the bankers are in a bind
(hiding in the shame of
loan loss provision
and incestuous debt)
concocting their swaps
and derivatives
all kindly gifts ~ packaged and bowed!
emanating with a shining light
from the reclusive
and impenetrable
sanctum on the hill

seems the emperors have
lost all clothes!
as colorful delusions
of grandeur and glut
chlorinate deeply
memo takers
turn hand
on the penniless merchants
and civilian drags -
slated seniors
and navy jacks
all left holding the bag
as toe cutters
and slithering eels
mark the market

decency in abeyance
and hope gone terribly sour
the members of the sanctum
ratchet up their grip
(their tactics, chicanery
and calculated views
all folded
and pressed
on the waxed
and polished floors)

the finger test
and cross sentiment
are all the talk of the town
(as hedges tighten
and margins press)
pogeys scrape bottom
while narcissists,
cartoon politicians
and super villains
commandeer the front row

heads of state are
sweeping tracks
(like wiley foxes
in the hen house!)
deliberate in their procession
(with a pocket full
of tricks!):
acey deucy
and 2 buck chuck
cup and bean
and vanishing tops...
classic illusions that
have got everyone
spinning their heads!

the goats of the show
are plenty...
merchants of chaos
rewritten in a
perfect second script!
who can forget:
“johny buckles”
or the “one dom skilling”
“gravely” or the
“the good dr. lickatees”
prodigious ponzies
(with twisted boards)
all throwing caution to the wind!

looks like the rants
and accusations
will never fade...
those stone face regulators
will once again masquerade,
fleecing lambs
(with pitches and tales!)
dancing deliberately
like horned centaurs
with their tumblers
and flare

the inquisition
is fast approaching
(and the deadpan
is growing old)
time to scrape
the tempest
from the temple,
and engage the
front lines

The wrapes of Grath adorn the path that slammer klingks had tread
when turning spades in everglades to flosticate the dead.
Along the way the snorbels bay at freebled sprutelned
that boogeymen had once again uphove above the shed.

The buildings tall that housed the krawl are pictured carved in stone
and all that’s left is now bereft of wrapes that might atone
for scabs that feed our wrinkled breed, distraught and lying prone.
Yes, flonk replaces merpeled traces deep inside, alone.

There’s no retreat from incomplete, so durbies never dared,
but streaped instead beneath their bed with franjent fangs unbeared;
they knew the past could never last although the trumpets blared,
for doogies, stripped, were ill equipped, no longer bald or haired.

Like cavaliers with gougejent spears, well triggered for a tiff,
slank vankulures with silver spurs embussed for grimp and griff
(no question why, for “we can’t die”, the oft regleated riff);
with little fuss the blunder bus krunged glimpfly off the cliff
and fetid breet of grim defeat gave Grath its final whiff;
the catapult had one result, all life lay lazelled stiff.

The plastic waves that washed the graves, now homeland for the rutch,
though faring worse when quenching thirst with warples in the hutch
were nonetheless, as frunks confess, so pleasant to the touch
exturbing sinks that watered wynx and onetime life as such.

Like burning blotters slurping waters, skindles sipped their fill
from koozing cracks between the tracks inhumed beneath the hill,
then spawned the spores of Grathic wars that profit from the ****;
their victory tales, like crimson crails, reside in dung and dill.

Those scrilly clouds that cowed the crowds neath radiation snapes
left little less than watercress beneath their coffin’s drapes;
yes, those unborn cannot adorn the pallor of the prapes
so scrundlemun tinge bibberun, we ones who reap the wrapes.

Yes, now-abandoned hetzelspan were once in time embroiled
with merikained that firps extained until the weather roiled.
What more, perchance, can happenstance inflict upon the koiled
when pendlesnips are in eclipse and wrapes of Grath are soiled?

We stood
on the driveway today
at dawn
Candles in hand,
as the boy  down the road
played The Last Post,
imperfectly but with
such a beautiful heart

We stood
on the driveway today
With rosemary
for remembrance
and red poppies too
Pinned to our chest.
as birds flew over head

We stood and  remembered
the sacrifice and courage
We stood and remembered
those who did not return
those who did but left
brothers and mates behind
Those who fell,
those who returned injured
In body or mind.

The dawns gentle light
watching over us all
as we looked to
the left and the right
to see neighbors all
Standing  in their driveways
Gifting our diggers
the respect they are due
for the service they gave
to the countries they love

We stood and gave thanks
as the last trumpet note died
and the kookaburras  called
Australia the nation stood tall

Purposeless this idyll, friend,
This void expanse of rhyme
When you and I and all the rest
Vacillate in time,
We vacillate in purpose,
Vacillate in gain
In intermittent vectors
Of vacillation shame.
Wasted in this interlude
of fumbling, bumbling fraud
When once, had we focused,
We could have reached accord?
M.

We raise them well enough to a point,
These children sprung from our fancy and gray matter,
But they often prove unruly and recalcitrant,
Immune to both wise counsel and outright admonition
And so we exile them to some corner
Until such time as they are willing
To acquiesce to cooperation and a certain conformity,
Where the remain as sullen accusations
And though we scorn them as obstinate failures,
We give into (at least, in our quieter moments)
The suspicion that their shortcomings
Lay much closer to home.

We Are So Lightly Here

“So come, my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here
It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear
Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door
There’s no one who has told us yet what Boogie Street is for”
Leonard Cohen “Boogie Street”


                                                     <~>

my body, my eyes, my entirety, tattooed, with a city map,
here, at this exact place, our eyes glanced, our eyes closed,
who among us does not possess such a living guide,
memories presented in a 3-D versions, constantly edited.

placed your hand on my privacy, bid you enter, not a dare,
more an invitation to risk, become a true love of mine,
share exhilaration, desert valleys that pockmark unexpectedly,
changes us to we, regresses, you and me, post-survivalists cut.

2 gather, modify highs/lows, meet & peaking@peculiar tunes,
ever embraces residuals a sour film upon our lips, a puzzling,
what excites, pacifies, returns us street corner, X’d our map,
glances exchanged across an empty street, seeing each, not.