F    Fear the water God says you must walk across
A   Allow your mustard seed to germinate
I     Implore the Lord to take your quaking hand
T   Trusting that your feet won’t sink into the brine
H   His hand is strong in yours, so step out now in faith.
                 ljm

She slipped away with no goodbye
No parting gasp or widened eye
One heartbeat she was here, then she was gone.

I didn’t know it was the day
When she would gently drift away-
The nurses said that time was down the road.

For many hours I’d held her  hand
And when I could no longer stand
I sat nearby to read a magazine.

I cannot say with certainty
The moment that her soul leapt free
I feel ashamed and live with secret guilt.

I never should have touched that book
It robbed me of a final look
That might have told me she was on her way.

I had to wait til Laura came
And here her call my Mother’s name
And cry out, O my God - I think she’s gone.

I tell myself it was Mom’s will
To slip away when all was still
But yet I should have stood there at her side.

I might have sensed her spirit’s flight
Or seen some otherworldly light
Instead I idly looked at wedding gowns,

I feel I didn’t make the grade
And ever since that time I’ve prayed
That she’ll forgive the lapse and love me still.

Wherever she is dancing now
I hope she realizes how
My love is wrapped around her like a crown.

And as she starts eternity
With body new and spirit free
I hope she knows her heart lives on in me.

I think about her all the while
Sometimes with tear-sometimes with smile
But she walks closer by me than before.
  
The wisdom that she shared with me-
The training in the way to be
Are part and parcel of my very soul.

I’ll always be a part of her
Through any change that may occur
My love and fond remembrance will not fade.

So though she left without goodbye
To claim her mansion in the sky
I know she’ll save a corner there for me.

And come that future afternoon
Maybe distant, maybe soon,
I’ll hold her hand in greeting, not farewell.

And she will say she overlooked
My sitting down with bridal book
And that she knows I did the best I could.

She knew the measure of my love
And as she joined the realms above
Considered me to be her good girl still.

Then all the pain I’ve hid inside
Will disappear and I can glide
Into my own eternity at peace.          
                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.

Plowing fields of acid soil
Where nothing good will ever grow
I swelter in the summer sun
And didn’t bring some water.
ljm

The Good son died, a victim of fate.
The Other cashed in and created a state
That cost their father who loved them dearly
Everything….or just about nearly.
ljm

She never ever let us meet him
Never told us his full name
We only learned it when she shared
the photo of a document in jest
Where he adopted our Grand dog
And became her official Dad.

She asked if we would dog-sit Bella
While they took a Vegas break.
I know they are going to get married
And we’ll be left here with the dog.

There will be no celebration-
He’ll wait in the car while she comes in
To drop off Bella and rush back out
Precluding any conversation
Or questions about the trip.

That scene will play it’s second act
When they come to get the dog.
Him in the car and her a rush.

I’ll check her hand - is there a ring -
Not sure she’d ever even wear one.
I’ll have to call her father for the news
If I want to know her status.

This is the way I live my life
Shut completely out of hers.
The lovely dog our only tie
I pray that Bella never dies.
ljm

Begging the muse to smile on me
  I pray into a broken mirror
  That reflects the things
  I never want to have to see.

  Hoping for enlightenment
  I kneel before an altar
  Made of wood pulp and bleach
  Where nothing is substantial.

  Crying for a mentor-guide
  To open doors I cannot reach
  The echo of my wrenching pleas
  Only serves to deafen me.

  Choking with the need to hold,
  If only for a blissful moment,
  The chimera of a rhyming prose
  That warms so many hearts but mine.

  The mirror will not lie for me.
  That altar is for someone else.
  The turmoil merely lashes me
  As I spin around in hapless circles

  Grasping for a tiny touch
  Of wonder hidden in the ink.
  Though it isn’t asking much
  I cannot find the magic link.

  It’s not for me the poet’s pen,
  The vision that can shape a world.
  There is a lacking deep within
  Requires my banner stay unfurled.

  Herky jerky hum drum dumb
  The cadence of a new defeat
  Tells me that the time has come
  To urge my lines into retreat.
                 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

This time the pipers will be made to pay
No more popping off three rounds and then skating free
This country has been there and done that
Have we finally heard the wake-up alarms
That something is wrong and we gotta fix it

Everybody - just stop and sit down a minute
Are we gonna be who we know we should be
Or morph into some crazy wild west kind of country
Where someone gets clipped for just crossing the street
And parades are fish-in-a-barrel for crazies

Hold on - take a breath - look around you
We’ve created a society of adult school-yard bullies.
Are we gonna keep standing by, saying “tsk tsk”,
Wringing our hands and looking around
For somebody else to step up and fix it.

