The sky gifts the ocean raindrop kisses, embraces it with shimmering sunlight upon its ripples.
The ocean returns its love
with affectionate reflections
assuring the sky of where its heart is.

My daily motto
Your getting older now-
So why care for others gibberish,

Why worry for what's not to worry
I'm getting old, remember tommy?
Other's will always dislike or like you
Who cares and why worry?

Here, and over here -
The fortunate sons

Those who made it home
To fields and hills of native tongue
In the soil their people toiled
- They listen quietly when we come


There, and over there -
Beneath crossed lines too many

Still - they man the trenches
Along the Marne and Somme
Below the woods of Belleau
And the forest of Argonne

No sonnets in a foreign language
Rendered where they languish -
The distant rest far and away
In a cold November grave


We should remember
Here and there
The old lie -

And the young.

r ~ 11/11/14

kind of in awe of
you Life is this ball of
rolling momentum
too and why not stop
and smell the roses

making wind chimes
from hard knocks
a city rose on a
dilapidated block  I
draw the moisture from
the heir She pulls jewels
out of coal mines like me

born on third but feels like home
Didn't even have to hit it
the path was      well    
warm   and        well      lit
but no one reads any more
So the bitter is lost on the sweet

in love but yet not
In love the brush strokes are
small slow whispers of friction
the distinction comes in step
ping a way through the
looking glass
Now I cherish the clasp
She lives in my lap

realizing that I love her

Waiting for the sea she sits
writing with her fingertips
setting down herstory on the sand;

waiting, with a wistful eye
watching for the rising tide
wondering if stories can be drowned..

Arbitrarily flung to instants of moment
Scattered free in the gleam of the eye,
Cast with abandon to scattergun’s chances
The wondrous pearls, I’ve occasioned to fly.
Together with detritus maudlin to moribund,
Together robustness’s wrongness in rouge,
This crimson lusting with anger’s green jealousy
In scattered intemperance now fawning to rude.
Spindrifts of coarse-ness in calico fabric
Flooding of richness and redness in heat,
Shadings of blue in palaegic intemperance
Now flung to eruptions of laughter complete.

Marshalg
28th September 2015

Loneliness walks hand in hand
With he who strides the long way forth,
With he who walks the path alone
Through solitary’s East and North.
Firm his sinewed hand so strong
That steers the compassed vessel back
Bridging pitfall’s chasm wrong
Through deft manipulation’s track.
Guiding they who pledge good faith
To fall then, by the wayside, weak,
Then in bridging disappointment’s song
Instead, he helps them to their feet.
So long that night of solitude
With stark decision’s crucial stack
When none would share that brutal loading
Weighing solely on his back.
Lonely is my leader’s song
Lonely as his dying day,
Would that he could share a word
Who would understand his way?

M.
17 October 2015

I am splitting wood
with my brand new
just bought yesterday
Eight-pound maul.
Gripping its very cool
red fiberglass handle
I whack with abandon.
I am transformed.
No longer just an aging
refugee college professor,
I am become
a mighty woodsman,
a handsome lumberjack,
PAUL ******* BUNYAN!
Only now, my back hurts.
I need a cigarette,
a drink and a nap.
Transformations,
they always come
with such a price.
  - mce

Glass of ***** windows hides a multitude of sin.
Ain't no way you're looking in.
Never gonna let you see.
Secrets hide behind them panes.
Black eyed girls and blue eyed boys.
Can't see through, just hear the noise.
The clock face atop the tower is seen to show thirteen.
Listen very closely, you can hear the children scream.
Foreboding walls of council caverns.
Manor houses.
***** parents hang in taverns.
Or slug from bottles without tops.
Cider or *****,
Who knows what.
It's a closely guarded secret.
Behind those filthy pains.
Never ever, hell on earth.
Will I, the secret poet,
Escaping from the closet.
Ever go there again.
For I am not a drinker.
Never ever was, because!
Instead, I am a thinker.
(c)LIVVI

Words seem to fail me, as I trudge on through...
The deafening, stinging wind and hailstones are flying
I haven't direction, but not for lack of trying...
Praying, reading, crying out...what else can I do?

Quench the nagging thirst that comes quickly with each expression
Quicken now a sure belief when all falls down around us
Bring to mind the fervent feelings from when love first found us
Heal this mess that stains us all; accept contrite confession

Heal this mess of pain that these stark storms have brought
Heal this tragic tangle pulling friends and family under
Soothe and salve the sickness and the strange and savage plunder
Do I really need to ask it, with all that death has wrought?

you never see a ghost
except inside your fear
what you see at most
is an apparition unclear.

flickering lantern lights
casting shadows on the wall
were your childhood frights
in the half lit nightly lull.

you couldn't tell them lies
tales that grandma spun
glowworms were ghosts' eyes
that closed with morning sun.

they made a place in your head
broke all your resolves weak
eerie patterns moonlight made
wind's howls in bamboo's creak.

when the nights came
clock ticks gave a scare
you had to believe in them
you knew they were there.

are they now all dead
fantasy of child's mind
monsters below bed
footsteps heard behind?

some fears you still own
strangely hold them firm
and when you are alone
seek grandma's safety arm!