Life's not so bad
until just before morning
when I see a dark man
driving a black Cadillac
take a cigarette from his lips
and throw it out the window
watching it go all to pieces
all over the road.

Here the horse munches the grass
little knowing the trots of yore
for time when lays the bricks with curse
unhinges the strongest door.

Here the horse is tethered to feed
little hearing the neighs of past
for time when crumbles sows a seed
grows new order from soil of dust.

Here the horse lazes in sun
little seeing the shadow's growth
for time when ends a period's run
buries in the walls a lover's oath.

Here the horse walks in a round
little feeling the earth's spin
for time when shrinks the highest to ground
kingdoms fall in heaps of ruin.

This man resembles shadow, his world is bleak and grey. But I would give him all of me, just to make him stay.

He is my favorite fascination, and I told him this from the start. Cupids arrow cursed us both, when it broke on hardened heart.

I never did deserve him, the truth now scattered in what we've left behind.  All the beauty that he is, but whats most magnificent is his mind.

I long to brighten up his world, and banish all his sorrow. To give him back what he's given me, hope that burns for a better tomorrow.

Never could I put to words, just how he makes me feel. He whispers that  he's just a ghost, but to me he's very real.

Do not look sadly
at days gone by
days below days
like a river
running under stars

do not listen to priests, the blues
or that bitter veteran fool
of some past war claiming to miss
a piece of his soul, his only disease
is the rotting of an *******

the poet that forgets
in remembrance of you
is a lunatic's left hand man
a gun in the hands of a fool

on Sundays he is the acolyte
of the moon, night following
other nights, the eyes of the blind
the stranger who  lusts after wives

his tool the bitter root of a persimmon tree
and every time he draws his pen
like a knife and drawls his soliloquy
I say forget him, let us drink again

for poets do not cut their fingers
at cheap joints like ******
toasting one another's death

they do not eat the cheese or hoard
the rich black bread of their poetry;
the true poet gives it kindly to the poor.

We had moved from the suburbs out into the country.  To walk through the woods, cuckoo woods, for the village for groceries was the way.  By that lane a field of cabbage plants rotting, passed by holding breath, or holding nose.

I forever remember the smell, imagined the slime, the slugs.

If dusk was falling, and fear involved, I ran quickly singing hymns loud for safety. Sadly it was not the lane that hurt me, it was someone else. Hymns don’t work in my case.



One time we swung the shopping basket between us. Lost most of the potatoes, and were sent back to find them.

Nothing was packaged, left loose in the basket weighed by the pound.



Kale was curly and cheap; we shredded it from the stump for boiling.



By now it is more acceptable, even fashionable, already chopped, stump bits intact and probably good for us. Yet I miss the whole leaf, where the memory formed.



No more do we boil it, softly warmed and stirred with butter and scattering of pink salt.

Slightly addicted these days, is it the taste of the memory that holds me?



Each day the good feeling is slightly spoiled on throwing the unnecessary packaging away, damp cellophane bag. I miss Mum’s basket, yet I do not miss the cabbage field.



sbm.

Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?