The Work of Liberty Never Stops

The Fireworks that

explode o’er head

are the eulogies of

those brave forbearers

who struggled and fought

for liberty and control

over their own destinies.

Liberty’s flames, fed by

martyrs and patriots,

bursting in the sky

to the crescendo of

“Ooh’s” and “Ahh’s”,

and the twinkle in the

eyes of a child, born free.

This celebration of our

nation, is our moment,

to reflect on the men and

women who gave their all

for an idea. An untested idea

for the time. An unheard of

theory of self government.

The booming thunder, shaking

the pillars of heaven are the voices

of the people, determined to carve

out a life for themselves in freedom,

with liberty and justice, for themselves and

more importantly, their

posterity.

It is our duty…, nay, our debt to

them that we must pay, with our

vigilance, courage and sheer nerve.

We must keep the sacrifices they made

in our hearts and our heads, and use this

time of remembrance to continue to make

America worthy of the blood spilled.  We The People. 

A Glittering Blob

Amorphous ambiguity,

coalescing coherently,

in a bubbling brew,

to cool on a sill,

eventually hardening,

becoming,

me.

A glittering blob, a glob,

a speck of a speck

of dust’s dust,

fluttering on a

summer wind,

over crashing seas named

Prologue and Epilogue.

Swirled about in whirls

with other parts of me,

undefined, immeasurable

and uncounted with delights

and disappointments,

all made for the me

I’m yet to be.

Raw and un-carved,

twitching sinew exposed,

to the heat, the coolness,

the joys of the winds and

the wrath of gray skies.

Yet to be mounted, drawn and

made whole by time.

A mass of matter, made to

matter, as a matter of course,

to be filled and unfilled, broken

and remade, in shards, in piles,

in landfills of experience,

born every day in the me-ness

of self.   

Summer Solstice

“Hey Summer, where ya been?”

“South America mostly, Australia too,” said Summer.

“Oh, I thought you were, you know, like on vacation or something.”

“I don’t get a vacation. I am the vacation,” said Summer.

“Right, I mean, of course you are. How dumb of me.”

“Damn right it’s dumb of you,” said Summer as she gently nudged me in the ribs.

“So… any big plans now that you’re here?”

“Not really. I’ll just do the same things I normally do, maybe with some humidity, maybe not, maybe I’ll be dry. I don’t know. The possibilities are sort of endless really,” said Summer.

“Yeah, that’s cool. Really Cool.”

“How about you? Any plans,” asked Summer.

“I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t take any vacation so…,” I shrugged.

“So, it’s sort of my day so I better get going. Lots to do,” said Summer.

“Of course, right. I didn’t mean to hold you up. I just wanted to say hi and tell you that you looked nice is all.”

“You think I look nice? I don’t know. My hair is crazy frizzy and I haven’t really got a good tan and… well, it’s nice of you to say so,” said Summer.

“My pleasure. Really, and your hair looks great, honest.”

“Okay, well, I really should get going,” said Summer.

“Um, Summer? Do you maybe want to have dinner sometime with me?”

“Aw, you’re sweet. But I just don’t think I’ll have the time. But I really appreciate the offer,” said Summer.

“Okay. I get it. Thanks for at least considering it.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that. You know we’re just friends and that’s all,” said Summer.

“I know. I mean, I just thought, well… it might just be you know, the start of something.”

“It’s not that I don’t, you know, care about you, it’s just not in that way, plus, I mean, you’re just so pale. I mean, how would that even look,” asked Summer.

“No. I get it. I do really. It’s cool. So I’ll see you later then?”

“Of course you will,” said Summer.

“Okay. Cool. Or Hot! That’s Hot, I mean.”

“You’re so silly,” said Summer.

She tussled the hair on my head and stood up from our small table. She started West. 

Smallish

There are times when I’m happy

to remember that we are very

small in a cosmic sort of way.

There’s really not much to

us at all.

