash away all.

To forget about family
Forget to give thanks
To goal is to get stuff
Without breaking banks.

The early morn line up
Now a thing of the past
With stores never closing
You’ve got to be fast.

A big screen TV set
For three hundred bucks-
The  last one is taken
And that really *****.

If some other shopper
Should get in your way
The only solution?
That ole pepper spray!

You push and get pummeled-
You put it on plastic
You’ve landed a bargain
And that is fantastic

The Muzak is playing
The same Christmas songs
We know them all backwards
We’ve heard them so long.

You wend your way homeward
So proud of your action
To cancel Thanksgiving
And earn satisfaction.

The holly was strung up
Before Trick or treat
If you wait til Thanksgiving
You’re gonna get beat

By all of the merchants,
A few neighbors too.
Can’t beat ‘em? Then join ‘em-
What else can you do?

You wait for December,
The goods are shopworn
With scratches and paint chips,
And boxes all torn.

The only solution
Is one to remember:
Avoid all the trauma
And shop in September.

For a month before Christmas
The whole world goes mad
We use up the season
And that makes me sad.

I long for the mem’ry
Of Christmases past
When family mattered
And shopping came last,

Behind all the sharing
Of love and good times
Without all the hassle
Portrayed in these rhymes.

Exhaustion has claimed us
We need to lie down
It takes all your courage
Surviving downtown.

So you wear your kerchief
And I’ll wear my cap
And we’ll try to grab us
A short winter nap.

And we’ll say to ourselves
As we turn out the light
Merry Christmas to all
And to all a good night.
    ljm

Clutching at thin straws of sanity
Swirling in a sea of madness
I dog paddle with all my might
Towards a shore that seems too far
To offer any hope of safe arrival
         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

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

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

As sere as the Nevada
Moraine surrounding me
My pen drips dust and sometimes sand-
And mud if wetted with my tears
Of longing and frustration.

The winds of war are howling
As the universe turns inside out
with all the wrongness being done.
Mother Nature has picked up her skirts
and flounced away in fury
That is costing endless lives
And devastation planet wide…
While my pen seeks its navel.

My wit, became a brilliant crayon
In realities now scorching sun,
Leaving Rally in a melted pool
Instead of banners on the wall.
It turned my fingers crimson.

Where the splint or plaster cast
To support the flagging wordage
As it dribbles from my pen and
Seeps away into insouciance
While the darkest corner of my mind
Cries out for help and world salvation.
My pen’s, become a giant sieve, stained
By what’s poured in and through,
With only dampness left behind,
The stuff that mud is made from.
       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

Reaching out to nothingness -
There must be something there for me
Letters stacked in piles of gibberish.
Emotion down my cheeks but not my pen.
Where is my muse - the one I promised
To give my life and being to. She’s gone.

My fingers grasp the nothingness
And clutch it to my wounded heart
As if somehow to make it treasure.
The accolade is down the street;
And I have no way to get there.

Crippled pen and crumpled verse
Is what I have to proffer here
Who is it wants what I pour out:
Acid on the desert of my soul
Burnng wth a flame that never dies
        ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
Wipe the salty tracks away
Pick up the barren pen again
And strive to coax a butterfly
Or fawn or bunny from its depths.
Gardenias with their magic scent
Are surely locked inside somewhere.
I need to somehow set them free
And if not that, then find a way
To learn to live with what I have
And never whisper “I want more”.
                       ljm

In a time of abject public folly
Where madness rules the western world
I listen to the nimrods prattle on
about conspiracies and subterfuge;
Of microchips injected into flailing
Arms held tightly down by Biden’s thugs.

Alice has managed to escape
The underground tea party
But Fox News is in the hen house
With a mandate for extinction
Of the bird who lays the golden egg
And ****-a-doodle-do’s the sunrise.

Resignation forms a blip in those
Too tired to carry on the jape
That sentences small kids to die
So left and right can pas de deux
But never dance together
And the final curtain starts to fall.
                                          LJM

If you’re gonna pass laws that force women to
Birth and raise the babies they get knocked up with
        Make those laws also include a neonatal paternity test,
        After which the father has his income attached
        To the tune of seventy-five dollars a week for 21 years,
        Adjusted for inflation.
Then Enforce that law every bit as rigidly
As you enforce your new abortion bans.
         It takes two to make a baby, after all….. and
         Fair is still fair, isn’t it?    In what Universe?
                           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

Dreams of gossamer can’t withstand
The cold winds of reality.
Castles built from hopeful sand
Cannot outlast the rising tide.
Plans constructed on a wish
Are greeted with an empty hand
And you are left in broken pieces.
Tears don’t make a useful glue
And sighs don’t weave a tether.
You’re in a room that has no door;
Somehow it doesn’t matter.
You cannot go - no one can come
And everything is as it was and is
And time will never change it.
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

S ometimes situations sneak around behind me
C ausing more frustration than my cup can hold,
R endering my calm demeanor less and less with
E very breath I take, which finally
A llows the rage to grab control and
M eans the only useful thing to do is scream
ljm

The Christmas lights have all been taken down and put away.
The chilly night is poorer for their loss.
The rain that couldn’t bother to be snow on Christmas Eve
Now lurks behind the clouds that hide the stars we never see
And wouldn’t know the names of, if we did.

