Fever-flushed children and
Broken bodies
Litter hospital halls like so much
Human refuse
….Wondering why
their need for care is treated so tepidly by a
Society which worships
Profits
Power and
Prestige
….Waiting while
they wallow in anguish as
Privacy
Paperwork and
Payment are
Debated by bureaucrats in cubicles
….Wanting to be refreshed and
restored to some measure of usefulness
….But
Free to Pursue Life on their terms in exchange for  
Silence
Acceptance and
Despair

Huddling for warmth and in
Fear of discovery
they assemble in rag-tag formation
having scaled formidable fences
Seeking freedom from
Poverty and oppression
Searching for work of any sort
….No matter how
Humiliating or
Hard
….No matter the
Cost or
Conditions
Disparaged and despised they labor
in hope that their children will have a chance for success
instead of suffering a similar fate
…..But
Free to Pursue Liberty
in a land where their presence is
Ignored if not Denied

Unkempt in camouflage
One-legged and
Vacant-eyed
he rolls his rickety wheelchair along grassy median with muted effort
displaying cardboard sign
childishly scripted
in one weather-worn and gnarled hand
while clutching a decapitated jug in the other
Forgotten
Forlorn, and
Discarded veteran
Victimized far more by country than foe
….But
Free to Pursue Happiness while
Begging on street corners as
Upright citizens dispense
Unwelcome opinions or
Pocket change with equal
Self-righteousness


Life
Liberty and the
Pursuit of happiness….
Ideals that slowly incinerate on the
Altar of Capitalism
….Songs forever lost in the
Cacophony now
Played on the
Instrument of Politics

I fear for myself at thirty, forty for these walls of life’s Gloom
Are closing fast on the cubicle of my Young existence
Like a tepidly-loved first job that becomes your Life’s Work
And with each head-rushing spin of that ageing Despair, your Life’s Blood ebbs
Slowly, painfully; I am an old woman beneath this taut flesh, beneath these soft lips.
I am as withered as Summer’s first raspberry
Whose Juice has fully been Drunk.

Tireless hours fleeting away with more vigor now than before
Tedium, wallowing helplessly, while I use my pick and keep digging
I’m digging to find the hidden agenda, the reason for me to survive
I’m digging to bury my past incarnation, I’m digging to conceal my life
My actions don’t follow me, they’ve blocked off the exit from the mine
And the shafts that hold the lumbering earth at bay seem indifferent
My self is the true menace
It despises my flesh and recants my existence
It lunges at me in the darkness, striking at me with its claws
My eyes glow ice blue in the reflection when I see him
And I tepidly back into the wall
As clods first break off and larger chunks follow
The grey skin of my self shimmers and the beast broadens its shoulders
He pounces as the ground crashes in all around us
My death is his beginning

It's been an honest while since those times of denial, lie, sit and smile... Go another mile

The crow kack a sqwak so black " it's back it's back!' in terrific laughter this redundant chapter.

A fool sold me his soul,  I wish I hadn't bought it-- **** thing don't shut the **** up. Oh.

Now somebody else knows from where the river Nile flows, so so slow.

Wishings are tepidly fine, half-boiled mind, still content to knock the trappings of the blind, there in the muggy dark. Scratch the floor some more....

Why the hell not?!

O but how tepidly tired and dour,
How furiously, phallically fetid its flower.
Monotonously, mirthlessly humming along,
His listless life like a moribund song,
Sodden with pitifully petulant skulking,
Not deigning to die, but dreams of their sulking
Pervaded his psyche as fifty-five fleas
Formicate wildly, stinging suicide-bees.

Three years of contented, ire-inducing idleness,
Vacuous days lacking life’s latent vitalness.
Entitlement, cowardice, perhaps the antithesis
Is he of a man. Singed with syphilis,
****** from sentiment, his is the brain
Of one who breathes indignant disdain
For all those who threaten his thinly-veiled comfort.
The thespian of truth, he’d play the faux jumper.

You may cover the stench with a potpourri—
while you gag, as you finger your rosary.
Sacrosanct nourriture…
or decayed pourriture?
(Other patrons might label it Popery.)

Though the tepidly Protestant matron
of a church that is stagnant and state-run
does not care about Luther,
We’ll bother to truth her
with Calvin or Knox as our patron.

Though the Vatican’s bottomless coffers
make some very un-Lutheran offers,
I would rather talk Tetzel
(with beer and a pretzel)
and drink with the rebels and scoffers.

We forget that the birth of the Kirk
was a vicious, un-Catholic work
One recalls ****** Mary…
and Knox was no faerie.
His doctrine drove Satan berserk.

Many chairmen, deficient in wit
who on flimsy theologies sit
with no justification
hate predestination,
reviling it more than a bit.

Barthelemy (in French: St. Bartholomew)
was unpleasant, as most of the martyrs knew
Roman Catholic correction
or violent deception?
In heaven, they’re getting the overview…

People gag, and then murmur the rosary
seeking solace in incense or potpourri
you must pardon my French
but this damnable stench
smells like nothing so much as like Popery.

The rust across your eyes
Should have been a shallow warning
The ease in which I become a failure
Should have been clearer by now

Perhaps the trust I bartered
Was just a copper coin of insignificance
And maybe, the kiss that lingered
Just smeared against the windowpane

The heralds came and left
Their static signals clamoring in our minds
The ringing in my ears won't fade
While we tepidly embrace our fate

Riptides with gusty winds
           envelop over when it is most unexpected
channeling your inner stream of delightful moments
          that was once with you way back when
you were fearless and fierce

Look up and breathe in tepidly
             you don’t need an answer right away,
so stand beneath the clouds
             and stay

Wash over the inhibitions
           by tiptoeing out to see the waves
At first semblance, coldness
           makes you shiver but later
the mint-colored sea brings
a smile to your face

splish

    splash





pit-a-pat

[explicit, immature or whatever]*

remember, sweetie, that time
i was crying i couldn't stop

you undressed me
as the steam concealed all mirrors
and the burbles echoed my sobbing

hush, hush, baby girl*, whispered
the milky softness of your hands
pouring shimmerly on my shoulder
washing away my tears
rising a tide from my thighs to
my ******* my *******
geminally arosing in your palms
your hands your polished nails your mouth
me dripping tepidly in your shivering

then, sweetie, then, remember,
and again, my fair lady, lay me within the play
shatter all mirrors and free this starry night

I will court the most beautiful woman
I will sail the most enchanted sea
I will dangle on the edge of greatness
Plummeting to the depths of my destiny

I will not die whimpering in the night
I'll not creep tepidly into the morn
I will not shatter the illusion of a rose
Not even to escape the thorn

I will carry her fantasies upon my lips
I will strip her naked of her fears
I will bite the hand that feeds my appetite
To make her heart beat through all the tears

I will not evaporate like dew in the fields
I'll not shame myself into ascension
I will not carve my name into granite finales
Just to become her honorable mention