Red Poppies grow
Upon lapels
Telling of
War's untold hell

Of green hills
Pristine and groomed
Marching crosses
On the tombs

Marching crosses
Star of David
Where Stars and Stripes
Fluttered and wav'ed

Of buddies lost
Buried in cairns
Of brothers. Sisters.
Thus disarmed.

Of need for morphine
To end the pain
Of bandages
To staunch red stains

To honor souls
Under white snow
Upon lapels
Red Poppies grow.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/29/2016

My Native American grandmother I hear you today
I see you in everything
The grass, the trees... the flowers, the sky the clouds
I feel you in everything that I do
In every word that I say
in all things that are meaningful
I trust you completely
I understand what you are trying to teach me

I see you in the river barefoot, catching fish and throwing them on the River Bank
No wanting for what you did not need
Never a complaint
Always kind, thoughtful and wise
With a true understanding and appreciation for all mankind
You would never judge another nor take anything for granted.

I finally feel the sun on my skin
And the breeze on my face
I feel strong and clear
a sharpness I have never known
For I have grown and I'm becoming aware of my spirit.

Thank you for the gift of life
for in me you live on
Thank you for connecting me to the great spirit Apistotoke...
and for an ability to try and share with others what has been shared with me.

I walk past the poor every day
The ones that ask me for money
For the change
That I hear jangling in my ears long after I walk away
Money comes to me like a slip of paper
A white page
Stateing times and dates and hours spent
In the pursuit of happiness
Because that's how I feel when I get my wage
Like the hours I spent didn’t just waste away.
The jingle of my work, my age
Is what I pour into that man’s cup
It might be fifty cents
But it’s really six minutes
It might be six minutes
But it’s part of what I earned with my time.
Money is a sense of safety
A paper cushion
In my back pocket
That protects me from them.
A buffer of light green
Silver, copper, gold
That speaks of books
And travel
And new worlds
So I pour my dreams into that man's cup.
Maybe I can share my dream with him
Maybe the money
Will help him
In a way that it helps me
Maybe he will feel safer, warmer,  happier
With my hopes jangling in his pocket.
It may be fifty cents.
But it was still money
My money
That isn’t gaining me anything
Except a lightness in my pocket
And a quiet evaluation of where it can take me.
Money controls me
Just as much as I control it.
As I tip the coins
As they fall
I can hear them
They keep me going for another six minutes, then another six, then another.
That fifty cents,
Screams at me
Power, effort, time.
I want to think that money is good
That the people who get it are
But I see how I spend
How he spends
How she spends
And I think that the dreams that money whispers are for adults
And maybe I have to truly be an adult to know
That it’s not what my money does to me, but what I do
To those without.
My coins get caressed in his hands
***** in a  way
That’s so  different than mine
God bless
He whispers, and I think of the coins
That have that
Exact
phrase stamped on them.
Money should be used in Thomas Jefferson’s say:
To promote happiness in a responsible way
Because the tail of the devil must be dipped in the stuff
The economics of everyday making decisions tough
I can feel the relief it gives me to part with the money
But I calculate the loss
The casual toss
Of the money,
The money
That represents so much
Good
And so much hope.

There was a long period of time where I was not fond of my name.
My name was just an identity that was ****** upon me at birth.
I had no connection to it.
My name was just a phrase people would use to get my attention.
But when my name escaped your lips  I couldn't help but fall in love with it.

The ***** ate into rocky soil,
pushing through clots of dirt.
It reminded me of
the girl I love
from two-thousand fifteen
and how she
struggled to be clean,
because of a needle eating skin
burrowing towards vein,
against what was within.

My fingers pushed on it's ribcage
-- I never found out it's *** --
only forcing brief breathes
and gasps flowing from
my grasp, knowing that
I can't save her and that
I can't save him.

Patches of white were
framed around squid-ink clash;
fleas fleeing from
an ever-slow dying of heat,
hopping onto me,
a host with a heartbeat.

She never had a name
and all I can call him is 'it'.
It's paws fluttered like
a desperation dash across
the invisible wall of life,
a borderline between
eternal logos and
dimming pathos.

Whiskers brushed against the
plastic, grocery store bag,
destined for celery,
destined for dead cat.

And as the shovel
drank the soil,
And as the bag fell
into nothing --
Heaven or Hell --
I feel so tainted
for a life so fleeting,
for a love so wasted,
for everything leaving.

For everyone leaving.