Bully: one habitually cruel to others who are weaker
Justice: the process or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals
Police: 1) to control and keep order in (an area) by the use of police or military force 2) to control (something) by making sure that rules and regulations are being followed

Either side -

It is not your job to punish.  Please, remember that.

Neither predator nor prey,
I lie here while morsels slowly filter down;
Loving every greedy minute, getting fat.

The staff was shocked.  I being the
Only patient to ever do yoga stretches
Afterward on the gurney,
My recovery time was cut in half.
Now to deal with this pain!
Writing my Meditation . . .

Should I sit around and think about
how miserable I will be tomorrow
or should I live this day more fully?

On the one hand, lamenting what
has not happened yet steals the life
from the moments of the day;

On the other hand,
there is something to be said for
advanced-planning!

What doesn't **** you doesn't **** you.
It does not necessarily make you stronger.
Does a crack in the wall make it stronger?

The bone heals the fracture.  Stronger -
The pipefitter welds the pipe.  Stronger -
Only work on "the broken" can make it stronger.

Become stronger -

Winter ended up six feet high and weighing down on us;
With a brief sun came the melt, which only hardened everything.
Now, in the continued thaw, we are washed away.
But spring drinks heartily to gain the roots of what is left;
And we happily give way to its hopefulness.

My apiary buzzes.  On the breeze, nectar is wafting
Like an elegant perfume no money could buy.
They are as tendrils of the same vine,
A symbiotic call and response.
Their mission lofty . . .
Life

"I am a poet"
That is what our ego tells us
What we tell others
What others desire for self
What we desire to hear
So they tell you that you are
Quid quo pro
We stroke one another
Manus manum lavat
When I die I hope "they'll" say
"A poet has left us"
But then as now
I will not know it

Give me the words that tell you everything,
Let me start an echo against your heart;
Rhythmic words to bounce and return,
Caressing, Love, until you know.

Like the breath of an infant
Blooming new each day
Sweet toiletries
Fresh fragrance
Life unfolds before us

Natural bounties
Fruit bearing
Baring flesh
Sensory experiences
Gifts given, again and again

Never prosaic
Supreme variety
All for me, for you
We must remember
When taking, to give

The weight of a dragonfly does not break the stem of a flower.

Things I have learned as I am aging:
I am still learning

You cannot survive on dreams of hope
You must have hopes to dream,
Dreams to survive.

You have taken the sleep from my eyes
And the comfort from my chest.

I have great pain, but there is no medicine.
You have taken the payment and fled,

A ruby-red dries
Crusting under your fingernails, as you do.

A blood-orange, peeled, bleeds bright
across the horizon, then slips silently
beneath a wave of ruddy light, so sanguine.

Night falls away to a golden glitter
spilling glimmering light above our heads;
a cricket stretches and moans a scratchy tune.  

We drink of this spilled juice,
wear the sparkles in our hair,  
and dance to the tiny violinist's song.

You were all the world to me in this scene.
You were a blood-orange bright.  
You were the sparkle of the night.

You were and are the cricket's song forever in my ears.

We could hack this beast to death
But then the carcass would rot and stink;
Better it would be to tame it
And teach it to be a sheep.

Just as "we make our beds and have to lie in them",
So do we choose our bedfellows.  The locale of the bed
We end up in should be presently considered.

"I am still listening" (not really, I only cued in on that phrase,
"Are you listening?")

Mama wants me to lodge something in my brain,
that much is clear.  But for the life of me, where would I put it?

If she only knew the vast Smithsonian within my head!
I always was a precocious child.

I stretch out my wing;  
The Pin you placed seems
to be holding.  Your Mercy
was the thing,
which held me aloft
until my heartbreak oft
had been forgotten,
until my diaphragmatic
flight had gotten
ground free.

It is often the only way to clear out non-transient thoughts.  
The eviction makes room for the fugacious pleasures of life.  
Not easily applied with ink to paper.

"Oh, Harry!  Harry is that you?"
The old lady calls to the young man passing by.

"I have looked for you everywhere, but could not find you.  
Why are they keeping me here, Harry?"

And when he pats her hand and bids her goodbye,
his heart is breaking;

For he wishes with all his being to have had her same recognition.

Each second, right here, right now, exciting moments are unfolding as if coming into flower.  Breathtaking wonder, its cadence rising,
modulated and rhythmic, making the heart quicken.

Who, for example, can resist a rainbow or not
thrill to the cataract's roar?  Before God died in your eyes,
He wrapped us in the safety of a blanket made of moral fiber;

And set us on our way to look upon this beguiling and buzzing     beauty.  Life in a candy store, ripe for the taking!
This fullness of manifestation is not lost on one looking.

(In a letter to his wife,  Wallace Stevens, confided that writing was "absurd" as well as fulfilling.  What of reading the write?)
What makes you read on?  Exquisite words?  Or
Exquisite thoughts?  Ah, exquisite words forming
Exquisite thoughts.  At times so beauteous as to be
Painful!  Meter clipping along, tremulous tones trilling,
Making the reader thrill in the "Ah, yes!" moment.
Writing poetry is absurd, if you think about it.  
An absurdity bore of necessity.  
The reading, a veracious devouring
Of sustenance.  The substance of souls poured out.

