A loaded cloud of debris whirls around
As I remain firmly planted in its eye
There is silence but no peace
The strain of stillness takes its toll
One step in any direction and it all crashes in
Safety is not comfortable
And comfort is not necessarily safe
Teetering on the precipice and ready to fall
No way to escape unscathed
No landing zone in sight
Ready to falter and take the hits
Hoping to make it to the other side
The side where peace resides

There is no way to prepare
for the day that the reality of monsters
lies squarely on your shoulders.

One day
in one split second,
it will never be the same.

Nails clawing through shirttails
Trying to hold on
Desperate not to let things change
Faceless people turn their backs
Glasses shatter half full
Only the empties remain

some people think they got a lot,
when all they got,
are children that hate them quite a lot.

your house won't save you.
your finely pressed slacks won't save you.
your tan, ageless wife won't save you.

some people think they got a lot,
when all they got,
is hunger nonstop.

your bill of rights won't save you.
your republican party won't save you.
your daddy of great renown won't save you.

some people think they got a lot,
when all they got,
is circular plot.

your ****** won't save you.
your tax deductible donation won't save you.
your patience in line won't save you.

some people think they got a lot,
when all they got,
are a few friends at a future funeral.

i can no longer understand how now,
this sleeplessness at night,
when the world is waking in other places
so far away from me,
to the ethereal powders of the breeze,
that paints the morning with its poetry,
as the phantom of the love i love,
causes me to awaken with a cry.

It's going to rain, rain, it's going to rain,
those sleek-silver drops will take me back again,
to those cobbled, winding streets,
the raucous, song-filled pubs,
and the green, the green, the red-brick,
granite and oh! the green,
the steaming Earl Grey tea,
of which i love with a yearning need,
waiting, waiting for me,
on that precious island on the sea.

I

i am so much smaller than you
and i can ever
                            believe...
and you are so much smaller
than you and
i know.

i sit within the winds,
those summer breezes,
some gusty gales, perhaps,
feeling
'the tug
               and toss
of its fabulous force
     rippling
     churning
combing the thinning grey hair on my tired head,
my clothing,
                          so indistinct,
flapping,
                  furling,
floating, --filled with this seen-un-seen presence,
     and i know

a am so small,
and my life so
ludicrous,
like the air
that comes
                      and goes
out of its own control,
but,
                                               i am too small,
and unable
to stop this, its invisible assault.

II


when i am a-float upon
the great lakes, the oceans
the
      rolling
                    rivers
i live
like a tiny slab of flotsam or
     driftwood
sailing
             slowly,
circularly,
(oh-so!) quietly
                                running,
reeling the peeling painted oars of my boat
against
the grainy flashing surface of the waters
                                 rumbling,
                                                                                  rolling
                                                                                       away
this insatiable yearning
to go wherever it takes me to go, but
i know
              i am very small,
and cannot control the eddy's creeping currents-
constant-currents
thus
          submitting
my wayfaring self
to the
unfathomable.

III
__

these trees towering
                                         above me
around me,
the sapling,
the blanketing
                              (in my lifetime)
                                blooming branches
creating
an emotional, outer, physical, inner, spiritual
                              dwindling
like the leaves left shivering beneath the cold winter's frost,
once casually
                falling,
                              dropping,
drying up around my soul
slipping
into silent winter slumber,
to awaken
                     again...
                                    --and then!
(to the dismay of my self-enlightened discovery)
i see
how small
                                            i am
only to return again
from that brownish-moist
soil-bed
                like a seed
beneath
                  the ground
                                        never sprouting,
only fogetting,
the once and always forvever
and ever
the natural
insignificance
                                                                 of being.