You’re never going to have the cake
Learn to like the taste of bread.

You’re never going to wear diamonds
Learn to appreciate cut glass.

You’re never going to hear applause
Learn to marvel at the stillness.

You’re never going to win the gold
Learn to admire the shine of copper.

You’re never going to be adored
Learn to love just being liked.

You’re never going to live forever
Learn to be your best today.
                 ljm

Four years is a  long, long time
To watch what we’ve long worked for
Erode bit by bit or in big chunks.
How will we survive the watching
While being headed off at every curve
By sycophants who stand in line
To get in on the unearned spoils
Of ravaging ecology, economy
The middle class and truth.

Fourteen hundred and sixty days:
What can we hide in basement corners
To keep it from being broken or soiled.
What can we bury in the back yard garden
To know it’ll still be there for us to use
When the ravaging is over and we can breathe
And try to reassemble democracy
From the leftovers and the cast-asides
That evilness bequeathed to us on leaving.
                 ljm

I’m simply worried about the cruelty of nature,
Or perhaps about the carelessness of humans...
The fires,
The scorched homes,
The injured people.
Could I write about birds and animals at a time like this?
I don’t think so, because they too die,
They too turn to ash.
A single city can be entirely consumed by fire,
And our efforts prove meaningless.

That bumper sticker
is only two lines away
from found poetry

The hell that's other people
Is clipped out of context so they say
Others stick to it's apparent obviousness
Simple misanthropia on display
Like an impossible inner housing ladder
We envy characteristic real estate
Which leaves us only sadder
In our current state
But if we got our desire
To move into someone new
The walls would all unwire
Foundations buckle too
The house would terrify us
It's feel it's sound it's smell
Someone else's intrinsicness
Would become our living hell
So forget all your envy
Cast off your wanton care
It's writ large in the small print my friend
It says
Buyer beware.