To cross bridges, let's have faith,
In the ultimate survival of the human race,
Why demonise migrants this way?
We're humans, just the same,
Even terrorists who use their creed
As a mask for greedy power, indeed,
If we spread brotherhood far and wide,
We could cross bridges that divide......

That instant
when everything
equals
everything else
just before nothing
equals
anything else
again.

It’s Grandma’s first Christmas,
And she’s pretty gung-**.
She’s made mental lists,
Now she’s ready to go!

It’s Grandma’s first Christmas,
And she’s going wild.
Nothing’s too good
For the perfect Grandchild!

It’s Grandma’s first Christmas,
And she’s going insane.
We just follow along,
Daring not to complain.

Shop after shop, and
Aisle after aisle,
Wherever she goes,
The shop owners smile.

Store after store, and
Mall after mall,
The SUV is filled up,
But she’s not done, at all.

Her credit card company
Called the last store.
She said, “Just raise my limit,
I’ve got quite a bit more.”

In one store, and out yet another
With clerks dutifully trailing behind,
“Ma’am, is there anything else that you need?
Anything we can help you to find?”

It was Grandma’s first Christmas
She went kind of berserk.
Who knew that shopping
Could be such hard work?

Now Grandma and Baby
Are both fast asleep.
Their first Christmas will end,
But all the memories will keep.
pwl 12/22/16

I think too much, and thoughts
Can be demons carrying fear,
Doubt and pain as they chase me
Down paths where there is no hope
And optimism isn’t even an echo.

In the bottom of It all, where the dark swallows everything
I find myself whispering “I want to go home”
And I am comforted by recalling a house
In a time when I was encouraged to believe
The consequences of not reaching for a better place
Were worse than failure…
A fable for kids that has been beaten out of adults.

Home, the place where I could always go
And they always let me in with a smile.
It's gone now, alive only in a whispered invocation
When the bad thoughts invade my mind.

Maybe you can never go home again,
But maybe its recollection is a seed
To a new home where my role is different
Though necessary to others who may someday
Whisper in desperation so the memory will let them in.

Couldn't reach for the horizon today
Conscious but in a deep slumber
Jabbed by my mistakes refusing to fray
Calmed the chaos down to eery silence

I woke again with the loudest chaos
And the now demonic deafening silence
Gnaws at me from far far across
Consuming my horizon in defiance

My dear
what are you doing?

If I were young and romantic
I would stay,
wondering what changed
and searching my soul for my errors

and you would write poems
about how we "grew apart"
and about how I never "got" you

But I am not young
and probably not romantic

So instead you will write poems
about how unfair it was for me to leave
and about how I was the only one who ever "got" you

You leave me no other choice
because in your mind
"we" have already become a memory

And reality could never compete.

days without you feel like winter
the frost from the window is crawling up my spine,
infecting my brain
i am only left to suffer the loneliness, the bleak white world
icicles dripping off my eyelashes, cold tears rolling down my face
dropping to my knees
it is so cold it is hard to breathe
sometimes, i just forget to breathe

i will never get that summer back, the summer of you
baby, my light,
the days were so long when you were here
i ran barefoot in the grass and kissed you endlessly
my body was glowing, you made me glow
sweat, smile, and love
the summer nights that you held me, i was so warm
so so warm
you are my song, my meadowlark

Dear John,

All my poems are addressed to no one,
And no thing.
You see, I’ve been trying to braid scenes, create spaces,
To hide and for you to seek. A sanctuary, a sin.
We could dream of fortresses,
places to protect us
From the worst of all: ourselves.
But we are here, in this city,
And your mouth is a sky,
Setting, leaving words black.
Every dream is on water,
And every morning, I wake up sinking.

In my dreams are ships, are sinking,
Are floods of skies and no rain,
Are jungles dry and thick and my finger on the trigger
Of a camera, imagining a frame to fit everything in
Side. And outside, car rides on roads closest to the
milky way. Bells do not chime in America, only horns, only
a billion birds fly but have you ever caught one in your hands?

Do you unravel yourself before falling to bed, but only dream in your sleep?