Ain’t gonna happen if you just sit and watch.
You gotta get out there among them
And blow a few whistles and slap a few heads.
Start it in Preschool and work up from there.

You can go buy a pitchfork and march down a street
Or write  letters and make angry calls to the Senate
But going to church is a better idea
And casting a vote is the ultimate foil.

Get rid of the men in service to Satan
And search out the ones who reflect who we are.
Elect them to office and make them police
Put them on juries and on the high courts

The dice that they’ve given us are loaded-
There’s no way to win at their smarmy game.
We have to upset all the  government’s tables
And set up the game room all over again.
ljm

My prayer list held a disaster
That was burdened with three more
There has never been a time
I felt compelled to pray for
Catastrophic multiples:
The burned out victims of Hawaii,
The earthquake rubble in Morocco,
Survivors of Libya’s flood deluge
Plus Hurricanes and Tornados
Here in the land that we call home.
And all within the last two months.
So many in such a very short time.
Each one a calamity of people
Where lives and dreams were all destroyed
With loved ones left behind to weep.

Are we seeing here a prelude of
Four Horsemen and Apocalypse?
Have they begun their awful ride?
They carry different banners now:
Not War, but the deadly fires of Hell
Not Famine, but death-dealing floods
Not Pestilence but shaking down tall buildings
Not Death, but gales of immense destruction

Some say there is another Horse,
A Fifth, called Nuclear Annihilation
His banner flaunts the end of time
That snuffs the world before the Trumpet blows.
It’s kicking at the stable door
And we can hear the timbers cracking.

But grazing calmly in the pasture
Is the dappled horse called Six
His banner is the slow starvation
Of everything that supports life.
He need not ride, he only waits
For greed, indifference and sloth
To find the way to **** the earth
And everyone who lives upon it.

Is there any place to hide
Is there anything to do
Any way to make it better.
Can which sacrifice atone
For what we’ve done to our own planet -
What we’ve done to our own lives.
One book seems to have the answer
It’s on the Best Seller list.
Almost every household owns one.
Almost no one ever reads it.
Maybe finally…it’s time.
ljm

On the day I come unglued
And finally slip away
I hope the sky is freshly blue
Without a wisp of gray.

At the moment when my concert ends
And the final note is sung
I  hope I am with caring friends
And no black crepe’s been hung.

I want to simply disappear
To mingle with the wind.
I hope I sense when time is near
To bring things to an end

I’d hate to leave in gloom and rain
And hate it more in snow.
I do not want to cause more pain
Because It’s stormy when I go.
                                        ljm

If a flame begins to flicker
It must be tended to.
But you must not ever
Heap on so much wood
That it smothers the flame
And the fire goes totally out.
          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

This is the story of an aching love.
A hopeless schoolgirl kind of thing.
He was a basketball star player on
The Monticello Mustangs team,
Not showy, but quiet and a little shy.
He was glorious to look at
through the lenses of my brown eyes.
I had to work to learn his name-
it was Finnish, spelled Laulainen.
I said it lots of different ways until I heard
somebody say it right-
Ed     Law lie’ nen
All the bells rang out and bluebirds sang
As I crooned and whispered that magic name
In the quiet of my room.
I never had a class with him-
he was a year ahead.  
He wasn’t part of rowdiness
when passing in the halls
from one lesson to the next.
If he walked past I turned into
A pillar of salt dyed crimson
From the blood that burst my heart.
I don’t recall now how I came to have it
But I had a small creased snapshot of him and
I slept with it under my pillow every night.
I touched it and looked at it and imagined
him touching me.  The thought of him
kissing me was far beyond my wildest dreams
I suspect my mom knew it was there,
but she never said a word
And I guarded it like my virginity.
And my best friend had no idea.
He never knew I was alive-
he didn’t know my name.
I was one of the nameless girls
That are present but unseen.
One day I was sent to the cafeteria
For something the teacher needed.
Standing by the now closed door
Was God Who Walked The Earth,
Ed Laulainen in the flesh.
The shock of standing next to him
paralyzed my tongue.
I dared not look at him
and finally only said “Is anybody there”.
Did he answer - I don’t know.
I was terrified and in paroxysms
of ecstasy. I was sharing the same air he breathed.
He left Junior High for Senior High and I lost track of him.
But I loved him with ferocious fervor and wishful longing
If desire could have made him mine, Midas would have
been poor by comparison.
OccasionallyI think of him and the plain little girl who worshipped him.
Where did he go - how did  he grow - what kind of life did he live.
In ten more years the little girl could have most anyone she wanted
but the crinkled photo stayed in a trinket box for a long,long time before
it washed away on the tides of new loves, real loves, and living.
I wish I could see him once again to tell him the story of
the little girl who chose him to love with all her soul and first flush of emotion.
                                   ljm

