I’ve lived here all my life –
At least that’s how it seems.
I always thought I’d spend these years
Living out my dreams.

But I’m not what I thought I’d be
When I started down this road
Thirty years of busted dreams
Is a real **** heavy load

I’m going home, find my favorite chair
I’m finished with this fight
My heart is tired, my soul is sore
Tonight might be the night

The hate you give
lives.
In the souls of those you love,
who learn to hate like you,
and the souls of those you hate
who learn to hate you in return.

The hate you give
grows.
It spreads to those
who surround you
and spreads to those
who surround the ones that hate you.

The hate you give
creates war.
Between religions
and regions
and colors
and haves vs have nots

The hate you learn
becomes the hate you give.
Only you can
unlearn your hate
and break the chain
of hate you give.

THE 3 O’CLOCK NEWS

It’s not your back
they said.
The problem’s
in your head.

The lump,
they said,
is unreachable
untreatable.

There’s nothing we can do
they said
under the knife
to save your life.


GUINEA PIGS

When hope seems gone
And days seem dark
I drop to one knee
And think of 23.

Fifteen and me,
the untreatables,
agreed
to experimental surgery.

One by one,
we dropped,
to 10, then 6, then 3
then only me.

Sometimes I question why  
I was the one to survive
But mostly I thank God
I am one alive.

If there were some way,
If I could find it,
I would leave this body behind.

Undress completely
From my bones
And leave my flesh.

I would be silence,
Void of any thought,
Totally absent of me.

I would forget
my breath
and all my sounds.

I would walk on hands
In fear of footprints,
Tracks of a five-toed bird.

I would become an absence
Of words, thoughts, memories:
A five-toed bird taken to flight

And in a year
Of all dark days
I would be forgotten

Tomorrow is my song.
Always tomorrow
with its chance of change.

On tomorrow
perhaps somewhere else
perhaps someone else
will step from falling leaves
or falling snow
or falling rain
and I will be there to meet her
and no longer need tomorrow.

But tomorrow is my song today.
Always tomorrow.
But I need.
Today.

Frail old woman,
***** hands, gray hair,
at the corner, sign in hand.
Eyes cast down, standing there.

And then I paused
and wondered why –
why was she standing there,
and why do we all drive by?

She has to be
somebody’s mother
or wife or sister.
Has she no one to love her?

Has she no place to go,
no place to be?
If Biden wins that surely
one day will be you and me.

Death will come -
no one will beat the odds.
So why live life so cautiously,
that when it comes,
you regret the path you’ve taken.

Our lives are meant
to challenge all the odds,
to love and laugh and live
a life so full that
death is just a punctuation mark.