The gifts have been exchanged for sizes that will fit
Except the one with blood on it that must be thrown away.
The thank you notes have all gone out to people far away
Who love us more than those next door who say the words
But hide the truth in cloaks of duty and necessity.

The paper hats and party horns were taken by the trashman yesterday
While we write elevens in our checkbook for the year
And contemplate the quicksand that encompasses the wall
We have no ladder tall enough to climb, or transport
That can whisk us to a top that’s not in sight.

Walking tall on stilts of hope, our balance is precarious.
We were not in the Rose parade or even on the sidewalk.
We still can’t see beyond the wall of hate that locks us in
and wobble ever more and more as we pace the perimeter
Looking for a door or gate and finding only bricks and mortar.

ljm

Pity the Easter Bunny
Vice President of Whimsey Land
Hero of Farmer’s gardens
Mentored by Santa Clause

Guardian of the fairies
That trade coins for teeth
And Proctor for the hoards of elves
That keep the world exciting.

Still owning all his lucky feet
Through cleverness and speed.
Nephew to Uncle Whitey
The Star of Underland

Pity the Easter Bunny
His ears are drooping down
His cotton tail has lost its fluff
And he’s too sad to hop.

Pass the pity towel around
To mop up all the tears.
His labor will go unrewarded
On a scale that’s not been seen before.

All those eggs to boil and dye
Chocolate selves to pose for
All those candy eggs to hide
Baskets to be woven.

All those chores have been checked off
All the preparations made
Everything is set to go
When a germ calls off the holIday

What do you do with Jelly Beans
Stacked up to the ceiling
How much sugar can a bunny eat
Before he’s diabetic.

Pity the Easter bunny
But stand six feet away
We all feel cheated for
The loss of Easter day.
ljm

I don't want to spread any gossip, because I'm not that kind of person, but once someone on HP ghosted me, but I'll never ever tell anyone who it was, and you must never tell anybody that I told you that. Pinky-promise me.
                 ljm

You can’t lash out in burning anger
           Unless you’re young or beautiful.
           Trying that at sixty-five
            Just makes you an old hag.
At twenty-five a shapely leg
            Can kick a hapless door
            And pitch away an object scorned,
            But let a gramma throw a snit
            And they say she’s demented.
Why is anger set aside
            As only for the young.
           And those beyond those magic years
           Must settle for a quiet rage.
       ljm

How many times must the helping hand
Be bitten, slapped or pushed away
Before it never reaches out again.

With motives pure as a newborn’s eyes
I offer everything I can to help
With what I can’t afford to spend

And hours I really shouldn’t take-
And every time it is a sham
And all my help is nothing.

All I want is just one chance
To save a life or make the day
For someone who is sinking

And without hope of aid or rescue.
But it never seems to go that way
The homeless throw away my blankets

And tell me they can’t eat my lunch.
They take my funds and skulk away
To add it to their horde,

While I beat up my aching bones
To earn enough to try again
In eighteen hour workdays.

Is there really no one out there
Waiting for my caring grasp
To pull them from a certain death.

Is there no one disadvantaged
Who will bless fate for the coat
I’ve taken from my closet for them.

Is there no life that will change
In the minutest way because
I strived with all my might to help them.

This is life’s unkindest blow for me-
That I’m denied the hero’s role
And every hand I reach to save
Draws back and turns to walk away
With laughter echoing across
The distance to my downcast eyes.
ljm

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

TractabilIty has led me to disbelieve most everything
I’ve ever learned and caused me then to set foot on
A road that will surely lead me nowhere.
I listened to the honeyed words and ate the candied lies.
I turned my back on what was genuine and real
And chased a paper moon across a tinfoil sky.
They told me they were helping me to find  out
Who I am and what I really should believe.
They said that they could fix the world
If I can only help them.
I heard a small bell ringing In a corner of my mind
But they assured me it was nothing real and
Only an illusion.  And I gave in and followed them.
They told me who to vote for and all the reasons why.
The tiny bell became a klaxon, but I tuned it out
And walked their walk and talked their talk
And marked my card the way they said
And dropped it in the ballot box.
Along with my IQ and common sense
And my opinion is intractable today.
ljm

They advertise Jergens Lotion
As a product that
Softens and smooths
But they can’t know
I have an emollient
Much better by far.
Your gentle voice
Softens my roughest edges
And your tender hands
Smooth out the wrinkles
In my soul.
     ljm

You took a selfie yesterday
And this is what you saw
A woman with the saddest eyes
Trying hard to make a smile.

