It’s easy to be the biggest wheel,
Passing out the lollipops
Stolen from the little kids.

It’s not difficult to save the world,
When the whole thing fits
Atop your breakfast table.

It’s not so hard to be a hero
When your uncle runs the war
And stations you in Malibu.

It’s a cinch to win the prize
When daddy buys up all the tickets
And mom will draw the numbers.

What’s really hard is to grow up
And be a man of principle
A man who does the thing that’s good
Even though no one will see
And crowds will not shout out his name.

To be a man who does the work
To see his vision through
Without expecting miracles
To make his dreams come true.

The world is waiting for this man
It may not even be a male
But someone with a Hero’s heart
Who isn’t bought with promised gold
And only cares to do what’s right.

Hopefully that person will be found
Before the final trumpets sounds
ljm

I remember
sometimes

her voice would quiver

like paper lanterns
dancing in some
foreign nighttime glow

I fancy
sometimes

I knew that sweet tremble

at a tea ceremony table
beneath Chinese skies
many years before

it first caressed my ear

I remember 35
Like it was 25 years ago.

I had hair then.
Was in my eighth year of teaching.
Had four children at home,
A dog.
A cat.

Unbounded energy,
Exuberance,
Passion,
Conviction

Stress fed my bones,
Canceled my fears,
"Work harder
Before the night falls!"

Night is falling.
Sixty is nearly here.
I am nearly gone,
And yet you linger,
A soul standing in periphery.

35.
What is the point of living
If the past cannot be left,
And the present stand still
To let us dress each other's wounds,
Forgive our others' sins,
Let us, limping as we are,
Move toward the center,
Again to begin?

Sometimes I drink by myself
like too many do, maybe you, too
when the wind blows like it does
here on the coast when it’s clear
and the light of dead stars come
down to swim in your circle of blood
while thinking back about the sisters
of boys I used to run with, oh, you know
we’d give our trigger fingers just to
touch them again, but the war keeps
seeping back into us like the poison
that pours into our rivers and creeks
from long gone cotton fields now paved
where the clouds of those days
are all that gets weighed in at the gin
I swear, there’s a pattern to all of this
like the weave of a tight skirt on a girl
who I once fell in love with in school
I went all crazy from watching her twist.