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

Like the Pilgrims of history and ancient lore
We celebrate our first Thanksgiving
In a strange new place, far from the home we left

We journeyed over tempest tossed seas
And there were times we feared our craft would sink
But it was sturdy, and it did not fail

The natives didn’t notice our arrival
No stalks of corn or pumpkin gourds
But neither did they arm for an attack.

We found a place out of the storms
That greeted us with drenching rain
And and lit the skies at midnight.

We learned the way across the river
To a place where there was food for us
And those who offered what we need.

In time we met some friendly natives
Who welcomed us to their tribal dance
And taught us the steps, and about the weather

And how to survive in this new land
Of rocks and hills and gullies
That flood faster then you can run

And the season of the long hard heat
When everybody goes to ground or runs away
And only dire need forces you outdoors.

We captured an unfamiliar bird
That looks to provide a decent feast
And we are grateful we can eat

And shelter safely in this new place
That now will be our final home.
And prove to us that God is good.
                ljm

FALLING SHORT  (10W)

The perfect apple-
Always too high up in the tree.



THE GIFT (10W)

I sent him my heart
He kept only the box.




COMMENTARY    (10W)

On days like today, I know
Chicken Little was right.




POLITICS (10W)

You can’t clean up the nation’s mess
With ***** hands.
           



AWARD  (10W)

Life is one big Daily struggle
To earn that crown.




NUMERALS  (11W)

Why must it be only ten -
Eleven’s a much luckier number
      ljm

I am a vintage model car
Sought after greatly in my time
Sleek and shiny
With fancy wheels
Capable of great speed.

Driven hard for all those years
I’m ready for an overhaul.
My engine’s powerful and good
But other things have failed.

My side-view mirror’s cracked
One door wIll not unlock
My turn signals do not work
I need some new upholstery
And a little paint would help.

However when you turn the key
I roar into impressive sound
And get you where you want to go.

No one admires me any more
I’m just a useful tool
But I remember long ago
When I was the new car on the block
And people looked as they passed by.
ljm

Flocks of birds
Across the morning sky
Tell me
I’m not in the city any more.
             ljm

Tippy toe, tippy toe. tippy, tippy toe, toe
I somehow never hear you come -
I almost never hear you go.

Like a puff of smoke
You drift through my life.
Almost impossible to be your wife.

I never know where in the house you are;
Upstairs, downstairs or at the corner bar;
Inside, outside or someplace very far.

You walk like a phantom,
Your feet don’t touch the floor.
You make not a sound when closing a door.

Trained from your childhood to not make a sound;
I need to put a bell on you to know you’re around.
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

I’ve been to the shop
to watch it
being made
unchanging and unchanged.
Sorcerers in snow
white helmets,
reading my childhood
and all the places
I have been
with wooden spoons
carved
from Longview timber
seasoned in regression’s oil,
added limpids to the mix.
See through taffy in the candy kettle.
I once gazed
into the window
at everything
I was too young to buy
then spied a nickel
in the rubble of the gutter.
Found a way to dig it out
and went in.
The gutter went in with me.
Sunlight has a way of hiding things
That glitter in the darkness.
Sugar’s haze
obscures so many
arrow signs
but you can
taste it with each breath,
and some is not enough.
How much to eat
Rises with the tides of time
And falls with its forgetting.
Without another penny
there must be some other way
to backtrack
to the longing sated
and find the peanut in the middle.
*ljm

I have loved and been loved by many
But you have now become my final love.
I loved and lost until I found my way to you
And knew that at long last I’d found my home.

I gave away vast portions of my beauty
And let bits of my soul be cut away.
I came to you in hopeless, faded tatters
And you considered that I was a treasure.

No need have I to seek a shiny new love
Or look for something with a brighter flame.
Yours is the love that I will hold forever
Content within the glow that we create.

There is a vintage saying that describes us
Written by a poet in the past.
It says that you are not my first love
But in my heart I vow you are the last.
   ljm

Footprints in mud or sand don't last.
They fade with time and tide.
Footprints on the heart are
Concrete and somehow abide.
                       ljm

In this foreign, hostile land
Who will mourn me when I die.
In this place where no one knows my face
Who will lay a flower on my bier.
Who will say my name with tear stained eyes
And mark their journal with this date.

