Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain  
New, different is what to seek
Strong the desire to be unique
Courage to turn the other cheek
Be distinctive and never plain

Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain
Firm and willing to face critique  
Strong the desire to be unique  
At no time hesitant to speak
Only fly an orbital plane

Strong the desire to be unique  
To think in ways against the grain

* (Triolet Sonnet)

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

Disarray surrounds him
In his antiquated
fourth-floor dwelling
Sheets of music, tablature,
Scrolls of data, reports of minimal finance
In stacks upon chairs, teeter
Precariously like arched boulders
Along Cumberland Ridge
Papers shuffle through his hands,
Which long for a keyboard
Where he shuns distractions,
Intent to share
what flows from his passion

I remember
parishioners entering
St. Luke’s enraptured by his piano hymns
As he praised his God

He formed his very own God,
One
of tolerance, love and compassion
He wished for approval
For his playing, his thoughts,
His longings and lusts

So different from those
Lining rows of mahogany pews.

I wonder if he is happy

In his heavenly spot

Where friends adorned
In colored shorts and flowery shirts

Play lyrics on golden strings

And parade their adoration to God.

Yes, a baby
Asks questions
By the act of pointing
Or making a quizzical
****** expression

What is this world
What is the world about

It is so easy to Imagine
A baby not knowing
It is easy to imagine
Not knowing because
Who knows

Not the best of us
Not the stargazers
Not the book readers
Nor the book writers

Especially not the politicians
Who never stop
To ask the question
Or to ask any questions

Their nature is to accumulate
While they pretend to lead
While they pretend to guide
Their nature is taking

Some pretend to tilt
toward compassion
Toward caring
Toward altruism

No longer a baby
One grizzled octogenarian
Ask no questions
Merely wonders

Where has all of the wonder gone
He wonders if altruism is real
And if it is, why is
It ******* by greed

To live is not counting each breath
Or even noting the time it takes to breathe
Living is doing, creating, exploring and manufacturing
Living is being in the moment with what you are doing
Living is never knowing when you will die
Never seeing a sure end
Any forty-eight hours can be significant
Moments in one’s life. Moments of proposals
Moments of sacraments, of discovery
Of learning, forgetting, remembering and re-learnig
The last forty-eight hours can be hours of passion
Of love-making, or of making one last attempt to do
the thing you never had the courage to do
The last nanoseconds can be of apathy
Like the many bits of boredom that wasted much of life
To live is not counting each breath
Or even noting the time it takes to breathe
Living is doing, creating, exploring and manufacturing
Living is being in the moment with what you are doing

Like a spider
Captures it’s prey
Viewers and bees
Succumb to the magnetism
Of pastel petal clusters
And long, whisker-like stamens
Petals flashing pink
Remenicent of the lips of
The girl who was
A first teenage crush
Delicate yet hardy
Center stage is cleome’s
Captured from black-eyed susans
Blooming hostas and mexican petunias
Perhaps it’s sinful to bask
In your radiance
Know that this
Is not a one season stand
Cleome will return next year
And the next
Loyalty is endless

We’re living in two disasters
Impacts are felt each day and night
One leads some to death
And many to fright

Facing fear and grief
Nearly every livelong day
We quarantine, we distance
Wash our hands and pray

Politics is a disaster too
Grid-lock in congress and nothing gets done
Executive branch takes action in sputters and spurts
News cast tell us which party has won

Problem solving seems somehow forgotten
Bi-partisian actions are seldom and few
Who takes responsibility for these messes
It can’t be me so it must be you.