When I think back to thirty years ago
My memories are black and white with a little grey snow

I see no color when I go back to that time
I know it was a rainbow, it was my time to shine

to be at home in the desert
is to enter silence
and wait for the silence to speak

So the doctor said her foot
Was broken.
Yes, I like a woman tough,
But it's been two months
Since it started hurting.
Suppose few things are as
Subjective as pain.

I rub my right hand when it's
Cold. The one I crushed
Between two containers.
Crane driver was still
Drunk from breakfast;  
Suppose few things are as
Subjective as responsibility.

We're all scars. Broken bones
And bruised hearts.
Embarrasing memories and
Bitten bullets.
Walking on broken feet until
They heal.

Suppose few things are as
Subjective as
Growth.

stem cell words
from the cellular wall of the
poem birth canal
narrows, twists,
even double helix's,
doc-prof diagnosis
with perfect, absolute uncertainty,
denotes the presence of
stem cell words

"all your writes,
gestating make-believe,
word smythe
premium cocktail concoctions,
gospel soul post-viewed
rocked and roiled
still and always,
unflinchingly personal

singing and simulcast
the unique
internal combustion,
that removes the pollution,
of your
unflinchingly personal..."

mother necessity
delivery of a
Caesarian cut-them-out

says me
cut, excise them,
take them,
them newborn-baby stones
give them
a good home,
my DNA upon them,
my only Jacob blessing,
that they get
goodly tented taken

let them spawn
more and others,
will love them
better just for knowing
even never seeing them again,
still and always,
whatever they
write on,
still and always,
I'm in them,
they will be,
unflinchingly personal,
even if signed by
another's name....

Educate our hearts before we speak our minds.
For it is we who keep our shadow company,
not our shadow ours.
I try to catch the latest news,
Lest otherwise,
I become rolled over by it.

And I heard the hiss
Of venomous spinners,
“We must arm ourselves to the teeth...
**** them all! Bomb them all!”
Such comely pundits,
coated in makeup and gloss,
to read incendiary scripts from teleprompters,
to incite and heap bricks of lead
to tip their side of the scales of Justice.

Smoke speaks before fire,
then soon after comes the flame,
and then the wind of sentiment
to fan the inferno.

But who will speak low and soft of love?
Where are the healing eyes
and empathetic ears of poets past
who dipped their feather pens in compassion
and caressed messages, as
balms for our wounds?

Why do we taint the inherent scripture of mankind
with rhetoric and reaction
by those who seek to study the chaff
and not the wheat of a communal harvest?

Our great leaders have gone softly
into their nights…
battle weary
and brittle by war.

So if a bomb explodes at the Café I plan to visit today –
who will avenge my death
and who to see to the seeds I'd sewn
for compassion and peace?

Pray not these men and women on prime media payroll
and those of privileged wealth
and inherited power
who climb the backs of soft singing nightingales
to cackle the message of crows.
I’m none of these.

I was born of the womb,
and crawled to a walk, and thereon
through forests, and mountains, and shores,
shared with all things visible.

My heart rises and falls and races with beauty
and aches with darkness.
I fade, feeling the color run from my hair
and the suppleness of my skin
to dry and wither.

I watch my children quiver
like green leaves on the lithe limbs of youth –
fearing their fall,
but adoring their verdant energy.

All man is by nature equal
before the rise of knowledge –
and as the kingdom rises within each human being,
who will he take for a sage
and who for a fool?

Lo' we must focus the light in our hearts
before we speak from our darkening minds.
For it is we who keep our shadow company,
not our shadow ours.

There is poetry in my blood.
Some blood in my poetry, like that
Fresh from a broken heart
On a band-aid lip kissing
Old pain into fresh pleasure,

And promising truth, comfort and
Loyalty within a blizzard of rose
Petals and cotton candy dandelion,
Being easier to believe than anything
Else ever.

There's poetry in my blood. Cells
Red as new love; white cell soldiers
Devouring infectious threats; poison
Lies and painful heartless behaviour
Such as infidelity or being broken

Up with, in a bed at night; in a
Blossoming garden, or worse,
With a pen in hand, mid-love,  
Mid-poem; mid-
Heartbeat.

Delivered to inviting hands
With one breath;
Then sculpted in a parent's arms
To feed on sweet caresses,
Inhaling life with one kiss,
As prologue to her song;
She'll carry on.
Mature. Secure.
Bound and forged
In infant iron.

She hears, listens, then deduces,
To apply their teachings
When cut loose;
Lessons she will reproduce
To set her free,
Unfettered by mediocrity.

Like the Sphinx,
She crawls,
Then stands to think.
At times, we know,
She'll forget
Steadier hands
Held her *****.
She will fall again,
Then stand and walk,
Perhaps with Pride;
And should she fail,
She knows she tried.

First steps lead
To stage or field,
And honours
On her battlefields;
Protected by
Parental shields.

She'll receive
These life-long gifts,
Then start anew
At age six.
If she walks alone
She'll find,
Friends can make
The walk divine.
She'll filter them,
Some in, some out;
And trust a few
With her life;
Avoiding others
She's learned aren't right
By socializing,
Not over-protected
Or compromising.

Her early years
Sow the seeds
Of second breaths
And good deeds;
To balance friends
With second looks:
The cover can't
Disclose the book.

Most of all,
She'll understand
She grew and grows
With helping hands.
And when she stands
With womankind,
She'll extend
Her hands
To all mankind.