In a bowered place that only
Pixies know about
Tucked down between
The weeping willow’s boughs,
And not far from a singing rivulet
There lives a butterfly with gorgeous wings,
Transparent in the morning sun  
And luminous at twilight.
Her wings are patterned in chartreuse
With royal purple fantasies
That end in trailing gossamer.
Feeding on the buttercups and clover,
Her afternoons are bathed in a tranquility
That obviates the need to fly.
And so the gentle butterfly does not,
But rests and ponders what is on the breeze
That transforms air to symphonies
And blends with everything nearby
To make a perfect potpourri
Of serenity and peace.
ljm

Am I the only one on HP
Who is finding it impossible
To parse the Byzantine new
System Eliot-the-Great has
Foisted on us in the name
Of becoming available
In your back Jeans pocket
Wherever you may be?
LJM

How many cake pans must you wash
Before they’ll let you bake one.

How many arias must you write
Before they’ll let you sing one

How many air planes must you build
Before they’ll let you fly one.

How many children must you raise
Before one of them loves you.
     ljm

Which way do you turn
When the world is upside down.
Spinning in circles doesn’t help
And it makes you very dizzy.
Running out and grabbling stuff
Only makes you greedy.
Selling at outrageous price
Turns you to a craven gauger
Who should have to eat what’s left.

Blaming is a losing game
No one is the winner.
Choosing sides and throwing rocks
Does nothing but break windows.
Hate won’t cure incompetence.
And can not drain a too-full self.
Arming up and locking down
Will only help you die alone,
Surrounded by your hoardings.
ljm

California Girl
Born in the cold and wet
Of the Pacific Northwest
In a snotty little town
That never recognized her glow
And threw sawdust on her dreams.

California Girl
Went North and found her mojo;
Ricocheted from the
Peace Arch border
To the San Diego beaches
In the warming winter sun.

California Girl
Jumped to the brighter lights
Of a movie spangled city
And rode the waves of Possibility
Until the undertow appeared
And she stepped back to reconsider

California Girl
Found a sheltered harbor
By a lovely sandy shore
And started building fairy castles
Out of dreams and other efforts
As the seasons rolled and years flew by.

California Girl
Catapulted from her realm
By evils set against her,
Into a place of broken rocks and wind
To make herself a brand new life
Beneath an unrelenting sun.

California Girl
Adrift in crowds that cannot see her,
Who do not want the gift she gives.
Anchored far beyond escaping
In a place that starves her soul.
She takes the pen of contemplation
To write the denouement of her life.
              ljm

My mac has had one too many nervous breakdowns and is headed for the hospital this afternoon.  I expect to be without him for 2-3 days while they ream out all the boogey Men and Trojan Horses. I hope it doesn't take any longer. I'm uneasy when I'm away from HP. This is where all my dreams are safely stashed.  Please leave the light on for me.

Several poets have told me
That I wear the wrong hat;
I should be a journalist
And let it go at that.

That I should write who-what-when-where
And put it out as news
And turn my eye to everyday
And pay the newsman’s dues.

I can’t put my quill pen down
And give up making rhyme.
I have vistas in my soul
That snare me every time.

Though I dance among the fairies
My words create brick walls
Devoid of hollyhocks and lace
When answering the calls

That urge me to take pen in hand
And share what moves my heart.
The need to see reality
Will doom me from the start.

I won’t wear a reporter’s hat
The double yous can rot.
I’ll keep searching for the elves
Whether finding them or not.
ljm

Camilla owes her crown to Diana.
If Diana had been a traditional royal Spouse
She’d have turned a blind eye to Charles’s betrayal
And just enjoyed the perks of Queenhood.
But - alas - she loved that perfidious son-of-a-monarch
And couldn’t abide being only his *******.
Had not she stormed away from that Sovereign Throne
Madam Parker Bowles would have had to remain
The grasping and greedy, outstandingly common
***** that she was and will ever remain.
And Charles could have then joined in the very long line
Filled with unfaithful Kings and their cheated-on queens.
                 LJM

I once gave somebody a beautiful gift
A life changing treasure to keep
Given with love and no little risk
I hoped I had saved someone’s life

I honored that feeling for all of these years
My own little heroic glow
Something of value was given to her
And I owned a small part of the prize

I didn’t bird-dog the rest of her life
I set her free to evolve
Hoping that she would make use of her gift
To better the world that we live in

So many years have passed since that day
So many miles have we traveled
Such sudden sorrow to learn of her death
And the waste of the gift that I gave her

I do not know if her life was good
Did she go in the wrong direction
Did fate beat her up - give her no place to hide
Except in the depths of a bottle.

