Crabbed old feet - imprisoned
in shoes too small, too *****
and too red.
A bit of music escapes
from some trendy café,
she dances in the wailing cold.
She remembers when
she was pretty.
She remembers being young.

Now a ***** wall
of fears drifts as she finds
her old age has begun.

She is worn down, worn out
by the pain every old woman knows.
The laughing mouth of the grave
waits to welcome her home.

There is nothing that to this world I would add...
but with the power to destroy I would rise up
to rid this earth of housing tracts that voraciously
eat the earth...chewing up all open space.
Squatting there, rotting, no pride of ownership.
And those low income housing high rises, where
curl the humans that have no hope, but great hate
born of their environment and lack of education.
This world rumbles with government wrongs,
users and cheaters **** and trample the souls
of the poor...line their pockets with misplaced funds.
These things I would destroy, allowing the land
to a green place, where gardens would flourish -
and people would share equally, and at last
smile and be at peace.

I am not speaking for others, but for myself
when I want to escape, I take a book off my shelf.
Engrossed in its pages, captured by its tale,
I can be a princess grand or on a ship a-sail.

Walls no longer form my boundaries..
inside a book I can be just who and what I please.
Boredom does not live there, fingers do not drum,
as I listen to bird wings beat or hear a guitar strum.

This world sometimes fails to be a very nice place,
but one can always find a book about a special place.
Or we can learn about those who have gone before,
perhaps setting foot on a moon-flung shore.

A book is a special friend who welcomes us inside,
offering an adventure or just a place to hide.
Books take us away from the mundane and ordinary
as they open up and share with us their story.

Slowly around me senses slip away.
One by one they succumb to the fates.
Self-hatred has engulfed me at last,
beyond my capability to care.
I loose my bowels into the nothingness
that soon will become the kingdom
where my feces-encrusted corpse
will slowly rot - releasing my responsibility.