In this place I didn’t want to be
Who will notice when I’m gone
And feel the hollow left behind.
Who will long to see my smile
And know they never will again.
Who will cry for me here when I’m gone.
    ljm

Be careful
I could not bury you alone
I’d have to join you in the earth.

Keep well
I could not hold your dying hand
Without a way to take the ill.

Be strong
I could not see you on your knees
I’d have to carry you from then.

Stay happy
I could  not blot away your tears
Without outnumbering them with mine.

Stay close
I could not end my given years
Without you at my side.
ljm

The spot is empty where he sat close by my feet
And gazed at me with loving whippet eyes, but
Not as empty as the hollow in my heart.

His walking lead hangs by the door
Reminding me each time I pass
That I must learn to walk alone.

His favorite toy, abandoned now,
Brings tears where it once brought
Laughter at his antics as he played.

This well loved dog, my mate of many years
Was very like the decade of my youth
With me for a certain special time, then gone.

A candle in the darkness of my grieving
Lights the places where all the good times were
And becomes a beacon for my memories forever.
           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

• Empty vases that will not hold water
Hairline cracks across the floral surface seep.
• Pain that waxes with the moon
And can’t remember how to wane.
• Heavy air that cannot transmit sunshine
But also refuses to permit rain.
• Lotteries where no one is the winner
And the tickets cost a fraction of your soul.
• Detour signs that take you in a circle
And bring you back to where you were.
• Silence where the music used to be
And left behind is just one broken Cello.
• Pieces that don’t fit together
So this puzzle can’t be done.
             ljm

1.  Funny how reality is easy to disguise
     In the hours of sun and busyness
     But it lights up like a neon glow
     In the minutes before dawning.

2.  Fairy tales and other fancies
     Float just out of reach and vision.
     As the sound of hammers down the street
     Drown out the song of morning blackbirds.

3.  There are Pansies with their velvet mein
     Growing somewhere out of sight
     But wishing will not bring them near
     Nor will it make the desert bloom.
                     ljm

I search for the daffodils and only find the brambles       
I listen for the music and only hear the traffic
I reach for little prizes and get my fingers slapped
I memorize the words but they won’t let me sing them

I batter at these stone-clad walls but I cannot break through them
The ladder that I built fell short when I ran out of lumber
I found the only way around them ended in forever
So with this teaspoon I must dig until I have a tunnel.
ljm

I search for the daffodils and only find the brambles       
I listen for the music and only hear the traffic
I reach for little prizes and get my fingers slapped
I memorize the words but they won’t let me sing them

I batter at these stone clad walls but I cannot break through them
The ladder that I built fell short when I ran out of lumber
I found the only way around them ended in forever
So with this teaspoon I must dig until I have a tunnel.
ljm

I never know I’ve gone til I come back
And realize that life
Has moved on for a period
And left me here behind

I don’t slip off to fall asleep
I doubt that sleep is involved at all
I jump to other nonsense lifes
Against my wish and flagging will

Not nightmares, but scenarios
Of things and people I don’t know
Doing things I’ve never done
In times and places I’ve not been

Not unpleasant in the least
Just people doing people things
But in some other universe
That skates around outside of this one

Sometimes I’m still conversing there
When something drags me back to here
Where someone looks at me and says “Beg pardon?”
And I reply “oh, nothing. I’m just talking to myself”

I can't remember where I was
Or who were those there with me
The memory fades as I return
And realize that I’ve been gone

Without farewells or by-your-leave
To visit in a different world
With nothing that I recognize and people I don’t know
I’m moving through a life that isn’t mine

I don’t know how to make it stop
Am I insane or is this real
I have no way to know for sure
I just know it will come again.
                                 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

A poet whose words I so admire
Once turned my compliment around
And said I was his favorite too.
I didn’t have the word for thanks
Quite grand enough for how I felt.
I’ve never been a favorite -
Not in life, or work or even love.
He put a warm place in my heart -
A Cinnabon fresh from the oven -
That perfumes my day each time
I savor those kind words from him.
              ljm

Shimmering with dew, it stands there
One perfect moment in time.
Has it been, or is it yet to be?
                    (lsj)

My bags are packed
I’m ready to go
I’m leavin’ you now
But you should know

My pen has ink
And it will flow
Soon I’ll return
With a happy glow

It’s only for
A 2-week trip
Then I’ll come back
With newfound zip.
ljm

Last night I woke up terrified
Of a visage by my bed
A ghost perhaps?
Do I believe in ghosts?
I never thought I did.
But who’s been poking
My shoulder while I sleep
And moving my big toe.
Where’s the label
From my special water jar?
No one took it
But still it’s gone.
Who moves things
Once they’re put down.

