no choice but midnight left and this is hard
to take when day was joyous and so kind
that we were filled with blessings of good mind
but now few stars and every way is barred
vision is blurred and all the ground is charred
by wildest fire we have been left behind
by some harsh fate in this land of the blind
where all things good have been cut up and marred
there must be wisdom left for each to trace
the proper path to decent human sight
where everyone is worthy of their face
and every action leads each to the right
this is the hope to which we all must hold
that none can purchase though it lead to gold

First name:
A fire red, carrot orange, and dull rust
A dusty-on-the-outside-bright-spicy-and-wet-on-the-inside tuber
A dancer and cartoon
Second name:
Three short letters, one tonal syllable
From my mother's motherlanguage
Joy
Last name:
Hill of deer in German
(Also a Jewish name?)
Sounds like a chocolate sandwich
Makes my name a score of letters long

Reviewing has been the perpetual answer.
To the unclear inquisition
that befalls the people
I have not seen
or spoken to for some time.
But there’s a progress
to the studies
which have accompanied
my mind to see beyond even me.

Thorough repetition
of factual information
in a mundane fashion.
The passion for acquiring
the necessary knowledge
has found it’s self
incorporated
in the daily conversation.

In the morning
a discrete young woman
fashioned with a “salmon”
bandana, leaving the cafe
with green tea in hand.
Followed by the waddling
footing of a child holding
a mother’s hand.
In passing, an adult
repetitively cursing
on the undertones
of their words.

The following day
a man in a tailored suit
talking to himself
with an ear-piece
unseen to some.
A young man
holding his father’s hand
hauling an oxygen
tank behind him.
A young lady with
white complexion,
studying. As she faces
my way her cheeks appear
with patching tones of black.

Reminded daily,
I return to these books,
the flow charts of
pathologies and treatments.

Humbled,
that the view and discourse
of our conditions
are not all the same.

Think about it
The breadth
Depth
And length of it
This human condition
All of the buried skulls
Had smiles
All of the powdered hearts
Loved
We haven’t invented anything human
Any new thoughts
Something close to your every line
Has been said before
Many times
In many languages
We flatter ourselves
Many fold

Aren't  winking stars daydreams
of the dark night?*
each glint in your eyes,
is reborn as a song in my psyche.

He stood on the beach.
The sun climbed from a clouded horizon.
Incongruously, his phone beckoned:
A vibration in the pocket.

Hello, he said,
How are you?
Not good, she said,
Sad and poor.

She told her tale
While he said,
Yes . . . yes . . .
Yes . . .

She said,
You’re all right,
You have . . .
I know, he said.

You have
An emotional focus,
She said.

Just so, he said.
Exactly.

John’s going to be
a first-time father
and he calls the hospital
late in the night
and he screams into the phone:
“My wife’s going to deliver! Help!
She’s screaming! And she says something
about contractions! Help!”

And the duty nurse at the other end
with her cool voice intones:
“Tell me - is this her first child?”

And the anxious first-time father screams:
*“No! No! This is her husband!”