Not even fifty - so much more to live
I wonder what ravage befell her
That knocked her so low that her only hope
Was the path that led to the tavern

She left behind a beautiful dog
That she’d rescued as I once did her
She left me with a different grief
For a girl and a gift not unwrapped
ljm

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

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

She smiles with eyes as dead as stone
And hates the work she does so very well,
And the ungrateful mob she does for.

She speaks in friendly, helpful tones
To mask the scream that dances just below her throat
And searches for the moment of escape into the din

She’s always there, as sure as there’s a sunrise.
Though her spirit sails on distant, foreign seas
Her feet are sunk in work-day sludge that traps her here.

Though she longs for clean and simple
Her duties bury her in convoluted mire.
She’s given up trying to scrub it all away.

A million little stabs have wounded her
Beyond the hope of graceful ending
To a life pulled down by circumstance and pain.

With no hope of stars in azure skies at dawning
The light that once shown from her eyes fades out
And her smile becomes an exercise in muscle stretching.

She does what she’s expected to with weariness
That goes beyond arthritic joints and too long hours.
She feeds the wolf and wishes it were not so.

But wish in one hand - spit in one
Her mother often said, and see which one is filled up first.
She always listened to her mom, alas.

And so she trudges slowly on.
She doesn’t know what else to do.
Another day to stumble through
And no tomorrow in her soul.
               ljm

Not the prettiest girl in town,
The smartest or most charming,
But she had what the boys all wanted
And she did not say “no”

Her Birthday was a day past mine
Our mothers were good friends
We celebrated on those days together
I learned we could not double date

Her boyfriend’s friends assumed that I
Would lay me down like she did
But I was saving that for later
“No” was the only word I knew.

The arguments were never fun.
The pill did not exist back then
And boys detested wearing “rubbers”
My fear was equaled by resolve

Our ties gave way with our diplomas
And I set out to find my star
She settled in to create babies
Birthday cards our only contact

The one who finally married her
Was not her baby’s father
She thanked him for his kindness
By giving him three more

They stuck it out through thick and thin
And thin it was most often
She stayed by him and him by her
And so the world moved on for years

One day I heard that she had died
Cancer at an early age
As one last time she laid her down
And slipped into eternal rest

I wonder how our lives would be
Had I said yes while she said no
ljm

Vultures circle on the horizon
They land on nearby trees and wait
They make no sound at all
Fluff their wings in anticipation
And their eyes are fixed and shiny
So evil bright and shiny

Their number grows each passing hour
And their silence terrifies much more
Than the howling wind that echoes
From the distant rocky canyons
And roils the low hung clouds above
And stirs the low slung clouds

The broken trees who’s fruit is vultures
Bear no leaves and don’t remember
Ever having such a coat or
Sap that rose up in the springtime
To foretell a new beginning
There ware no new beginnings

Their only memory is drought
And brittle stands against the wind
That snapped off branches, limbs and buds
And left but bleached out skeletons
To mark the passing of the years
         The passing of so many years

Through the wounded vegetation
Run barely visible tracks or trails
That seem to start from far away
And end up on the other side of it
With lots of detours along the way
Detours all along the way

There is no safety anywhere
In this barren desert place
Where nothing grows but spiny things
Not tall enough to create shadows
In the unforgiving burning sun
The unrelenting sun

A wounded bunny, colored like the sand
Sits very still, afraid to move
Survivor of a former battle
It has almost no strength left
And not even that much hope
Used up every bit of hope

If only there were den or burrow
If there were brambles with their thorns
They might provide a hiding place
A chance to live another day
To do the things that bunnies do
And live the way that bunnies live

Waiting for a miracle or magic wand
In a place where those do not exist
The bunny, frozen in the hope
The birds will find some other prey
And may not see him crouching there
Prays for escape by crouching there

Suddenly the sky explodes
With beating wings and raucous cries
The thunder of a hunter’s gun
Has launched the birds in frantic flight
And one lies dead upon the sand
So newly dead upon the sand

While the hunter pokes and eyes his prize
If such a bird can be a prize
The little bunny bides his time
Until it’s safe to hop away
So he can live another day
And plan to live another day
ljm

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

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

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

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

Is anyone teaching  A I  to pray?
Is it learning the Ten Commandments?
While we’re making them into mechanical Gods,
Have we introduced the two to each other?

