Man with no name
Laconic in every frame
Smoking a cigar
Or driving a police car
Westerns or a Cop Thriller
As a Drifter or a Rider
Iconoclastic instant justice
44 Magnum to carry it out without prejudice
Mayor of Carmel
All American Male
Filling cinemas across the globe
East West North or South
Its got to be Clint Eastwood

I just didn’t expect
the tears
at least not mine
I was ready for everything else
or so
I thought
I just didn’t expect the pain
or to be asked to explain
I just didn’t expect the blame
or to be asked to explain

This time the pipers will be made to pay
No more popping off three rounds and then skating free
This country has been there and done that
Have we finally heard the wake-up alarms
That something is wrong and we gotta fix it

Everybody - just stop and sit down a minute
Are we gonna be who we know we should be
Or morph into some crazy wild west kind of country
Where someone gets clipped for just crossing the street
And parades are fish-in-a-barrel for crazies

Hold on - take a breath - look around you
We’ve created a society of adult school-yard bullies.
Are we gonna keep standing by, saying “tsk tsk”,
Wringing our hands and looking around
For somebody else to step up and fix it.

Ain’t gonna happen if you just sit and watch.
You gotta get out there among them
And blow a few whistles and slap a few heads.
Start it in Preschool and work up from there.

You can go buy a pitchfork and march down a street
Or write  letters and make angry calls to the Senate
But going to church is a better idea
And casting a vote is the ultimate foil.

Get rid of the men in service to Satan
And search out the ones who reflect who we are.
Elect them to office and make them police
Put them on juries and on the high courts

The dice that they’ve given us are loaded-
There’s no way to win at their smarmy game.
We have to upset all the  government’s tables
And set up the game room all over again.
ljm

The most beautiful poetry is
when you kiss my mouth
with words

The Poem Knows

Where its spine is
How with sinews to the bone
its muscles do attach
Where
its finger and its toes goes

How its eyes have seen
and ears have heard
will recognize the voice
that strikes the soul
like latter rain
The poet knows....

The poet
in the secret of the earth
with all the creatures signs her name

Out of last light
to be called
with all her failings
to forgiveness wrought
for her
The love designed
A salve
for love denied
through all those springs

To finally
in God's call
to hear her name
to know him