Politics is broken
Something is missing

Politics is polarized
Opinions are divided
Clearly we are at extreme odds

Perhaps Vernon Jordan*
Had his finger on the pulse
Of this confounding
Movement years ago

The panel was distinguished
Vernon Jordan spoke  
“In Washington, there is no longer civility”

Elected officials representing opposing camps
Engage in animus and grudges
Without social civility

Without civility
There is no healing
Nor is there compromise

two (or is it three...?) weeks in to the
overnight shift and never have i wanted
   to wash myself in
the golden rays of that nearest                     star
our sun more than i do now as the ineradicable
   cloak of night stretches
itself over these my newly waking hours.  this night
i feel massive but
diffuse, like the ghost of a
   glacier lingering amongst the scablands;  nebulous
and immense,
   like a short-circuited god-machine
cannibalizing itself in a forgotten
corner of the universe.    the sleep is broken, the
mind needs rest.  the mind needs
   rest.

I figured out this game we’re playing
The first to acknowledge
How we used to be best friends,
Before all that stuff you did,
Is the loser.
But what happens then?
What do I get for losing a sick, twisted game
After I lost a sick, twisted best friend?
Because going through that sure gained me some things…
Turned out great, don't you think?

This game that we're playing-
The one where we don't interrupt the icy walls of silence building up,
Especially to remember when we didn't interrupt the bubbling giggles-
It's one designed to be played by two.
It's made for a pairing like us, I see that now.
And now that I finally understand it for how it is,
We have a game to play.
Bring on The Game.

Waking up hostile
keeps my mind
reasonable clear
A reason for existence
When there is nothing left
of all that I once held dear

Righteous indignation
constant as a plague
Brutal vicious sense
of vengeance that
is overwhelming
over me

Arising to do battle
Awakening in force
Confronting all that tells me
to forget it and just go on

I do walk on
Mile after mile
Listening to the thoughts
coursing through my mind

Surely I know
I am then
tasked and able
to recover what
then was mine
And once again
will be my own

Surely I walk on.


-R.

(9.30.17)
-LA

She danced
a symbolic grace
with a look of malice
written on her face

She cast a
lunatic eclipse
of my erratic soul

The Maiden
The Mother
The Crone

It was more than a phase

Just a glimpse into our story-lines
She was the moon
I was the son

The anima
The animus
star-crossed
in our own paths
in our own way

I crowned her in stars,
she shed the scales
from her eyes
and we met
in a fiery embrace

Heaven on Earth
aligned like syzygy,
but only for a moment
We destroyed each other,
Yet we were complete.

The comic convention
has cardboard cutouts of
all of the main characters of
Harry Potter.

Harry,
Ron,
Hermione,
etc.
All motionless in a river of people,
glossy but worn down,
bathed in cold white halogen.

And one by one,
the cosplayers—
the Harrys
Rons
Hermiones,
etc.

Have their pictures taken
with the cutouts,
one cardboard cutout cut out
and replaced with a real human being.

Being human, we
crave companionship,
fear solitude,
crave solitude,
fear companionship.

We try to avoid becoming cardboard
cutouts of ourselves, but sometimes
a retreat into inanimacy
is what the animus needs.

The cosplayers continue to shuffle forward in line
each waiting to pose for a selfie.  Each
politely smiling at the living Harry Potter characters around them,

but not striking up a conversation.

the world is our enmityville
don't bother trying to catch that bus,
the driver won't stop for you.

hissing telephone wires
noisy tea kettles
the lonely ******
you hear through your wall.

people bringing you down
people getting the best of you
funny how saints are born
once they've run out of sins.

this is enmityville
where neither life nor death
seems appealing.