                  ~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~/~

Will a robot prove God is a myth
And assume that throne for itself.
Will a Robot create a different world
And people it with only machines.
ljm

Wasted paper - murdered trees
Must such beauty die for memos
Write a line and toss the page -
One more branch is sacrificed
To fill the dumps with litter.
Copy things no one will read;
The forest is diminished
And all that we have left to breathe
Is the death sigh of the Amazon
ljm

I wish it would blizzard
Building forts is my forte
I live in Nevada
So no hope for a snow day
                     ljm

This year’s Estival
Was supposed to be the best of all
But a Chinese pandemic
Gave us something not to mimic
ljm

This year’s Estival
Was supposed to be the best of all
But a Chinese pandemic
Gave us something not to mimic
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

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

A daisy can never be an orchid
But an opera can be operose.
  LJM

Her translucent gown
was spectacular
but her motive
in wearing it
was also translucent
to the nearby women
who watched the men
falling all over themselves
to get next to her.
The women saw right through
translucence.
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

I find your pecuniary longings
To be so overcoming that
you have become porcine in
your search for it. Wealth is not
some truffle that can be rooted
out of the ground or society.
You might do well to ruminate
on the profundity of this statement.
                 ljm

Walking is my one escape
From the walls I find around my life.
Watching the sun break through the dark
Over nearby jagged mountains
Gives my soul the fuel to carry on.

Those walks and sunrise vistas
Are the leitmotif of
Many things I write.
They paint depression
Shades of pink and apricot.

I dredge my store of adjectives
To find new ways to capture
All I see and wonder at
Sometimes it turns into a song
That only I can hear me sing.

“Then sings my soul
My Savior God to thee
How great thou art
How great thou art”
There is religion in the sunrise.
          ljm

This is my first breviloquent poem.
Hope you think it’s a little bit eloquent.
                 ljm

This is obviously a challenge poem.
I hope to obtain a prize.
It’ll be an obligato tome,
A bit oblong in size

I won’t object if you become
Obdurate in your view
Of my obsequious pandering,
Introducing words brand new.

I must admit that I obsess
On words that start o-b
Considering them obnoxious
And obscure as they can be,

But looking at the obverse side
I do not want to obligate
Your absolute attention
To my somewhat obstinate
Desire for intervention.

They tell me I’m obstreperous
But they are all obese.
Their aim is to obtain my skill
And obligate release.

But I am not oblivious,
I’m observant of their ploys
So I’ll oppose this silly game
And not join with their toys.
           ljm

In this modern age
It would be a sin
To be viewed as sere
But not as sincere
ljm

In an existence described as
Both boring and sere
She’s like a bright flower
Popping up in the sun.

Blooming in deserty
Rubble and sand.
Her fresh petals
Offer enticing perfume.

Her existence belies
The grimness of the surroundings
And provides a disguise
For the harsh reality of life.
                 ljm

After all these years you ask if I still love you.
Are you afraid my heart will walk away?
Do you fear my mind seeks other pleasures?
Why would you doubt what should be evident.

My love for you is very indissoluble.  
It cannot end. It will not go away.
There is no way to break it. It will not wear out.
It will never fade in sunlight.  It is strong.
It will not shrink if washed in tears. It’s durable.

Passing time cannot erode the feelings that we share
Nor dim the memories we’ve made in sadness and in joy
Take comfort in these simple words: We’re gonna be all right.
There’s nothing that can damage us. We’re totally secure.
So put your doubts into my hands and let me mold them
Into something that will reassure you always.
            ljm

I abhor a bore
Don’t you?
I’d adore some more
Thank you.
                ljm

I need a new kind of pill to take
I’ve gained twenty pounds in the last seven months
And I have to stop all those ounces I’m gaining

I want to be an ungainly person
No matter what Merriam Webster says
And no matter how gracefully I move
And how elegantly swan-like I appear

I  desperately need to ungain every pound,
So again I ask:  “Is there a pill?“
                                                          ­ljm

Oh Good God - I’m busted !
Caught in the very act of being caught
By those poets who catch people guilty
Of doing the same kind of wasteful
Thing as I am now being caught for
Brazenly and boldly doing. Sheesh!

But sometimes the ideas hide,
And they have to be pried out
one word at a time.

That’s my story,
And I’m stickin’ to it.
       ljm

It’s not often
that a word is such
a perfect example of
its dictionary meaning.
        ljm

Due to a dentist that I’d like to ****
And years that have put me over the hill
I’m left with a face in a permanent scowl
That says if you cross me prepare for a growl.

It’s all just a part of my very sad story
My expression’s not meant to be minatory
But that is the way the bones and flesh meet
So give me a smile when we pass on the street.

I try to remember to put on a smile.
I have several good ones that I keep on file
So trust me - I’m happy, although I look mad
If you get to know me, I’m really not bad.
ljm

Desolate is my middle name
And desolation my address;
Stranded in an empty-minded
Sea of pistol packin’ citizens
There’s no where left for me to turn.

The cooling breeze is chicken-fried
By over-heated rhetoric
And multi-colored stumbling blocks
Become the favored pastime
Of the masses who find comfort here.

