Rabbi Burns, just blessed,

the phosphate, and bombs


Aimed at, but all missing,

the Ham'as catacombs


Joe Biden is blinkered

  as Gaza is splintered


  But America, never has,

       had any qualms

to be loved is inevitable,

to stay sober is learned,

to hold both is a blessing,

but a lesson well earned.

Stop offering your
apologies to the knife
wedged deep in your back

10:43 AM
23/7/22

A somber sleep a quiet death
Unknown I draw my final breath.

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby ---
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,  
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly ---something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house ---
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?

color me in,

leave me there,

let my conscious bloom,

and when you're around,

i promise to smile at you.

old friends lie,

waiting for me to die,

never looking in the eye.

like my mother in time,

i choose the coward side.

but my soul is only mine,

would you call it a crime,

if i wanted this life?

words are not cages for demons.

all the pain you don't write,

is the reason you do.

the real help in your room is you.

i loved you when my sky had greyed

before our bodies laid

before my feelings had a say

when every word I say

attempt to take a step away

from things my family couldn't be

with what i painfully couldnt be:

a sober soul from noon to eve

i miss the things i leave

i want some things I couldn't see

but bring me morning

I dont know where to be.