This all sounds like la-la land
But I don’t think I’m crazy
But last night the strangeness
Filled the air
And I was terrified for real.
My pounding heart
Was not a fake
Or maidenly hysteria.
I’m far too practical for that.

So what was that beside my bed
Masculine in form, unmoving,
Not quite opaque or shimmering,
Gone the instant I spoke out,
Crying “I just saw him!”
And sleep was just a memory for hours.

What was it?
I don’t know.
Was it real?
Who can say.
Will it return?
I certainly hope not.
Have I gone bonkers?
I don’t think so.
Am I puzzled?
You can bet your life on that.
    ljm

What do I have left to give
I’m spent and fading like a week-old rose

I gave my beauty to uncaring eyes
Who never saw beyond the makeup

I gave my talent to unfeeling moguls
Who used it just to monetize

I gave my wisdom to foolish clowns
Who read my musings upside down

I gave my razor wit to empty faces
Who never tried to get the joke

I gave my toil to unappreciation
And unwillingness to compensate

I sang my song to deafened ears
And never got to hear applause

I wrote my words on tissue paper
And they left them outside in the rain

I gave my heart in hopeful sharing
And got it back in shredded pieces

I have nothing left to give....but up
And somehow I just can’t do that.
ljm

With their store-bought *****
And Botoxed faces
With Gucci bags and corset laces
They smiled on us like we were Rubes

Who didn’t know the stuff they learned
From whispers at the Polo Bar,
And how some gal became a star
Rewarded for the tricks she turned.

To them class is designer’s names
On things worth less than half their price
They always seek the biggest slice
Of that big pizza known as fame.

They’re always at the big events
When there are cameras around.
If there are headlines to be found.
Their statements seldom make much sense.

I wouldn’t want to be like them
Living such a plastic life
Longing for the surgeons knife
To give them beauty on a whim

I’ll go on my Rube-like way
Without the glitter and the glam
I’ll just stay the way I am
And live a happy, useful day.
ljm

Gloom as thick as Karo syrup drips from a sunless morning.
Despairing winds blow hopeless dust in swirls
That stick to it and function as a dimmer.

The sound of heartbreak echos in the empty air,
As other lives roll by on leaden tires and disappear
Into the darkness of my outer limits,
Making shadows that would glisten if there was a sun.

Someone took a potshot at the sky and it went out,
And shows no sign of ever coming back.

Music is what’s called for - only that can lift a mood-
But it lies shattered on the parquet floor;
It’s only sounds a whimper and a moan.

Comfort food calls 911 to order Mac ’N Cheese
While the stash of year-old beer is suddenly appealing.

The only way to save this day is **** it
And pray for resurrection on the  morrow
When wings of hope will fly
And bring the tiny olive branches
Of a new beginning.
                  ljm

How different would my life have been
If I had kept to the road I traveled.
If I had found a way to step around
The brambles and the broken stones.

Had I toughed out the blistered feet
And kept my eyes focused forward
Instead of noticing another path
I somehow though a better destination.

Had I not ignored the pebbles in my way
I might not have stumbled over bigger rocks,
But I spent my energy on lime in little glasses
And had nothing left to save me from the rubble.

Had I not seen the other path that took off at right angles,
Had I not set a timid foot on it
And found it seemed much smoother
I would have lived a different life than the one I live today.

My shepherd encouraged his lamb to stray
And then never came to find her.
He launched her down a foreign path
And forgot to mention the washouts

Or the toll booth set at mile 14
That demanded almost more in courage
Than I could scrape together,
And I passed it broken and poor in spirit.

That’s when all the butterflies and blackbirds
Fled to other highways
Leaving mine a very silent path
With little joy to reach for.

If I had stayed the path that I first chose
So carefully and so long ago,
What different place would I be now
And would it be a better one?  Who knows.

ljm

The day that I met you I thought that
God had pressed the golden button.
I danced in all the shiny bits of tin foil
That rained down as an answer to my prayer
And spread happiness across my lonely floor .

I never would have thought I had the talent
To impress the cosmos or the likes of Cupid
To feel it was my turn to win the contest
And love from such a treasure that is you.
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