I have no transport close at hand
And where I want to go is gone.
I’m all alone in emptiness
And no one hears my cries for help
In finding some way to survive.
                 ljm

There’s a lot of rigamarole involved
In living in the world today.
The details always nettle me
And slow me on my way.

I do my daily nine-to-five.
It’s such a long commute.
I’m tired when I reach my desk;
That traffic is a brute.

My British colleague peached* on me
For sleeping while at work.
I knew he was a tattle tale
And now he is a ****.

Anfractuousness describes my boss
His mind’s a tangled maze.
My pleas don’t make an inroad
Which has left me in a daze.

I wrote an elegiac tome
And put it on his chair
But he has not forgiven me
He’s such a grumpy bear.

I hope that I still have a job
My friend gave me a tip
He said to kiss the bosses ***
And pray for no pink slip.
                 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

I was so aghast to learn
How many more words
Merriam Webster knows
Than I do.

I thought I had
A word for every need
But then my needs
Expanded and

Roget’s became my friend.
           ljm

They will all be saved

They will all come here

They will all be welcomed

They will adapt to our ways

There will be no bad guys in the crowd

There will finally be peace

God is always on our side.
             ljm

Common people called him stingy
And with his funds he was.
But he was parsimonious
In areas that they never saw.

                Epitaph
True, he never spent a dime
If he could get it free.
He never wasted any time
That anyone could see.

He didn’t have much love to give
And wanted no love back
He had a certain way to live
Laid out in white and black.

He didn’t give and didn’t take.
He had no use for friends.
He died alone and that’s the way
This kind of story ends
                      ljm

On a wall at the end of my street
Are cryptic letters that do not make a word
Painted in brilliant, angry colors,
They create a code I cannot read.

Appearing after a peaceful weekend,
Do they portend a maelstrom due
Or do they simply say “Hello’
To those who speak that other language.
           ljm

As I begin another desultory day
In what will be the rest of my life
I search for a metaphoric nail
On which to hang my tattered hat of hope.

Some pile of needs disguised as leaves
That need for me to rake them up
And leave the yard a little better
Than it would have been before.

I look around and hope to see
Something more than yesterday
Reflected in the nimbus clouds
That hoard our badly needed rain.

No one has urgent need of me
Though I live to know I’m needed.
I couldn’t devise a shining goal
That would point me at tomorrow.

With eighteen years now looming large
I have to come up with a purpose
That’s gonna make it worth the trip
To reach my final destination.
                 ljm

Brands

With their duck tail hair cuts all slicked back
And their Stradivarious long sleeved shirts;
With their half-soled, horse-shoe-cleated Brogues
With the arduously turned up toes,
The heart throb elite of high school’s boys
Walked the 1950’s hallways to their class.
Small town West Coast America on view.

With their reversible, pleated Pendleton skirts
And Jantzen turtleneck long-sleeved sweaters,
The girls eschewed the circle skirts
With crinolines beneath,
Held tight by elasticized waist-cinchers.
They walked in snow-white baby-doll shoes
With never any stockings.

Those who had the wherewithal
To own the latest fashions
And dress themselves in well known brands
Were somehow deemed superior
In all the gracious arts of living
And looked upon with envy-eyes
By those who dressed in J C Penney.

It wasn’t wrong - it wasn’t right
It fed some egos, damaged others
But it was just the way it was
And somehow we survived it.
Today you couldn’t pay enough
To make me wear a brand name
And I still love J C Penney.
ljm

Suffering from the commonest of poet’s laments,
I sit staring at an aggravatingly blank page.
I flip my pencil through my fingers, hoping it will break
And I will have to take the time to go and find a new one.

I can hear the subtle ticking of the clock and it annoys me.
I never hear it when ideas crowd my pen.
I turn the radio to Doo *** -
Maybe that will wake creative juices-
But I just end up singing with the Tenor.

I hit the Mac and try to see what others wrote
But that just makes me feel like I am hopeless
And who said I could be a poet anyway.
I know so little of the forms and rhymes.

It’s time to go and get the dinner going
Fame will have to wait another day.
I close the Mac and trundle to the kitchen
To see if I can manufacture poems in a sauce pan.
ljm

You, my dear, are a ****
You flaunt the fact that
You flout the rules
That other people live by.

You smoke and drink and swear blue air
Truck drivers learn new words from you.
The ones who are not boffing you
Are writing your name on men’s room walls.

You, my dear, are a *****
Society’s precepts mean nothing to you.
A wedding ring is but a challenge;
Another notch on your bedstead.

You pose and you preen
And you bat your eyelashes
But on a coming day not too far away
You’ll finally get your comeuppance.
           ljm

I looked up “demagogue” in my Websters
And there a previous President was
In a smiling photo with fists in the air
Worried the wind would mess up his hair.
I didn’t bother to study the words -
The picture was worth several thousand.
ljm