Have spent three years
of mornings
listening to
voices of reason,
observation,
quiet humor,
a spot of civility
amid a scorching desert
of screaming,
argumentative
bloviators.

A concept
created in reason
was great
while it lasted.

I am an old man now whose time has passed,
the youthful heart of fire has long burnt out.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

My generation grew on love and held on fast
to their ideals of change to come about.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.

The lessons born on voices from the past
ignored as if we never had been taught.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

Where anger blooms in fire, stones are cast,
the looting steals all probity, no doubt.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.

My heart grows glad when people join en masse
to turn around what had once come to naught.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

To those whose lifetimes have been heard at last:
a quiet word will win where fails a shout.
I am an old man now whose time has passed.
Pray that a needful message shared will last.

Is there therapy
enough for a whole nation
to heal its schism?

Tchaikovsky heard
the bipolar duality
of his nation
Rimsky-Korsakov
the mediator
between two
implacable forces
Stravinsky captured perfectly
the strident cacophony
of revolution
Shostakovich
screamed his love
for all his people
in the face of a dictator

can you not hear their music?

those rarest times
you leave me
to my silences
i shut the TV off
and i am sure
whenever i go
no music plays

i savor the quiet
as much as
you welcome
the white noise of game shows
which fills the chasm
where your children were

i know as stone fact
that if you go before me
the first thing i will do
after placing
the urn upon the shelf
is turn on the television

promise me
you'll play me a song

Once upon a rhyme I had belief
my life contained some wisdom to be shared
with those around me.  So my soul was bared
to spare my readers pain, perhaps some grief,
or offer up examples good and bad.
Foot by foot the path was measured out
upon a trail of no uncertain doubt
until the sacred truth would be forbade.
On walking down this road none cared to take
the woods throw shadows, light and dark alike
upon new mornings, nights of memories.
This too, this too shall pass.  On this I'll stake
what life remains, in hope in time to strike
a trail through all the vague uncertainties.

it's been said
that testosterone
is the driving force
behind male creativity

so as one is less able
to get a bone
one is less able
to write a poem?