Your face was etched with weary lines
Though your complexion was still fine
You looked as if you’d seen the world
In all its ugly guises.

Pain and utter hopelessness
Had left tracks on your spirit -
And dimmed the sparkle in your gaze
To just a faint remembrance.

You looked like you had fought a war
And were forced to sign a treaty
That left you with no place to go
And no more foes to conquer.

Your eyes, the mirror of your soul,
Projected only sorrow -
Yet somehow they produced a glow
That said you have hope for tomorrow.
                  ljm

Groups casting aspersions
Are a spiteful diversion
That borders on *******
And invites incursion
By the cops -  and dispersion.
ljm

Spectacular birth in a mundane time and place.
Childhood a half step lower than the middle ground
But happy in the lack of knowing it was so.
Sparks of brilliance catching a teacher’s eye
And the dice rolled out a better score for me.
Escape became adventure and knowledge a goal
But half a loaf was not enough and I was hungrier
For newer vistas and more shiny possibilities.
I almost made it happen, but the deck was stacked
Another way and years eluded efforts to that goal.
A glowing bridge let me cross over tracks behind me
And the Glossy years flew past on silver skis.
Achievement and creative life gave birth
to a shining hope that melted into painful failure.
A phony guru led the way and everything upturned itself.
The world slid right to left and ended upside down .
Exciting once and later not so much at all.
The changes added to the passing of more years
When happiness came often wrapped in guilt.
Making do became the mantra, along with getting by
Until the other shoe crashed to the floor
And left a painful footprint on the golden years.
New vistas were the only hope and proved
To be salvation and a challenge to adapt.
And so the years rolled on some more and here I am
At 85, and wondering what I do now.
All those years that came and went somehow
Never satisfied my needs, leaving me to ask myself
For the fifty-seventh time this week:
Who knows where the time goes.
Who knows where…the time goes.
ljm

Hello to **** America
Goodbye to the gentle folk of Ukraine
Goodbye to all hope for a Palestine
Hello to hatefulness and thuggery
Hello to self service and ego
Goodbye to seven Commandments
Goodbye to honor and trust
Hello to the end of the American Dream.
ljm

I’m a little short on Joy today-
Got lotsa Pain and too much Duty.
Seem to be totally lacking in Glee
And Overdrawn on Happiness
While overstocked with Misery.
My Contentment check is overdue.
Got too much Little and hardy any Lots.
My Merriment has been recalled,
Leaving only wheels of Gloom.
My Happy Place is in foreclosure
And my Spirit’s locked in Chapter Seven.
My hopefulness is now Maxed Out
And tomorrow is an I.O.U.
ljm

What is all this tensile for
Nobodys coming here
Why is eggnog in the fridge
Who is there to cheer.

Why the mistletoe hung high
There is no one to kiss
Why the Christmas Carols play
When no one feels the bliss

Why no gifts beneath the tree
Why go to all this work
Because this party is for me
And you sound like a ****.
          ljm

With desperation dripping off my chin
I scurry around this way and that
Trying to catch up the herd that
Knowingly is leaving me behind

I trip on stones I couldn’t see
Through all the rainstorm on my face
And stumble even further back behind

With need that pushes hunger off the list
I strive for things not physical
But nebulous and indistinct
That shimmer in the distance
And are always out of reach
         ljm

Today I saw a giant tub of whipped cream
Spilled across the morning sky.
You may call them clouds, I call them cream.

Today I saw a tiny hummingbird
Taking very careful inventory
Of the blossoms on a tree.

Today I saw two squadrons
Of black birds on a secret mission
Across the dawning sky.

Today I saw the waxing moon
Refusing to call it a night
By lurking on the horizon.

Today I saw me looking up
To marvel at the gifts I’m given
For merely raising up my eyes.
            ljm

I sip joy from the tiny crevices
Of a colorless existence.
I search out small pockets
Of contentment in the dolor, and
I patch together ragged moments
Of almost fulfillment
To create an existance
That might resemble happiness.

