Grief came uninvited  
through my open doorway,
fear and rage ignited  
they made plans to stay,
and I was dazed by the
lack of foresight.

Then sadness came bounding
in loud and bellowing.
It consumed every opening,  
chaos was ensuing,
then it left without a trace
of what it was doing.

When the storm had ended  
someone held me,
they were kind,
gently she attended  
and peace filled my mind,
as love comprehended
the hurt it left behind.

For in grief's disguise,  
love had always been  
opening my eyes.
To what grief could mean:  
That love never dies.

©️Lizzie Bevis

all those doughy-eyed, snot-nosed, putty-cheeked, frog-mouthed, bull-headed, cowardice faces: they were born
without sorrow
until they hand over their lives
to someone they truly don’t know
and they do it with a smile
and a gleam in their eye
and then they get sandpapered down
and polished in something
they did not choose,
their freedoms get capsized and
they don’t know what they’ve done
or why they’ve done it.
they become enraged and frustrated
with themselves
but they do not know where
to project their anger.
they can’t do it at home.
they’re too afraid of what they might
lose: their own self-made agony
so they take it to work with them
or to the supermarket or to the restaurant
and aim at anyone over any little thing.
they can’t do it at home.
those poor deluded fools careening towards
the only elusive dream that matters: happiness.
some of them are regretting decisions,
some of them are stewing on mistakes,
some of them are plotting their escape
all that sacrifice, all that pap
all those easy words
whistling like stream;
“I love you.”
“I miss you.”
“I want you.”
“I need you.”
all of it: for nothing
all those droopy, sullen-glared, turkey-necked, warthog faces everywhere;
laying in cold beds, coddling empty blankets,
****** in sorrow, contemplating the error of their ways,
alone with themselves, alone with each other.

If it's true,
and you know it is,

sister, money don't grow,
on the tree of life, oh, no,

toil and pain and sorrow,
those grow,
on the tree of life, outside

these walls of mud faith bakes,
and builds heroic as formal evidence,
by grace alone, the blessing on America,

Oi, where Chickasaw whole life awaken dance
hey hey yahweh, same dance same sacred idea

We got StarLink in Chad,
oh, when can we read the heresies
personal savior level lucky prayer
online, free from press, amen.

All amenable Kilroy, was  here.
We pulledhisassoffhisthrone
with thunder words,
and other nonsense
We learned
to read, and write
shocking truths no slave should know,
money, has all kindsaansworn NDAs
there's the tie, the business
religion, re attaching
ligamental forces,
pending dooms
used
to make the peasants pay
for joy,
ceremony
of the veterans, paid
with joy,
ai, we die…
all we celebrate,
and all we worship Ares,
and Elon's trip to Mars, and Hermes,

tricking me
into telling a preacher story,
truer or not, it is too soon
to say, stories
sometimes hook up
with old characters,

brought
to mind using ceremonial reminders,
put on your respected veteran medal
of wit,
let this mind be
in you, this military mind, eh
strut your stuff, you patriotic consciousnesses.

A bubble
of belief engulfed the big parade,
the ompa blat left behind.

We blinked. They won.

I came away with an alienated mind,
to this day, I am happy to say,
that has made the difference,
I lived, while others just died.

My mind is a
scrapbook of
tattered
memories and
ghosts that waltz to
sullen Cohen
songs in my heart.

Sometimes
it hurts
like a
rotten tooth.
I have a foul and
electric
taste in my mouth.
A metallic bitterness.
There’s a febrile and
pale stranger in the
mirror that cowers
back at me.
Tears, like candle wax.

I used to
try and drink the
pain away.
Chase worldly
pursuits, like a
dog at the track
after that mechanical
rabbit.

As I get older,
I try to practice
wisdom.
I got off that
dirt road to
damnation Island.
We are in this
carnival of ****
together.
I seek a higher love
and try to ease another's
aching,
a pursuit worthwhile.

As the crow flies, my farm is less than two
miles from the Willamette River that flows
deep and brown through the fertile valley
of the same name, in Northwest Oregon.
From my porch upon a hill, I have views
out over that valley looking east and north
and as fall comes around, early morning
light and dampness transfers hints of rich
river scents, this added moisture paired
with the absents of wind pervades and
manifests an enveloping shroud of silence,
with low moving banks of slow white
ghostly ground fog that renders striking
visual contrasts to the landscape, with its
stands of emerald evergreen trees, and
autumn dressed orange and yellow leaved
varieties of deciduous ones, along with
sculpted brown newly plowed fields.
Another of Nature's own fleeting ever
changing painted canvases that never
disappoints.

One must rise early at first light on these
chilly morning to witness this seasonal
panoramic scene, but it is always worth
the effort. And what the heck, I'm retired,
I can snap some photos and always crawl
back into my nice warm bed to sleep, or
merely cogitate on what I've been witness to.

When stories
of scars told
in one town,
become this legend
in the next, retold to grow
on, even as we listen and find it told
a better way,

So  long ago we know,
so long now,
nobody knows,
stories be told to comfort,
none should be used to frighten,
or terrorize in the darkness, true,
holy terror
first we can recall, or was that
in a movie?

Maybe Fantasia, when you were three.

When was a way
to make a tie
to an instant
to which our social entities loosely anchor,
global Disneyification, animating old devils,
using Voltaire's rule
for adult conversations,
define the terms, regarding evil for good,
about Nuclear War,
at the final judgement of us all,
my side submits the work
of Annie Jacobsen, and offers the next 72 minutes
to a journey
a parsa, in contemplation

at least that long,
through a story
thought after knowing
a minute's worth
of ever after,

once one is old enough,

the trouble one causes,
when one dies, shan't change history,

the kids could make it from here.


A parsa is a distance walkable in 72 minutes.

72 minutes is how long it takes
for human influence
on the future
to be unthinkable,
for 30 thousand years…
after the first launch
of a nuke from anywhere, really.

No nation ever wins nuclear war.

People are like leaves
Some have been stepped on
And some have just fallen
Some have been taken by a child and cherished
And some left on the bottom of the leaf pile
Forgotten

People are like leaves
So different from each other
Some older
Some younger
Different shapes and sizes
Colors mixed together

People are like leaves
Some are misshapen and not picked up
And some are declared beautiful and get straightened in a book