Bitter Tea

Bitter Tea

Wispy wusiness, waffling of words,
Cliché-ridden conundrums
Salacious sloganeering,
Sans substance
Characterizes the crassness
Of totalitarian tea-baggers
Bandying about banners
Of bogeymen, faux
Commercial-fisherwomen
Fiddling in fire, gaggling
In gibberish to crowds
Of classless coneheads
Following the flock
Like extinct bison
Behind a herd bull
Leaping to sure death
Over a buffalo jump.
Rappelling to repeal is
Hazardous to Health.

When I Awake

When I Awake

The poem, my fix, begins the day
Takes me away
Rights my ship
Without a blip

The bard's word my inspiration
Pure elation
To soothe my soul
Render me whole

The poem, the sun, a perfect pair
In air so rare
I find my way
Above the fray

Spring Arrives

Spring Arrives

Lord give us pleasure in the changing season,
And let us not dwell on any reason
As the uncertain future filled with fear
And lessen hope in the spring of the year

Give us the courage to be as a child
Smelling the lilacs and running wild
Listening to meadowlarks beckon the sun
Over meadows where cool rivers run

Oh give us contentment in our lives today,
And let us not to the distant stray
As the fickle future always unknown
Hears only its own voice and tone

Oh give us the freedom to fly like a kite
To weave up, down, left or right

Invasion- March19, 2003

Invasion- March 19, 2003

Seven years to the day it began
Without a plan
Persuasion
Then invasion

Proclaimed victory short and sweet
Then came defeat
And gaping jaw
Of shock and awe

Saadam fell and then was hung
The Shiites sung
Victory songs
Righted some wrongs

Seven years to the day it began
In shifting sand-
Our blood remains
In desert rains

Red tide

Red Tide

I smelled an odor by the sea
As if my senses knew,
I longed to touch it, waft by waft,
But could not find its hue

The scent beneath I sought to pair
Close to a life I knew
But connection simply was not there
Like red within a sea of blue.

Desert Cycle

Desert Cycle

Yucca is in its springtime bloom
The arroyo gulch is dry
Under the April crescent moon the desert
Hears a coyote’s cry.
Upon the shifting sand among the dunes
Are natural love tunes.

My seventieth season has come upon me
Since I first left my home;
I know before I am well -finished
I will surely roam
My heart has not grown old
Passion and love remain, still bold

I have gazed into these luminous decades
And now my soul is calm
I’ve changed since first seeing this skyline,
The desert has become my balm
The night –sounds of crawling creatures in my ear
Creep with a lesser fear

Unhurried now, minute by minute
I dabble in my art
Inscrutable schemes in rarefied air
Images straight from the heart
Emotion and intellect fuse where they will,
Depend upon a thrill

And now I glide on the shifting dune,
Beautiful, mysterious;
Above the music, ever so faint
As the season finally serious
Blossoms into full bloom
Before inevitable doom