I wear the smile that says I am OK
And speak the words of fabrication.
I do the things that ape a life worthwhile
And go to the places that back up the lie.
I tear the pages from my calendar
And wonder that there are so many more.
Still able to lift a heavy load,
I guess there’s nothing else for me
To do but carry on, so that is what I must.
ljm

The shiny apple looked delicious
But it was high up in the tree
We jumped to reach it but we couldn’t
We found a ladder in the field
And carefully climbed up it
The rungs were covered with thick mud
And got our hands and clothes all *****
But we craved that shiny apple
Hungry as we were so long
Reaching out through tangled branches
It was in our grasp at last
Careful going down the ladder
So as not to drop the prize

Now time to take that first big bite
And oh how sweet the juices flowed
We’re stealing an admiring look
When suddenly we spot the worm-
It’s bad enough to see it there-
But what remains is only half
And something tickles in our throat
Will we fling the apple far away
To retch and spit and beg a mint
Or stay and eat around the worm.
ljm

Like a newborn sparrow in a tall tree nest
You hunker down with your beak wide open
Chirping for a worm.
But you’ve broken my wings so many times
I can no longer fly
And I flop helplessly amongst the branches
Watching as we starve.
ljm

“How Can I Find True Love” will always belong to the juke box in the upstairs dance hall above the general store at a little known hot springs resort called Sol Duc, in the Olympic Peninsula forests of the state of Washington.
I worked at the soda fountain there during the summer after I graduated High School in 1957. It was a very rustic place and there was no radio reception. All we had was the juke box. We teenage workers all lived in little cabins in the woods.  We cleaned the resort cabins, ran the little store, waitressed in the cafe, made Peanut Butter Milkshakes at the soda fountain and generally had a good time.  One day a man came to put the latest records in the juke box, including a new group, the Del Vikings.  We didn’t know which side of the record was the hit.  We chose “How Can I Find True Love” and played it endlessly.  Only after the summer ended and we all rejoined normal society did we learn that “Come Go With Me” was the big hit.
ljm

Fluffy little Teenage boy
Tiny peeny in his pants
Always in the outside lane
Never with the in-crowd.

Only a big gun can change that
But it’s useless in the closet.
Searching for an avenue
To join the late night news parade

Nothing in your neighborhood
Or even in the local town
To stir a reason to go forth
And save the world from everything.

A road trip is the way to go -
Take a drive and join the fray
Let the world see you’re the man
Who’s come to set some wrong things right.

But it doesn’t go that way
You’re confronted many times
By those who see that you
Should not be out there with a gun.

This only makes you angrier
And more determined in your goal
To show the world that you’re in charge.
The proof lies bleeding on the street.

So there was injury and death.
It didn’t make your peenie grow.
And now you have to answer
For the tantrum that you threw.
                ljm

I don’t remember checking out
But when I came back that afternoon
Someone else was in my room
And all my luggage was out in the hall.

I knocked and didn’t hear a sound
Until I banged again much harder
Then I heard the rustle of approach
And locks turned as the door was opened.

My fists were clinched, my throat was tight
And I had vicious anger at the ready,
But shock drowned out my burning ire
When I saw who was facing me

She was very old and somewhat fragile.
Not the beauty she’d once been,
But dressed in jammies and a shawl
With fuzzy slippers on her feet.

She didn’t hear the words I said
And seemed to not see me very well.
She smiled a very gentle smile
And asked what she could do for me.

I told her she was in my room
And I had scads of things to do,
With projects to take care of
And chores that needed seeing to.

She stepped aside and let me in
Where I could see things were a mess
The furniture was rearranged
And my stuff stacked up in a corner.

I pushed on in and desperately
Searched for my deadline-diary -
There were things to not mess up
And errors that I must not make.

But nothing seemed where it belonged
And I could not remember where
I put the most important notes
That got me where I had to be.

The elder lady tried to help
But searched for words that would not come
And bumped against important things
That rocked and tumbled with a crash.

Beside myself I spun around
In desperation and despair,
Looking for something to grasp
To tell me I was not insane.

I turned to ask the Granny’s help
But couldn’t find her anywhere.
Like smoke in wind she’d disappeared
Even though the door was locked.

Exasperation then took hold
And I flailed around in circles
Til I caught a movement in the mirror
An stopped to take a better look.

I stood before the glass and gaped.
The dear old girl gaped back at me.
How did she get inside the glass
And where had my own image gone?

What happened to the visage of
The super-girl who juggled knives
And kept plates spinning in the air
While never dropping one.

The knives, I saw, were on the floor
Underneath the sagging couch.
The plates that I had kept aloft
Were neatly stacked beside the kitchen sink.

Astonishment became dismay
As I tried to reconcile
The me who went to work this morning,
Primed for conquering the world,

And the someone I came back to find,
Not certain where I left myself
Or even where to start the search
To see if I existed.

Bereft of thoughts and lost among her words
That float around and won’t be caught
I puzzle how this came about
And I don’t know the answer.

But I can not avoid the fact
That it’s my face in that mirror.

ljm

The tipping point for Gaia
  Stares us boldly in our faces.
   And yet we try to look the other way,
    Seeing only what they want us to see,
     Believing all the lies they tell us daily.
      How deep into destruction must we fall
       Before we realize we’re doomed and
        It’s too late to pass the blame
         And far too late to fix things
              ljm