It is a rough winter,
and I worry;
Not for me,
cause there is no need
to hurry,
but for the tall thin
black homeless man
who sleeps on
the strip mall
sidewalk
next to his bike
and black
plastic
bags of stuff.

These are
biting temperatures,
artic cold
and I know
many have froze
in the past.
I fear this
winter weather
will claim
the strange man’s
exposed skin
and limbs
while he is sleeping.

But in keeping
with my tight schedule,
a full day
of driving,
exercising,
then working
and driving again,
I do not bother him.
I do not talk
to the rail thin
brown skin
man who is sleeping
on the sidewalks tonight.
I just selfishly follow
the patterns of my life,
only pausing in retrospect
to write a small poem
that doesn’t help
the homeless man
who might
freeze to death
tonight.

We are all
improbable,
impossible people,
preceding
all the things
we needed
to exist,
our ingredients,
our history.

We are
a culmination
of struggles
beyond
our imagination,
wasting
the faith
we place in
religion
and politicians.

We are
crazy,
lazy,
stupid,
violent,
destructive,
devastated,
prostrate­d
to the things
that should be hated,
fools
that fly
so high
on the shoulder
of older giants.

We are
beautiful
creative,
a spark
that made it
this far.

We are
born to fall.

How fast my favored fuel
of rage burns,

pushing me to
ascend higher then
most humans do,

but not in the pursuit
of materiel wealth.

Instead, I prevail,
pushing myself
in the pursuit of
a better me,

channeling
all the things
I see and seek
into the art
that leaks
from my
poetic veins,
while most of you
barely change.

The sun sets
on your repeated
madness,
as you use drugs
to dull this
unsatisfying ache,
seeking simple pleasures
from the things
that others make.

As I strike
the golden core
of who I am
and who I seek to be
you are drenched
in the misery
of your sick
complacency,
rushing to fill an
ever growing hole,
with more
and more stuff.

Scabs crusting;
Feet wrinkle
with an unrelenting
wetness
in cold socks.

The soldier walks
reaching the point
of contact,
a swift interlude
of gorilla combat.

After the gun fight
he collects
small bullet casings.

Then when silence
finally comes at night
he takes them out,
rolling them
through and around
his fingers.

Various
colored casings
of memories chasing
each potential
point of pain;
He imagines
the cycle of sorrow
that each projectile
might have injected
into this world.

Then the soldier
buries the bullet casings
and
finally, leaves the battlefield.

Once again the bullets fly
Once again the chldren die
Once again the parents cry
Once again we wonder why

When will we all stand and say
The problem is the NRA
And all the congressmen they pay
To turn their heads the other way.

We need to all stand up and shout
All together we’ll have clout
We need to organize a rout
And vote the slimy ******* out
       ljm

Where the sunlight splashes through
The barely moving branches of the Magnolia tree
It makes a fascinating pattern on the patio.
Amy Lowell wrote of patterns in a lovely, angry verse
When she was writing about how she hated war.

I bend to trace the patterns with my toe
And focus on the possibilities of now
With monster canons rolling down the boulevards
And goose-step imitators marching by
While in the stands a devilishly evil Buddha smiles.

A zephyr gently stirs the leaves
And all the patterns rearrange again
I look at them with half closed eyes
And I can’t find the symmetry
That I saw just an hour ago.

The Kraken still is held by chains
And though he gushes fire and venom
The patterns on the wall contain him
As he thrashes to replace the sun
With a new one of his own creation.

Amy walked a peaceful garden path
In dappled sunlight long ago
Creating lines that live today.
I trundle down a brick-lined walk
And hope that I will have tomorrow.
                         ljm

We are citizens,
victims of a system
of stratification.

We use fiction
to relate
us to them,
women and men,
social programming
for the progress
to do more then
just began again.

While the filthy fat cats
are raking it in
doing more then
making a killing
by selling weapons
made to ****
foreign children,

making profits
off the violence
while calling us
immoral
criminals.

So, we use fantasy
to cross the breach,
break the cranium
so you can see
reality
through
that fictional brew,

and gain compassion
from the stories you read
or the movies you see.

This is the time
to select a brave few
who may follow you
through

They agree with me
retroactively,
say they
were always
against the hate,

but I remember when
those women
and men
came rolling in
with their rage,

when they said
the immigrants
were to blame,
when the few
who stood against them
were defamed.

It has happened
again and again,
blacklists,
secret prisons,
social poisons,
marches,
white rage,
fascism.
The masses join in
while we keep struggling.

Then when
peace swings
back in,
when the pendulum
is less threatening
I hear them say
that they never behaved
that way. *******!

I’ll bet their grandchildren will proclaim
“I could never be led astray the same way.”
Then make the same about face.