Towers burn and
the graves give up
their dead.  
Biblical science.
Too hot to protest about
climate change.
Good Friday ghosts
clank chains in Westminster.
Lady Liberty's ****
fondled by tiny orange hands.
Nail bombs, acid and
vehicular homicide.
Armed police guarding Starbucks.
The vanishing hope of
finding a cure, or
even getting a doctor’s appointment.
Bees disappearing and
rivers running dry.
Refugees vilified, oligarchs welcome.
Fox playing
the most gorgeous HD footage
of The End Of Days.
Rage and no rage.
Fake news and alternative facts.
The criminalisation
of irony.
Inevitable Quisling betrayal.
Nihilism as a punchline.

Time to birth yourself
from the
Womb of the Echo Chamber,
maybe?
Please stop trying to pretend
that anything about this
is normal.

In my yard stands a tree
tall and sturdy
lone like a hermit,
regal like an empress
her roots dug deep
her branches touching the heavens
peeking behind the skies veil
She has a coy dalliance with the Wind
Sometimes he comes tickling
her tender parts, whispering
sweet nothings in her ear
Overall she is still
Still....................
like waters without ripples

She stands upright
brooding over the saga of struggle
from a sapling to a towering giant
Indeed a tryst with destiny!

Under the summer sky
braving the smarting beams
she remained uncomplaining.
Below the thundering clouds
bearing a thousand needle ******
she stayed nonchalant.
When the wind swept across
bending her branches in all directions
she stood on firm feet unwavering.

She tells a tale of struggle and survival
She had stood there before I was born
Now she displays every scar and every stripe
on her knotted bark as a proud trophy

Sometimes I feel her pain
when wet and dripping in pouring rain
or scorched in the sun’s fiery rage
Yet she holds an umbrella over all
who come to her in sun and rain

Don't worry, love,
I know those gates of stone
stand firmly
to guard the most precious parts
of your soul.

I am not here like the others;
not as a warrior
planning a siege
or a strategist
plotting to knock them down.

I respect your walls too much.

You have fought in more wars
than most;
you have been betrayed by more loves
than most could survive -
your walls are the result
of your scars.

So here I stand before you,
my weapons laid down,
my intentions spread out before the Sun,
with nothing in my hands
but open palms,
asking you
to let me in.

Show me, love,
all those terrible,
beautiful
wild flowers
growing in your garden -
I want to do nothing
but paint them to remember,
and carry their fallen petals
safely in my heart.

Open up to me, please,
my love -
I am already yours.

If I were  painted a long time ago
in say Renaissance times, two dimensions,
I might be a saint-
or a revolutionary-
I was stroked
of harsh defiant bold colors
when portraits were cast in canvas
bronze overtones of gesso and black only
washes of contrast
the tone built up
with layers of translucence
and bone colored washes
and hung on a wall and try though I might
the egg tempera
earth tones deeper than
olive oil on a live model
wore off
and  the canvas warped
the wood grew skewed
and the museum had me
cremated
along side
a dog and scattered in the
woods
just as I had hoped