A block from the office
the city is tearing down an overpass.
Today they're beating the **** out of it
with a pneumatic hammer
the size of a freight train.
Its pounding
in time with my heartbeat
like the worlds largest metronome
suspended from the end of a crane.

Bang – Bang – Bang – Bang

I keep wondering
what’s going to happen
to all those buskers and hookers
who peddle their wares under that bridge.
I'm not seeing it though and
no observation means no poetry.
No poetry means no catharsis, and
my guts are full of hornets.

Bang – Bang – Bang – Bang

It’s the great whisky **** of the spirit,
the all-encompassing lack of passion;
the longing for old friends;
the desire to lean on old habits
the chinks in something resembling old armor.
the crease, the seam, the fold.

Bang – Bang – Bang – Bang

Misfire on eight.
Misfire on eight.
Misfire on eight.
There’s this pain in my head;
behind the left eye
where the secrets live.
driving and grief stricken.
(misfire on eight.)
The headache has no name, but
it sings a song.

Bang – Bang – Bang – Bang

The ghosts of old raindrops
mock and scold.
Their scorn writ large
on these dusty roads and in these dusty throats.
To tote the barge but not lift the bail
ain't no kind of protest.
Spit in the well and
hope the master draws up that bucket-full.
Wishes.
Still, the giver of life
serpentines through this valley
like the Euphrates did
in that one book, but
it does not matter
since the scythe swings
in such wide circles
this time of year.
We can bring in sheaves until dusk
then fish for men in the morning but
our souls are still corrupted.
Our hearts are rotten like old pears.
I'm so thirsty.

when in the world’s leading democracy
a new president starts his office with

     making life more expensive for average home owners
     signing orders threatening the health of millions
     restricting the publications of researchers
     denying global warming
     encouraging coal and oil companies
     forbidding federal employees to talk to the media
     going on fantasy trips about “alternative facts
          to justify his ridiculous lies
     ordering to build walls to keep out all those aliens,
          like the old Chinese did, to little avail
     issueing poorly formulated presidential orders
          causing confusion and harm and even deaths
     banning even green card holders from entering the country
     filling his cabinet with all the alligators from the swamps
          he promised to clean during his campaign
          people who know how to avoid paying taxes and beating the system
          but have no clue how to govern now that they ARE the system
          and think they can run the govnerment of the USA
          with its 350 million citizens
          as Trump&Cronies; USA, Inc.,
          like their private family husiness for profit

it is high time to seriously ask
what concept
    if any
of democracy he has in mind

The old songs don’t feel right
wrong key, out of tune
somebody wake Sinatra
reclaim these wayward melodies
My Way, New York
New York
seat of the Queen
a gilded new King
everything he touches
Gold

money equals tower
Freudian crystal skyscrapers
the fitting measure
of a brittle man
who has not strength
to speak the truth
recites instead from
a book of fables
the moral to every one
those in glass houses
shouldn’t throw stones

the town crier proclaims
the truth does not matter
no one cares

hold tight that red hat
lest it be snatched
by a rebellious wind
see it now, a symbol
framed in white and blue
rising above the crowd
boots on the ground speak
shiny brass buttons
on a pert military coat
don’t a revolutionary make

the peddler of lies is just
a liar once-removed
“alternative facts”
brash fabrications
with a fancy semantic bow
such a pretty package
such a pretty family
the biggest crowd
in all of history
let the whole world

Witness

this most
perfect union

There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.

Trying to be a few rays of light
And a shade from blinding light.
Trying to be a part of the solution
Though it's easy to unwittingly
Contribute to the pollution.
By the sheer fact of being human
We can at times and by turns
And at the same time be
Culprit and victim
Survivor and casualty.

"The worst things:
To lie in bed and sleep not.
To want for one who comes not.
To try to please and please not."
                 -- Egyptian Proverb

It fades in and   fades             out
The     meandering    song of despair.
     Fading what  once     caused
The frequencies to harmonize.
Random patterns   desperately
     Random.

Her  moods   weave    in           counter
To my intense     focus in   the refrain.
        Our symbiotic   gazing across the room
At the  rhythmic  blue   light  Illuminating
Denials elusive      fingertip touch
Fading into yet another    impossible dream.

The notes are still     laid out on
The well-weathered pages.
The movements    still moving    gracefully
On a near anti-climactic      stage.

All that is   needed   are the instruments
And patrons of means to employ
A symphony    suffering long
On a soulless      listless     frequency  band
Made only to vibrate complete
But is now   caught    in   this      jumbled loop
In a now    out-        of-        sync  universe.

When it seems as though
The human coil is unravelling
And we have peaked
Our REM of creativity
And we seem awash
In half-baked positive negativity
And the whole world seems
To be drowning in self-induced sleep
While even the watcher's
Seem to have both eyes closed...

Turn this thing around
And open bloodshot eyes.
Stop your own unravelling
And delve deeper into creativity.
Strengthen the bonds
Of your own exclusive and non-exclusive spheres.
Allow your peaceful world to dawn
Even though the outside world drowns
In its own exclusive and non-exclusive pool of fears.