I wish I'd been an astronomer,
Gazing through my telescope's tunnel,
Into the distant, unimaginable past;
Through dark matter veils,
And swirling, turbulent gas.

Inside hyper-hot primordial clouds,
Hydrogen atoms danced two by two,
To make the things that made me and you.
Through my telescope tube,
I would see glimpses of our future selves,
Wrapped in elemental shrouds of expelled outer layers,
Drifting mid radiating clouds,
Of star babies struggling to be born.

Cut from the same cloth by scissors of hardened steel.
Boiled in the cauldron of bubbling blood.
Borne forth upon the highway of broken bleaching bones.

The conquerors come.
Different name,
Always the same.

Glory, justice, honor and god,
Truth, freedom, liberating tide.
Country, family, home and hearth,
These are the tales the historians lied.
Straight faced...
    ...without so much as a snicker.

What glory in old men's broken hands?
What justice in stolen wasted lands?
What honor in puddles of baby's blood?
What truth in an indifferent god?

One tiny water droplet dances,
On a river of rushing air.
She races 'oer  cumulus cliffs.
She tumbles down the nimbus stair,
And as she whirls mid the frozen flow,
Her body begins to turn to snow.

Relinquishing her liquid status,
Spreading forth her crystaline lattice,
She leaps from the cloud tops of her birth,
Forsakes the sky and drifts to earth.

Now me...
               ...I come...
Grumping down the stony street,
Back turned to the sky, eyes glued to my feet,
And lurking in my furrowed head,
Myriad troubles, worry and dread.
No time to look round, no time to see,
No time for laughter, no time to be.

Suddenly, a glint, flashing, captivates my eye,
Causing me to look upon a small speck drifting by.
One perfect snowflake, like a musical note,
Piroettes, hovers and lands upon my coat.

At once, the black veil distorting my sight,
Dissolves to reveal the truth and the light.
I look up, breathless, for now I can see,
The whole world is dancing and smiling at me,
And my cares, so tremendous a moment before,
Now seem quite tiny and sort of a bore.

I must thank this lovely creature who has perched upon my sleeve,
But all I found was a water droplet, slipped down into the weave.
And on that winter afternoon as I stood beneath a tree,
A small voice whispered on the wind and sighed...
                                                       ­                        ..."Remember me."

Later on, the moment past, now back my daily trials,
And I, caught up in deadlines met, far from thoughts of smiles,
Reached for a pen to make a list of certain things to get,
Looked down my arm at the sleeve of my coat,
                       ...and saw it was still wet.



(For Casey)

I was an old warrior without love,
When Freyja took pity on my soul,
And though the time was late, my friend,
Twas no less sweet the goal.

Her eyes brought me close the first moment.
Her presence my privilege to possess.
I'll see her that way forever.
I'll shiver when 'ere we caress.

When its late and the day has been painful,
And its trials still sting and still bite,
We'll bar the door on our nation of two.
It'll be just you and me through the night.

I was an old warrior without love,
When Freyja took pity on my soul,
And though the time was late, my friend,
Twas no less sweet the goal.

4/13

One small speck of organic matter,
Aspiring to life,
Waits upon the cosmic ladder,
To take its turn in strife.

To take its turn in the living jungle,
Its turn on the cosmic wheel.
Waiting to discover the pain of love;
Waiting to know what it is to feel.

Through an earthworm's gut it travels on,
Into the earthy soil.
Taken up in a stalk of wheat,
It feeds a farmer's toil.

Shat upon the steaming ground,
Once again it tries,
Another step on the stairs of life,
But now just food for flies.

Over and over it cycles through,
Reaching for the top.
With all the time in the universe,
It does not need to stop.

And then one day its atoms reside,
In a cell in my finger tip.
Finally come to experience life,
Within my cosmic ship.

Love, hate, sorrow and fear,
It now has come to know.
Lust, desire, joy and pain;
Center stage in the eternal show.

But I will not live forever.
Soon, die, I must.
All my parts will decompose,
And the speck will return to dust.

But from the dust she'll rise again,
Reaching for the top.
With all the time in the universe,
The circle will never stop.

Random mortar shells in the afternoon.
Sparkling, steel jacketed rain drops,
Glinting rainbows of reflected sunlight.
Plastic explosive seat cushions upon which passers-by,
Rest their weary bones.
C-4 candy bars, nuclear toothpaste,
****** for dessert.
Orphanage flambe', hospital hash, blood pudding.
Human burgers sizzling on a smart bomb bar-b-que grill.
Finger food, toe jam, baby-back ribs.

Bureaucratic double talkers,
Sugar coated body counts,
Colateral stew.
Really deplorable, awfully sorry,
But it was their own faults trying to put on raincoats.
They declined our invitation to the cook-out.
Bad luck to open an umbrella in the house.

Remotely piloted funeral processions.
Radar guided hearses.
Televised in real time.
Precision, surgical,
neutralized, deterrent, disarmed,
Deactivated, stand down, eliminate.

Living pawns on a battlefield checkerboard.
Strategic, defensive,
Dominate, annihilate,
Acceptable loss, public opinion pole.

Listen to the tinkling of sabre blades,
Rattling windchimes,
In the warm breeze of the shockwave,
Accompanied by the drumbeat of detonation and concussion.
Rock...
        ...and heads will roll.

Holy, blessed,
Patriotic, brave,
Courageous, dedicated,
Heroic, dutiful,
Self sacrificing...
                         ...******.

I live inside a small glass cage,
With plastic limbs and leaves.
There is no sun,
There is no rain,
There is no cooling breeze.
I'd love to go a courting,
But there's no one here like me.

My life began in a *******'s tank,
Never seen a real tree.
Probably wouldn't recognize one,
If it fell on top of me.
I spend my hours motionless,
Wishing I was free.

When I came here from the pet store,
There was another in poor health,
But he passed away the second day,
On an overheated shelf.
The Big Hand took his body off,
And left me by myself.

Huge faces many times my size,
Peer into my prison flask.
How nice for them; they're entertained,
But I am fading fast.
I'm just some human's knick-knack,
Inside my cage of glass.

I could have lived in a forest,
And climbed the tallest tree.
I could have had a girlfriend,
And made other frogs like me.
I could have eaten tasty bugs,
But it was not meant to be.

And come the day I breathe my last,
Inside this glassy wall,
They'll take my body out of here,
To the bathroom down the hall.
The toilet lid's my funeral bier,
And I will float in state.
The Big Hand will pull the chain,
And flush me to my fate.