if every sentence ends in
you don't listen or
I am ******
when does the heart harden
and it no longer matters
when a tree falls
and no one hears
did it still die

In the sullen light of an inauspicious day,
I wake knowing the same story will be told
once more just as it was told yesterday.

Waking to dress, eat, and work,
strong women raising children without
fathers who think it enough to visit

while kitchens are empty of the warmth of old stories
stories of how love survived various hardships
stories conveyed by a glance and smile;

love is found in the curl of the hair on his chest
twirled between her fingers
the warmth of his legs against the cold of her toes
the matching of the rhythm of breath
at the end of another
inauspicious day.

Between
Cars, trucks, buses,
semi’s, RV’s, diesels,
motorcycles, economy cars,
jeeps, humvees, motor homes,
lays a
long yellow line:
an unending parade
of sound and fury.
The wind
In between
Blowing wild and loud
putting out careless embers
thrown thoughtlessly  by drivers
of the never-ending machines
each one bringing me closer or farther
from home
which is empty without you

Between

Cars, trucks, buses,

semi’s, RV’s, diesels,

motorcycles, economy cars,

jeeps, humvees, motor homes,

lays a

long yellow line:

an unending parade

of sound and fury.

Your off
To deliver babies
in some old Spanish colony
to care for the poor in some other land
because the poor here at home
asked for it
should just go and get a job
are lazy
just want a free hand out

after all in america
hard work always pays off
with a house, picket fence,
and chicken in every ***

a soda bomb
on my laptop
an electric surge
a interior fire
all my words
all my contacts
On internet sites
Without landlines
Without roots
Tethered to a cloud
Between the atoms
Which form such things
As paper and pen
Will my children find my footprints
In cyberspace.

Again today
People lined up
Not looking
Not seeing
Faces blank
Mouths shut
A million thoughts
unspoken
a million lives lives
behind the mask