I spoke with two people at the party Saturday.
A young police officer, short-haired, fit,
chiseled face who had two young children.
He felt constrained by the law, without discretion
to question mopes (perps) aggressively
or to let go those who were obviously no threat.
Even at a family function he seemed straight-backed, correct,
devoted to his role as our protector (and his children’s)
yet I thought perhaps too deeply in debt, indentured
to the rules and laws of legislators and destined
to be disappointed (or worse). I thought his courage
and devotion (to whom or what?) would surely
be poorly repaid and that this lesson
was necessary to ready him with wisdom
for death or further living. I worried like a brother
about the unpredictable dangers, even terrors,
he must daily face, and the pleasure he takes in facing them.
How will he return to the fragility of family,
of the soul alone, after wielding the force
of the state, the blind, combined will of us all?

Next a business exec, retired from a well known
global investment firm. At first we talked about
the lush beauty of the northeast compared to the arid west
(although he loves every inch of the west, too).
Then somehow we got beyond light conversation
when he complained about the perceived decline in values
for instance how the Ten Commandments can’t be publicly
displayed. He said we can all agree on God
but I said I have a mechanistic view of the universe
(although the unknowable always sits just out of reach
of the known). I told him my dad’s theory of reincarnation,
a good man and a corporate seeker of God also, whose shoes
I could never fill unless I swore belief in a supreme being.
No hard feelings. Then he told me the story
of his dying friend, an atheist, not even a deist
like the founding fathers, who opened his eyes for the last time
to correct the exec’s misperception that now he’d meet his maker.
Having exceeded the bounds of acceptable conversation
I went looking for my children. Nothing more to question.

If electric bicycles
Are not technically vehicles;
Then they are subject
To the same rules, protections, and treatments
As that of pedestrians & traditional cyclists.

If electric bicycles
Are technically vehicles;
Then they are subject
To the same laws, accommodations, and treatments
As that of operators & traditional motorists.

You can have elements of either
Without the full embrace of one,
But this creates confusion.
Not only on the part of the individual,
But legislatively & judicially.

If you don't wanna understand it, don't.
You're not held to comprehension.
If you don't want to agree, don't.
You're not held to a thing in discussion.
If you don't want to think, don't.
You're still liable for your actions.
If you don't want to speak, don't.
You're still liable for its consequences.

Personally? Don't have a fit,
I don't give a ****.
Smell the flowers!

His dry lips are smiling,
I see life in those eyes;
that died long ago
His vocals, always lying
Now talks about the truth of ages;
advice for times to go.

He is in joy;
This man who suffered alive,
Happily follows death's ploy.
As if his soul is gonna revive.

This man is not strange,
A profound reason, in his smile.
He will now meet her, of his age,
Whose demise, he rejected in denial.

How cruel she was
She left him in hurry;
Unable to mend death's laws,
Her hopes, he could only bury.

Low-born, lowly,
lumbered, plebian
mushrooms, steal and
take, their final gasp.
 Before, a fastly approaching,
 Babylonian Avalanche. Where, lined up, thinly, ivoried-blue, are petulant
       pigs. That, usually; sniff out, lick, arr-
             est and lock up; black, brown and
               white truffles. The unguilty

              are apprehended. For false,
             treasonous reasons. So, who
            can blame the fungis, for wanting
       to seize, the cult of vulturous swines?
     By; the scruff of the system, and br-
   eak their snouts, until, their peccaried
      feathers are ruffled? The champignon,
     were; hewed and chewed, aplenty. By;

    hoggish, gnarled teeth, curled trotters
    and lavish appetites. But, those that  
   fell, to the Babylonian Avalanche, will,
  eventually, become a Mushroom Cloud.
 They'll float over, the 50, fuzzy, boarish
 corpses, to stellar, toadstool plateaus. When, their; final, pixie dust; they bite.

© poormansdreams

Are we free anymore? I’ve asked myself lately,
Sure, it seems so, but a few things are shady,
Well, more than a few; in fact most of our lives
Are controlled and well-governed like dogs kept on lines.

Last week my own neighbor was caught and arrested
For owning plants curing her cancer, depression,
Science speaks truth but the Law doesn’t mind
Their care is your sentence, not the healing inside.

We’re ruled by fear, I’ve come to conclude
It’s limiting consciousness, limiting mood
Forced to pay off all those bills in the mail
Or they’ll haul you away to community jail.

It’s not always this way—look at it like this,
We do have a large sum of freedom as kids,
We can eat, speak, dress, and play how we please
Before the real world arrives, subjugating this ease.

“Get good grades in school, be quiet, and listen,
Better cut the tomfoolery or end up in prison,
Repent all your sins or you can’t go to Heaven”
...Are drilled in our heads by the time we reach seven.

Yes, it is fear; now much clearer to me,
Yet sadly too subtle for the masses to see,
Some of us hope that things will get better,
So we dogs may finally stray from our tether.

Four centuries pass, yet echoes remain,
A woman’s cry met with silence again.
Laws were written, inked with good grace,
Yet bruises still bloom in the same hidden place.

The chains are less visible, but still they confine,
A whisper, a threat—unwritten lines.
Justice pretends to be blind and fair,
But turns away when she’s gasping for air.

She flees, she pleads, but where can she go?
The system still asks what she should have known.
“Why did you stay?” they say with a sigh,
As if love was her crime, as if she chose to die.

Four hundred years, yet history repeats—
A woman still fights to stand on her feet.