We should know better
With or without schooling.
If we willfully refuse,
If we disregard the facts;
We are ignorant.
That's below below average.
We made a choice.
A choice is not a chronic disease.
Not like mine.
It was never my choice.
I don't know if it happened
Before or After,
But the manifestation was slow, profound,
And addictive.

It's awe inspiring.
It's wonderous.
I truly believe.
I'm IN.
                                        but

I do wonder.
Doubt creeps in.
Then thought.
Now insight.
Now I don't.
I'm OUT!

The good ole days were enjoyed with ease,
There was less to enjoy because of disease;
There were fewer people to dress and feed
Thanks to childhood mortality.


The middle-class were few and greedy,
Thanks to needs and poverty;
We could find work and be employed,
But tenure turned to workplace injury.

Illiteracy was common,
Innumeracy, our fate,
Due to the high school drop out rate.

Polio and smallpox kept in check
The burgeoning growth of the unelect.

Minorities knew their social place;
Jim Crow was voting in black face.

Heteros ruled the ****** race,
Alphabet people were an outlier trace.

In summer and winter we were outplayed and beat,
With no Air Conditioning nor Central Heat.

Let's leave the past in the past,
Where history belongs;
Where hunger and sickness
Lasted all life-long,
And the poor and ignorant
Were subdued by the strong.

We can agree times were simpler then,
As time came rushing to an end.

When writers stop telling us
What we don't know;
When the musicians pack up
And leave the Big Show;
When the actors stop showing us
How to feel;
And all the mixed Players
Leave all playing Fields;
When the clerics and laity
Stop living in Awe;
And the Body Politic
Stops abusing our Laws;
When teachers stop returning
To teach in Homerooms;
And we finally accept
There are no empty tombs;
When the philosophers stop telling us
How we should think;
And our Leaders abdicate
Because of the stink;
When all the Professionals
Stop professing their Trade;
And we ruminate peacefully
Over an Open Grave;
We will ask,
Was anyone saved.

Set a timer.
Watch the millisecs tick away;
Not so much telling me
How much time is left,
But how much is irretrievable.
Not like waves,
Washing upon themselves and returning.
Not like the hour glass
With sand that once was a boulder
That once was part of a mountain
That rose up from the burgeoning strife of life.
The hourglass, that looks right-side-up
Or up-side-down,
Depending on your perspective.
Not like sundials, pointing in the wrong direction,
And always running clockwise.
No,
Setting a timer
Alarms me
For all the same reasons
As wearing a watch.

I want to write a Christmas poem,
But the muse ain't in the mood;
I look outside, it seems like Spring.
I really think I'm *******.

There's not a flake of snow out there,
The sun shines in the blue;
I believe the squirrels are copulating.
I really think I'm *******.

Our geese stayed North again this year,
Our fauna's still in view;
It's hard to spot the cardinals;
I really think I'm *******.

There's lights strung round houses,
With inflatables on the lawns;
They're out of place,
Look crude and rude;
I really think I'm *******.

I'm not hearing silver bells
From sleighs running over snow;
It's a wonder we call this winter,
In Ontariario.

But... the tree is up,
The gifts well-wrapped
With Love and Best Wishes too;
So, in lieu of surely being *******,
This verse will have to do.

Clothes are for wearing.
Music is for listening.
Chairs are for sitting.
Children are for loving.
Food is for eating.
Parents are for security.
Laws are for obeying.
Schools are for education.
Religion is for wonderment.
Incarceration is for miscreants.
Water is for drinking.
Trains, planes and automobiles are for travel.
*** is for many reasons.
Love and Truth are for everyone.
Life is for living.
Death is for dying.
Death is for living?