A patriot, a service man
stood proud and let his
American flag fly.

Served his nations
when they called,
distinguished service
and honorably discharged.

A purple heart
with some PTSD,
told his family
the V.A. would
take good care of me.

The president and congressmen
upped the military budget by billions,
and as soon as that passed
went ahead and tried to get
servicemen’s health care cut.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about any of us.

Well, he pinched and saved
for most of his days,
struggling to get by.

Worked very hard
to finally start
a business that was
close to his heart.

Every year he barely managed
to make ends meet,
but was grateful to be
in this land of opportunity
where he could support his family
doing what he loved.

A virus closed almost
all of the businesses
in his neighborhood,cont.
so the government
said they would
bailout small businesses like his,
passed a billed
swore the promise
was fulfilled,
but he never saw a cent,
from the federal government,
cause almost all that aid
went to help out
major party donors.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about the man who runs
a small business.

One kid grew up
trying to live up
to his parent’s expectations;
Got a fast-food job
while he was in high school,
then worked his way through
to go to a good college.
Four years and student loans
got him out in the world
and on his own.

Got a decent job,
to pay down the debt,
but along the way he
became really sick,
and the health insurance
barely covered a fraction of it.
Now he is drowning
in an ocean of bills,
from disease that may still
**** him,
and his prescriptions
are practically poison.

It’s a cold hard fact
that this country lacks
real human decency.
Should have learned by now,
we are just the fatted cows
that are culled to feed corporate greed.

Man, America doesn’t give a ****
about you or me.

I am a dying mirror,
glass skin
melting
and caving in
following the flow
the goes too slow,
distorting
reflections
that I used to know,
extracting
exacting
moments
that stress,
impress
or depress me
greatly.

I see and write
the night’s lite
beauty,
let it all
fall out of me
in literary wonder,

and hope before
I fall to pieces,
shattering permanently,
you get to see
what I believe
is the wonder
of all reality.

It’s a wonderful dream,
two hearts following
similar paths
to our last gasp.

Sharing stories
caring for these
final moments.

Holding hands
on unplanned
walks across
untainted lands;

Conversations,
that create
new nations
and other
undiscovered
countries
of our minds,

silent smiles
that speak
more poetically
than any verse
created by me.

Till, my tired body
goes to sleep
eternally,
and soon after
my sweet lover
follows.

I feel the need to get away to another place in time
I indeed have you on my mind
If I am in the mood for romance I will dance to your tune
I hope to meet you again soon
If I need to spice up my life with mystery or suspense you will me my guide
When I need to learn a historical fact  you will happily oblige
The sky is the limit of the adventures in store for me when I am with you
I have had the joy of discovering you at a young age
You sometimes appear alone
You sometimes come in trilogy's
You sometimes are contained in many volumes
You share with me some sonnets, poems or prose
You are held within a blanket of various colors and textures
  You are at times  in pristine condition or weathered and worn
  You are at times leather bound no matter how you are arrayed
   I have not strayed from my love of the written word
    I will take another look and pick up and read my favorite book

He help me unhinge,
So the rope fell down,
I was saved by the hangman,
Until his noose slipped around.
"Here let me help you" Im certain he said..
But I was fooled by the hangman,
And now I am dead.

On a good or bad day
there is almost nothing
I have to do or say.

I get to wake up
and shake up
my world view
as I observe
all the strange
things you do.

I get to go to work
but if I choose
not to do
that
then I can loose
my decent paycheck.

I could hurt myself
or try to be better.
I could communicate
or be incommunicado
and stay embittered.

I don’t have to be nice,
but if I want to brighten
my own and someone
else life
then I can try.

In fact the only thing
that is not up to me
is that I
do not have immortality.
Eventually, I will die
not matter how hard I try.

Behold the marvelous mystic mind
that divines the truth behind
those enemy lines.

Look closer to the bolder beholder,
at the one poet who told her mother
not to trust her father,
that serpentine swine who dined
on mankind’s wasted time.

Here is another poet with his artistic wit
intertwined with the fine wine
of philosophical and scientific
observations he made fit with
a halfway decent rhyme scheme.

Now, I present with perfect present tense
the ultimate meaning of all of it,
no more flowery prose
ready or not here goes
my genius,

Behold……
oh crap. I forgot it.

