City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
                                     span
                        across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
           the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.

I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.

We're gonna trickle past addresses
                                                   now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
          I can taste it now.

Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
                           spans
              all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
                   teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.

I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.

A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.

We're gonna flow right through these boule-
                                                          ­          vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.

I too have taken a two month leave of HP.
I don't think anyone noticed. That is how it is on
Social Media, words that live only for a day or
two turning to cosmic cyber dust and forgotten
as such.  As if only the now, the new matters
and perhaps only to their creator. Like a fleeting
thought in our mind, here and then quickly gone.
Replaced by hundreds or thousands more.

"Old Poets never die, they just fade away."
But I for one Joe Cole, will miss your thoughts
and words. As I too fade away, take my leave
to write another book. Loved my time here
as I'm sure you did too.

Be well sir, be well all you creative people.
All the words matter as do you.
Sincerely signed,
Another old poet.

yellow petals, turning to the sun --
perhaps they think I fear their beauty

1976:
black boy, black boy,
we shot you --
nothing left
in your small, shiny black shoes;
your tidy school uniform

2013:
white boy, white boy,
we will not shoot you --
nothing right
in your big, broken black shoes;
your untidy school-form --

instead, we will not teach you

white boy, we will not teach you:
English is for black schools --

Madiba, Madiba:
the jacarandas of Pretoria are dying;
the mimosas in the bushveld
have taken the Acacia tree's name
and beneath the soil,
the roots of South Africa are still
growing, exactly the same?

Blackened bird upon my brow;
Corvus Christi on my crown:

Could there be, oh could there be
Balm, sweet Balm in Galilee
Wild Roses grown in Gilead
White Daffodils on Sharon's sea . . .

The shores, the shores of Sharon's sea:
wingtips lapping cedar beams
leave no trail of murrey'd deeds;
tapping shoulders with your blades
rustling in the hollow reeds,
among the Seals of Solomon
Two Lovers, lost in Lebanon,
rose, to where the Stars of David bloom --

She in gules and He in vert . . .

Sable Bird upon our brows;
Corvus Christi on our crowns.