Foment in a sea of green
With torment in its tail,
Writhing in performance
Wrenching in its flail.
Rationale cavorting
In ocean lost to foam
With rank and file aborting
Its chaotic flight for home.

Truth defiled to window
Pride divorced to flaw,
International prestige lost
To reputation’s door.
Pitiful to spectate
Administrators fawn
As those, once great, capitulate
To observation’s yawn.

America capitulates
Sunk beneath the waves
As pinkly, pouting proffers
It tweetingly depraves.
Once great, to teeter terrified
On brink of void’s abyss
I see dead eyes, expressionless,
Lurch on to farewell’s kiss.

M.
Observing, in horror, the demise of something once…. Great.
Taranaki, New Zealand.
25 October 2017

sneaky rays of dawn,
pool of light in drawing room.
uninvited warmth!

Had better days,
but who wants to hear me complain?
My heart's not broken
and I'm not depressed,
but I'd better days all the same.

The kids have been good,
and my wife still loves me,
there was sunshine
between showers of rain.

Paid off the bills,
I'm physically well,
yet I'm feeling far from ok.
Want the end of today.

Maybe it's been written
somewhere in the constitution
     of the waning moon

                                         ― When somebody loves you,
                                               you can never be lonely ―

But, appearances
  to the contrary,
the moon is sometimes blue;

counting stars alone
in a sky full of stars
is just about as lonely
as 'once in a blue moon'
                              can be ―

Like when the night is yours alone
                  or feeling alone
               in a crowded room

hearing Hank Williams moan within your silence
       "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

                                         ― When it's hard to say
                                               you love someone,..
                                               but it's harder to say
                                               when you don't ―

                • • •

A coyote's pleading howl
breaks the silent twilight engulfing trance
cast by the dappled moonlight;
like there's some kind of lonely madness
    swallowing him whole,..

                     as
    these two hollow eyes
                 gaze out through
                                     the chilly,
                                            sobering
                                                 refreshed
                                                   Autumn air
                                                             ­    spilling
                                                                ­  in through
                                                            the open window,

                                                        ­           counting stars ― alone
                                                           ­             in a sky full of stars

                                                       ­             the crackle of the fireplace
                                                       ­            echoes, startling the silence
                                                         ­                of a feigned warmth
                                                                ­          from the other side
                                                                ­ of an otherwise hollow room

and i feel frayed as a hole in an empty pocket with nothing left to lose

the impending dark winter nights are lonesome
            and  linger longer than before ...
  
seeing the empty space beside me
   I remember how it really really aches to just be ...

                                                            *­lonesome as a blue moon ― *

✩                   ✩                        ✩                                       ­ 
                ✩                   ✩                    ✩                           
✩          ­                                                      ✩
         ­                                                                 ­                                 ☽

moonless ― rivers ... 2017

I kneel in a field of wheat grass
catching grasshoppers.

I scoop underhand into my jar, another
at the height of its jump, a third.

I put my jar by the stream, pull one
out and I grab it, force my barbed steel
hook through the belly still trembling.

I cast long loops of line into the drift
below rocks where current
froths and whirls.

I stand mechanically slightly ashamed, uncomfortable on that shaded bank
where trout strike hard.

I let them swim, then hold fast, reeling one, exhausting him, wrenching him
into air, his tail drumming against the sky.

Hanging  from the line
his fat belly flinches.

All his life of riding rapids, hiding
in flats embraced by waters’ fast flow,
by red rainbows in his scales.

I didn’t expect that open mouth,
that whiteness, the gills stop twitching,
the eyes caught in that open stare.

Odd color
of trifling light
Flitting petal
blue-purple-gray
emerged from asphalt's
heated slumber
to lead some airy way--

The road forgot