To the streets

In mob and crowd

To the streets

In angry throng

Let chants and pounding din

Lead the crowds

To pull them down

Tyrants and thieves

Those that lead us

Steal elections then deceive us

Fires lit in the people

In the streets

Let them see us

Let them hear us

Let them fear us

March

March

To the streets

I have since been accused
Of stealing words from my muse
Thoughts and strains
Not my own
Rhythm and rhyme
Verse and poem
Stolen from the purse of a muse?
I am speechless

He thought he won the race
Until they moved the finish line
To a cold November Day
With a small crowd gathered
Crunching winter gravel under their feet
Whispering hushed pain to one another
On the cold and frosted green

Bark at the moon and bite at the sky
Moon and fire lighting your eyes
Wild at heart
Wild in body
Clothed in smoke
On the fourth of July
Concussions booming
Powder burning
Sparks flying
A dogs hearts yearning
Chasing rockets, dragons and Lions
Brown muscled beast
Born to baying
Work 'Til dawn
Then lay down yawning
And dream the dream
Of the hunting dog tired

We were young and beautiful
Ivory Gods under the sun
We invented love and passion
The world of things to do
We created as only Gods can
Living in the wind and the waves
In our idle time, in dark past night
Wet kisses spent
We quietly changed the world
Through well spent meaning
and whispered revolution
Our Hubris surpassed
In the end only by our age

Why do you lie

While I sleep?

Telling things

That I should keep

Oh, Drunken pen

Trailing ink

Telling stories while I drink

Where are you

When I wake?

Gone, gone

But the ink

Just the ink

On paper traced

nothing left

But stories, Stories,

To be told

In the dark

Never, ever to be shown

in the light of day

But drunken pen

Why do you,

Yet sober stay

So far and  far away?

Somewhere within the dark dreams

I think that I knew what death was

Day was night and turned to sky

And the night was lit like fire

Sleep was awake and awake was a dream

And I was over and under water

I was haunted by the faces of all those I loved

Voices echoing down the dimming hallway

Seen yet gone in fading sense

Shadowed vision in cold and sweat

Burned and burned beneath the covers

And then the ride

In red and white

The hearse not yet

But low and long, oversized, with tires singing

Humming their song while he called my name over and over

Sirens sang too, not steel and drum

But sweet sirens, enticing

Swaying down the blocks

Stoplights passing, windows flashing

Slatted light blinking beneath dark buildings

To end, the end

In sleep

Rested sleep

No fever burning

Rested sleep to awake from death

From dreams

For tomorrow

When will it end?
Plague blown on panic wind
To fall on man and dirt the same
Dust and droplet in fogging haze
To end perhaps
Perhaps in shame
As fools fly to evade
Ever comes the big charade
The show, the tent
The acts unfold
Bought and paid
With tickets sold
By men of means
To foster all their evil deeds

One moment of twisted sight

Fading noise,and dimming light

Dreams to end, mouth agape

As hope and life turn to night

Fading,fading,fading

All away

Until darkness quickly

Rules the day

Thwarted ocean now behind her

Salted wind and low voiced murmur

Creaking beam and riven plank

Breaking waves in dark of night

Under load and straining rope

Slowly slips into the harbor

Stealth and darkness help to hide her

While anchor drops and warriors ready

‘Til deafening roar on ‘Morrow dawn

Bring death and war to our shores

No one here is set save you

Save yourself or perish surely

Now is the time to put fear aside

……. And fight

Echoes from the past

Bounced off of dim

Tobacco stained walls

Make their way

Into my room

Pastel green and blue

Mute the sound

Of

Poker chips and laughter

Chairs scraping the floor

Clinking and choking

Din and loudness

Makes me

Just as happy

As the room full of family

It chases the darkening night

And childhood fear

Like whispering smoke

Breathed from the dragons ’round the table

Downing whiskey and stories

Laughing

Not knowing

But singing sweet lullabies

In the dark

Singing down the hallway

Sweet goodnight

You’ll laugh until that’s you

And that cop has his knee on your Irish ****** neck

You’ll laugh until you don’t

When the ******’s the cop

And he’s on top

Don’t laugh

Until it’s war

And your fighting for blood

Ready to die

And ready to rest in the land

And send your enemy to Hell

Don’t laugh about the death of a man

While you still shop at the store

Just around the corner

We are still civilized now you know

And that could still be you

And that cop

Soon the country will cry as I do
And their tears will fall like rain
But they won't dance in dry dust
To feed the thirsty green
They will fall on bloodied streets
And on freshly filled in graves
Rivulets to rivers
Growing in the rage
'Til torrents flood and bridges fall
And all is washed away

When the pale blue sky

That blankets the gulf

Turns rippling red

In orange hue

And thunder rumbles

Without abate

To the shelter!

To the shelter!

