Stress
A cat is strong & proper
just look at its legs
long and strong
fast and enduring
even when at rest they are readied

yet the cat was not built to be perfect
most cats would like to eat
properly
(trust me on this
I've interviewed enough of them)
with a knife and fork
but they just can't seem to get a grip
on those utensils,
even with fine claws
it just won't happen
no matter how hard the try

so when they get
FRUSTRATED
and claw the crap out of the furniture
try to understand that
they are a stressed species
and need special understanding

and another can of tuna

Painted in tempera on illustration board
Don't know things by heart
They will only break you
Use your mind instead
How as a teen I wanted to die
But could not remember why
And the junkieing of america
Crack baby penquins walking on thin ice
A child being beaten on a bus
The driver runs then, drives away, does nothing
How do you spell deedy

Painted in brown acrylic
over pencil on wood paneling
She's the queen of visa
Knows all the tricks with cards
She said " I like to swim in the rain"
Alligators laughing, like on that Sendak drawing
"Yea" I say "I like the art in" and it was still hot
Dogfights for doughnuts just to shake a stick
The most out of place person I ever met
Was that surfer dude in Michegan
And when I stopped the chair cough
Then maybe I did do the world a favor
And the judge said "Can you prove that
this woman ***** you when you were
a two year old?"  And that is when
The tears began to fall down every cheek
of the jury.

At the laundromat today
I witnessed a little girl
maybe two or threee
years of age strapped
into her stroller and
playing a game on her
smart phone

I thought to myself
what a spoiled little
toddler she is because
when I was her age all
we got was an egg
filled with silly putty
to play with and we
couldn't wait until
Sunday so we could
roll the silly putty over
the comics and copy the
images on to the funny clay.
silly, wasn't it? Mother would
worry that the ink from the paper
would be harmful to us but,
we didn't care.

Today's toddlers are much more
smarter than we were, heck when
you think about it, their phones
are smarter than we used to be

much more dangerous too.
all they have to do is drop
that thing and lookout! Now
it's leaking radiation. Hey moms,
how do you like having a phone
so smart now?

limbs of the fallen
upon a funeral pyre
failed offerings to a careless sun
the sacred forest lies in ruin
trilliums no more to flower
silence mocks the land
no songbirds in the bower
spires from the wreckage
rise verdant and aflame
magenta resurrection
wild and untamed