Compassion informs my outrage,

Skinny black kid,
super sensitive
playing the violin
for kittens,
pacifist vegetarian
tried to tell policemen
“I am not violent.
I’m an introvert.
I am different,”
as they choked him
then had paramedics
dose him
with ketamine.

Buds of pain
do not bloom
but burst, spray,
and sprain
my brain
that was self-trained
in the art of
kindness and reason.

It takes
less than five minutes
to break a mother’s heart,
to tare her world apart,
to shatter and claim
that they are not to blame
after unloading a full clip
on an autistic thirteen-year-old
who wasn’t mentally equipped
to do exactly what he was told.

Love and mercy
should rule the day
but cops make
violence great again.
Human suffering
is not magic
just unnecessarily tragic. cont.

Micheal Brown,
Eric Garner,
Tamir Rice,
George Floyd,
Freddy Gray,
Breonna Taylor,
Elijah Mcclain,
Linden Cameron,
Jacob Blake,
and so many other names.
There has to be a better way.

I cannot be certain
or see beyond
this sea of grief
as I mourn the
slow erosion of
empathy and love.

I know that
kindness
and decency
still exists,
but violence
and corruption
is far more evident.

The earth is suffering
as are her children,
and no matter how much I wish
I cannot will them
back from the precipice
many seem to want to
stand on.

This could be
humanity’s
last revelation,
with no more good to come
just the mess of mad men
who run us all in
to the burial grounds.

I have not seen
cities set in stone.
Lately they have become
such fragile things
that I wonder if alone
is the way I am
supposed to be.

I have not seen
faces set like masks,
but stretched to laugh,
to sigh or gasp,
in stark contrast.
I have watched them collapse
as the axe
cuts them
from a light grin
to light receding
as pain’s wet reckoning
of regret falls on flesh.

These bodies are not
made of broken rocks,
but of wrinkled skin
made for changing,
exchanging time for
less and more.

The road is infinite,
rolling while I walk on it,
surrounded by
sparkling skies
and lightning flares
flowing in jagged lines
from one star to the next
as their gaseous fury dies.

Small ponds reflect
family happiness
with sweet interludes
of quiet evenings
and adult conversations.

The gravel breaks
disintegrating behind me
in my movement’s wake.

My eyes glaze
as school days
are razed
by all that adolescent angst.

It’s not a cage,
but a strange stage
the pushes me forward
and away as I escape the past.
It moves so fast
that I never get the chance
to relax and look back.

My brother is born.
My brother grows up.
Our highways diverge
but frequently
his road re-intertwines
with mine.

Time cracks eternity
splitting all reality
as red water drops from
another dying sun.

My nephew is born,
and ages swiftly
growing up before I can
appreciate the man
he becomes.

Still, I move on
unable to go back
on that broken cement track.

Tired, I long to rest,
hoping I did my best,
but knowing
I could have been
so much better than
the man who stares towards
time’s inevitable end.

Till, the road ahead
is like the road behind,
and my body breaks,
as does my mind.
Death’s lips parts this
dark slippery chasm.

I long to laugh,
ache for the chance
to go back,
but the highway is a
hungry beast,
and there will be
none of that for me.

People are dying,
screaming and crying,
searching for justice
while others are lying.
People are striving
struggling, and trying
to make others see
the value of their being.

But if we can’t learn to
live with love,
then we will all
die apart in pain.

We can’t seem to agree
on the distance between
what we think
and what is reality;

Cause this isn’t united
these states come
prepackaged and divided,
as corporate playthings
that thrive on people hating.

So, if we can’t learn to
live with love,
then we will all
die apart in pain.

It doesn’t matter the color.
I see sisters and brothers
on every street corner.

That gun that you pull
doesn’t make you cool.
That red liquid isn’t a pool
we can swim in when,
we are already choking
and drowning.

That was somebody’s son.
He was somebody’s father.
She was somebody’s daughter.
Now they are grief embodied.
There will be tears in the wind
from another slaughter.
So, when they bleed on the ground
with sick sobbing sounds,
that’s not just another stranger,
that’s a family member in danger.

If we can’t learn to
live with love,
then we will all
die apart in pain.