Before it’s too late!

Steel doors and canned goods

All below ground

Tuck and cover and pray

You don’t hear the sound

Is the world that insane?

How far have they Gone?

Say another prayer

And hope you see dawn

Winter has come

And

The rain grows colder

The days are short

And

Darkness comes to dinner

Cold surf

Cold wind

But tomorrow

The sun

Will be back again

And now it's here

In rippling current

Spread in waves and moving torrent

Soft wind spreading

Slowly moving

Pollen

Pollen

Yellow

Floating

germinating

Strains

O­f disaster

Breeding swollen fruits of death

By the bushel

By the basket

Breathe

Breathe

Breathe

Breed

My lungs breathe cold earth
I am Still
Beneath the roots and moist soil
I am dead
for now
At least
To you
Buried by your words
And cold hate
I am chilled
Under the weight of the clay
White and unmoving
And to you
That way I will stay

Passion unbound

In forbidden love

Lust spilled and love found

In the cold tile hall

Beneath the stairwell

No walking here

Not for now for sure

Passion and skin

Beneath the stairwell

Poor Larry Worley

His world turned topsy turvy

Didn’t have a clue to the crime

A wife with knives

And ******

On her mind

Laid poor Larry

On the sod for all time

Gone but not forgottrn

Poor Larry Worley

His wife’s hair all curly

Was stabbed over 21 times



Sorry to see you go Larry. Godspeed my friend

I have become the hard earth

Uncaring of toil

Clay without thought

Cold and unforgiving

To drown the roots

Clog the shovel

Dry and become stone

To hammer and chisel

Earth, Earth

I have become

Earth

Echoes from the past

Bounced off of dim

Tobacco stained walls

Make their way

Into my room

Pastel green and blue

Mute the sound

Of Poker chips and laughter

Chairs scraping the floor

Clinking and choking

Din and loudness

In the fading distance

Drifting to sleep

Makes me

Just as happy

As the room full of family

It chases the darkening night

And childhood fear

Like whispering smoke

Breathed from the dragons ’round the table

Downing whiskey and stories

Laughing

Not knowing

But singing sweet lullabies

In the dark

Singing down the hallway

Sweet goodnight

That child of my youth

Lies now in her bed

As she always did

Covers pulled up to keep her warm

But she is thin and frail

As she was as a young girl

The safety of the bed though

Evades her

As it always did

The things underneath

Still haunt her

And have become real

Those shadowed horrors from below

Have come to claim her

Tubes are snaked like vines

Around her

Invading her

Covering her like an ancient ruin

Finding every crevice to crawl into

A young woman

Now old

The road maps on her skin

Traced not by time and experience

But by tragedy and chance,

Cruel blows that glanced

From her guarding arms

She will never know laugh lines

Burned into her skin by a million smiles

Those smiles will never come

They will only be bitter sweet ones

smiled by us

As we talk about old times

Laughing into the night

With worn grins

And Tired eyes

And the lines will be etched

Into our faces instead

What we measure in decades

She measures out in minutes

Hours are years

And days stretch into decades

Every moment is now measured into a cup

Metered and parceled

On a glowing monitor

The poor girl who never had a chance

Still doesn’t

And never will

It is such a shame

She is such as a sweet girl

And she has such soft hand

Rack the slide

And drop the round

Here it comes

It’s going down

Voting day

Every way

From the rooftops

And In the streets

Pack the courts

Then run like rats

Pack the courts

No going back

“Let me be clear”

He declared

“Nothing is off the table

For next year”

You have said it

You have said it

Pack the court

The dead don’t hear you

While they lay in the grave

Their parts done

‘Til the end of days

Sometimes you call

And sometimes you cry

But the dead don’t hear you

No matter how hard you try

They’re dead and gone

So let them go

Cold and and bone

In the dark down below

We bleed liberty

Her lifesblood

Spattered and pooled below

Grasping reason reaches

In vain

To understand

The meaning of the pain

With weakened limb

And fading brain

Quickly darkening sight

Closes in

And

She succumbs

Without a sound

And fades away

It was a brief respite

From the hard work

And harsh horrors

Of the daily routine

It was the warm comfort of home

Steaming into the cold night

Wraiths of scent and flavor

Drifting through the enemy air

It was Shared ’round low fires

That reflected off the rolled wire

Glinting like stars in the darkness

Amid the raucous din of the mess tent

The clank of tin cups and mess pans

Replaced that of rolling treads

The rumbling death

That hunted down the small groups of men

Praying under the Aspen

Laughter, that medicine so rare

Played like wind through the camp

And peace for a moment was here

The food, always to be remembered

Was the only reminder

That they were still men

For a night

If only for a night

They could sleep

Dedicated to my Father Lee Roy Jarrett, 359th Co. engineers U.S. Army, 1941-1946