Furry brown monkey
strapped tight to back,
harnessing freedom
from the child;
tan strap wrapped
around mother’s wrist,
a maternal yoke,
circling each other
like earth and moon.

Don’t go too far, dear child,
you are mother’s prized subsidiary;
she does not run well
with heels and cell;
go lay with the dogs
or crawl on all-fours
on polished mall floor.

Are they training to be tethered
tight to authority’s rock?
Restless boats un-docked
during the storm of release which comes
once free of the leash;
no wonder they tend to run.

Tumbleweed,
tumbleweed,
drying in the sun,
which hidden pasture
did you blow in from?

Bands tan and brown,
Crystals sticky white,
I envision your owner
dropping you in the night
under glow of police light.

Under watchful camera eye,
along the rocky terrain,
I see you tumbling down,
torrents of soft green rain,
fruit of the desert plain.

Tumbleweed,
tumbleweed,
snatched from the ground,
hiding in plain sight
waiting to be found.

A parting gift for the road
stretching endlessly ahead
battling sorrow and confusion,
worn down like tire treads,
a reprieve from a life that
sometimes feels like death.

Dead man laying on the bed
in the morning,
Dead man laying on the bed
half-asleep.

Rest doesn’t mean too much
for the weary;
sometimes struggle lies
in every measure of time ahead.

Countenance comes at a cost,
the clock a ticking meter
adding toleration to the tank;
habituates hooked on routine’s
stinging syringe,
undead shuffling through the mall
howling at their kids,
drains the tank dry,
no water in the well;
if you’re not mind-full
you’re mind-less.

So the body becomes too troubled
by the day ahead,
Corpse pose comes before waking;
it’s sometimes best to stay in bed.

I want to be a nice guy,
flower-bringer,
keeper of pens and candy,
love and smiles.

I want to drive without screaming,
to wait without scheming
someone's demise,
to float high above the clouds
without dreaming
of being
somewhere else.

But it's hard, you see,
to speak bureaucratic,
to see through the static,
to laugh and wave as though
life is a turkey day parade.

Because of you.
You, and we and they;
the wrinkles in our characters
that push us away.  
The chaos and control,
the IEDs and "low food security,"
how I wish I knew why we
came to this place, this
sticky web we weave,
snaring each other with
our needs.

But little things mean a lot;
the flowers,
the pens and candy,
the open doors and
open lanes on the road ahead,
each gesture a brick,
smashing through those glass walls
we build around ourselves,
until it all comes crashing down.

Some of us are locked up
behind bars,
waiting for that next fix
of freedom;
just enough rope,
seeking the path
going anywhere
but here.

Some of us are locked up
in airports,
lines long and snow high;
somber, shoeless crowds
hoping for a pleasant holiday,
but heading anywhere
but there.

Some of us are locked up
in our pain,
scared and wounded,
our controllers controlling
access to every narrow path
leading anywhere,
even here.

But while we're locked up,
the system still fails,
the snow still falls,
the wounds still hurt,
battle lines are still drawn
everywhere, and change
can still be made.

Red horizon, a net of mosquitos
dot our skin, robbing our blood
like Sam Houston robbed lives
at the muddy, brown San Jacinto;
we pause there, soaking in history,
as though covered in mist.

Above us, a lone star perches
atop a stone obelisk, a beacon
shining in twilight, bright and
majestic, taller than the battle
was long, the Mexican army
caught asleep, stumbling into a rout.

We are alone on this battleground;
I can feel the souls chasing the
warm breeze as it hides your face
with hair, too thin a disguise, like
Santa Anna’s, humiliated and fleeing,
to be a prisoner of war.

Delayed once again,
I sit and wait through
the stalled, winding lines,
through amateur hour at
security theater,
drinking overpriced water I
can’t even bring aboard.

My name is a red flag;
I become tripped up
in a cause not quite explained,
ideas plucked from fading leaders,
wisps from the ghosts of history;
black-or-white rhetoric bleeding
across their gray domain.

My scuffed shoes carefully
examined like laced explosives
reeking of sweat from war games
long-past;  flying on auto-pilot,
I gather thoughts scattered across
the miles like contrails darting
across the sky, masking the fear
I feel for us all.