When it is dark enough to hold the stars in your hands
And caress the mighty heaven's vast expanse with fingertips,
Look up.  That sky is efflorescent.  O!  All those stars
In phosphorescent twinkle, the clouds so effervescent,
Together boil an exhilarating brew.  
My lover's gaze is contagious, you see.  
May it intoxicate you to see design.

Flowers whisper your name,
A breath that hangs around my face.
I want to press my nose against you,
Inhale you deep, exhale your gold dust
To color a moonlit way with the essence.
Love has placed stepping stones, which we follow,
A path, leading into the bower of our night garden.

Venom, sharp as a razor;
The *** in your hand swings
Separating body from head.

The thing wriggles a figure eight;
A caress of self with no comfort.
Life dries rust-red in the sun.

Your white velvet soothes
When the magnolias bloom
Heat parches our lips

I am not in love.  But I am not dead.  
And I can replay thoughts of us in my head.

I can remember the feel of it then.
O, how we loved in times lean and thin.

Our yesterdays can never be broken
With each sunrise comes something to hope in.

With you I could feel again.
I am not in love, now.  But I am not dead.

Stay-

The thirsty bulbs in jars on the windowsill greedily stretch for water;
The little avocado tree, from last season that I potted, droops next to them.

Like me it too is tired of the cold.  I have an aching in my bones.
For spring?  For change?  For what?

The small sounds of the house, the rock of a cradle of trees nearby
Blend with the cold patter of raindrops which, on the roof evaporate

Into steamy dreams and into the night.

I want to roll down that grassy hill,
Again in Mississippi bare-footed
In my ‘petticoated’, polka-dotted flouncy dress,
Sashes hanging untied down the back.

And walk through the fragrant gardens
Of brogan wearing old-maid great aunts;
Hiding half-way behind her dress,
Clinging to the wrinkly flesh of my Granny’s arm.

We loved your ample bosoms,
Dear Grandmothers,
So soft and pillow-like;
The perfect place to lay sleepy heads.

We loved your voluminous laps,
Dear Grannies,
Wrapped in yards of cotton;
The perfect place to rest teary faces.

We loved your full long dresses,
Dear mothers of our parents,
In lengths well past your knees;
The perfect place to hide a shy child.

You cannot straighten out a warped past
You can only choose the straight paths,
Which are now ahead of you.

Analytical-
Here is my blessing and my curse

At the edge of faltering light I meet the eyes that see
      me as only Beauty.

The lonely pines and the sandy soil are warmed by
      the heat of a day now gone.  

Come in now, Honey, sit with me.  
      We are the Youth of dreams.

Star lit sky,

out where the blue begins,
I'm feeling strong in the wings, again;

  And,
     I
       want
                to
                    fly.

Drunk caresses, drunken skin,
Drinking in wanton pleasures;
Blood with fever drink on.

Voice island too far to hear-

Hands throw me down,
Take what is mine,  
Then stumble away.

There is a place

Where moons remember
Romantic evenings shared between us two,
Their passion bed blue with fever.

The Sun is only heated by the thought
      of you and I,

And Stars cry out with desire to wish upon us.

Sun burns away the day, Night is born,
Wrapped in blankets of clouds, handsome lad.

Tell the stars that I am jealous of the moon,
For with the dying of each new day;

Crystal orb with swaddling of mist and light,
Nursemaid that she is-

She attends, O precious delight,
The infant Night!

raindrops collecting
in a bottle it fills me
and yet I am still empty

Forget all those stars.  You are the stars!
And you are the light of eons traveling,
Unraveling trails across time to light my sky.

Soft gentle breezes
Rain paints color on petals
Green smells the grasses
Drifting across many meadows
Your hand has the sweetest touch

So...

Now we are old.
Our girths are a bit wider.
Skin, in places, a little tighter,
In others it hangs too loose.

And yet, you say I am just as beautiful
As when you first knew.
Yes, I think you are still handsome, too.

Oh!  Are we not a pair?
Your hair is gone,
There's grey in my hair.
So, now we are old...

What of that, Love?

-The north winds whistling through the eaves
-Your gritty mumblings in deep sleep
-The rain hitting the bedroom window
-Blown derbies upon the panes

These things brew an ointment,
which I will rub into my soul for eternity.

It fell from heaven
The tree adjusts its own height
Wet roots make for growth

Relic
Artifact
Buried

These are words that describe my love
And you.

When Dona died
The spring grasses yellowed,
Our cheeks ashen.  Her hair became a little redder
In our minds.  The boy and the man strained

Under the constraints
Of communication.  What was the sign
For "everything will be alright"?  "Fine,"
Yes, you should say, "Fine."  That is better.

Better than just, "okay".

Six months on, and hundreds of offspring later,
She is much too languid to even move.

The listless queen bee is stung repeatedly;
Her own children have seemingly turned on her.

Once good and dead she is tossed from the nest.
Merciless? Or mercy killing?

I will leave you to decide.

The stitches pull apart at the seams
Unless the words are undone
And you un-speak them;
Something that can never be.
We eat whole heartedly, parted,
On the barrier resentment has erected.

You flow kinetic
Like a quiet rain - Motion
Leaf in pond water