Three monkeys, wearing stylish t-shirts of death and destruction:
one its eyes, one its ears and one with mouth covered, sit outside.
In the dust and debris of Gaza, monkey bones seem like children's,
where are their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grand parents?
Why do the apartment concrete slabs slant and tilt so?
A pipe gurgles water seeking pressure to climb out and up
into the high-rises of civilization, to no avail;  stray dogs drink warily.
Distant thunder pounds the ground, like giant hammers all day long,
not construction; deconstruction, demolition, immolation, death.
Humanity flees with nowhere to go on this planet of shame
as the conquering heroes raise small skull cups to cheer a victory.

-cec

these winds have no chords tonight
drifting over a prairie of loneliness
knotting corded thoughts of nostalgia
onto tumbleweeds of emptiness

weaving darkness follows dusk
as incomplete eyes silently search
canyon phantasms in moonlit cascade
there faint wisps of fog bank perch

astride a hairy back, climbing mule
rides this; only a monkey's whimpering
Shh-e, Titania, waits there for you
heirloom among musk rose whispering

play, upon deaf, thorny ear cactus
time does stream, grooved, disjointed desire
in this wasteland of a singular tactus
caught in swaying affections in heart's briar

-cec

this next month you will be dead
again, one year so far, far away
though still within this sanguine heart
you stay your love as always

your colored pencils drew an arrow
pierced a hole, one deepest yet
a life of colors formed its white tip
searing memories within love's depth

recalled in fields where wild-roses sway
there catch past scent of once bouquet
manic tears reside within these marrows
in dear reveal on deathless cheeks of sorrow

-cec

Where footling trees do grow
nature, apologies need not know
vistas look back at you with eyes of snow
stones, high meadows, and silver timber knots

purple lupines and fire-**** that blush pink
held firm in gravel hands meet lichened erratics
where mountain's complexion in eon's blink
altered antonym of greens and browns chromatic

Where footling trees do grow
clouds shoot over passes round
to sprinkle, clap showers or to plow flows
marmots don down and burrow to ground

seeds and feathers take to their wing
branches' memories bend to storm's prowl
with constancy of change born on this wind
brutes in caverns and caves utter growls

Where footling trees do grow
a precipice of nascent springs leap
into; pine, spruce, Ericaceae, woodlands below
to gush as creeks, washout to river's slow keep

dappled light and streaming ray divides
fall forest floor with lulling murmur flutters
there bridge a span in wood knock strides
where clinging moss rolls bread and butter

-cec