A blue dot, in a vast

ocean of space, spinning

around a star, on a cycle

started eons ago, doing

our silly things.

It’s hard to remember at

times, that we’re small.

It’s hard to recognize how

tiny this world is.

How far we are from anything.

How far we seem to be from

each other. Our humanity seems

larger than the Sun, as if we’re

bigger than the cosmos that we

can see. Yet, I don’t know you.

I cry, you cry, we hurt,

we bleed, we laugh and smile,

on a rock hurtling through the cosmos,

at 67,000 miles per hour around the Sun,

and it seems huge.

We’re giants on our world,

beings of infinite wonder,

but smaller than the smallest

out there, in the void, between

starlight and nothing.

Our smallness should not

diminish us, define us or hold us

back; but it’s nice to remember it,

from time to time.

Monday Wants to Rock Your Face Off

“What are you working on,” asked Monday.

“Hm, oh, nothing really,” I replied.

“Looks important,” said Monday.

“It isn’t really, just some musings,” I said.

“Oh, well then, muse on,” said Monday.

“Thanks. I will,” I said.

“Do you mind if I set up some speakers,” asked Monday.

“Speakers,” I asked.

“Yeah, just a little background music,” said Monday.

“I guess. Sure. Okay,” I said.

“Thanks. As long as you’re okay with it,” said Monday.

“Sure,” I said.

Monday shuffled about, running cords all

around my feet, desk, chair, up the walls,

over the door, out a window, back in through

another window, up across the ceiling and

back down to the floor.

“Sure this isn’t a bother,” asked Monday.

“No, it’s fine. Do what you have to do,” I said.

“Okay. Thanks,” said Monday.

Monday wheeled in two giant speakers built

for Led Zeppelin 1974.

“Whoa,” I said.

“What,” asked Monday.

“I mean, those are pretty big,” I said.

“You said it was okay,” said Monday.

“I mean, I know I did, but…,” I said, motioning

to the size of the speakers Monday was

pushing toward the windows.

“What? You said I could and it wouldn’t bother you,” said Monday.

“I thought they’d be, you know, like, normal,” I said.

“These are normal,” said Monday.

I shook my head slowly and looked in Monday’s face.

“I don’t think these are, appropriate,” I said.

“Well, I mean, you said I could so…,” said Monday.

“Fine Monday, fine,” I said.  

Tips for Writing Poetry

The important thing when starting

a poem is to have a strong

premise and then build upon it.

If you don’t have a strong premise then

your poem is all about nothing… like this one.

This poem is about nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It’s not even a poem really,

It’s just stream of consciousness

dribbling out on this blank page.

Still, though, it’d be nice if it

were about something.

Something important, like, religion

or politics, sex and love, or drugs and

kittens, or  what shoes make me look thinner.

A poem about nothing.

nothing at all,

why are you still reading?

Don’t you have something better to do?

Shouldn’t you make better use of your time?

This is seriously about nothing.

I mean, zero substance here.

There’s no heart wrenching finale, some

catharsis or hallelujah chorus of angels.

It’s just words on a page lining up.

I could write about toe nail clippers,

or teeth whitening, maybe about

paperclips or what I had for lunch,

and it’d still be about nothing.

Nothing at all.  

I didn’t have a strong premise,

so it’s all about nothing.

maybe it’ll come to me later,

something,

to write. 

Mind the Prom King's Crown

A Prom King’s tilted crown,

he’ll dance with anyone in town,

except her, in the wheel chair,

because, “should she even be there?”

A tilted crown on a big old head,

football star, filling nerds with dread,

he’ll pretend he’s cool in the front,

but behind their backs he calls ‘em all, “cunt.”

The spotlight on the Prom King,

he’ll wave his hands, flaunt a pinkie ring,

he got from his dad, who bought a wing,

for the school after a scandalous fling.

There was a Prom Queen,

we haven’t seen,

she might be held up by security at

the door.  She’s not from here it seems.

The Prom King’s first dance to his song,

a country tune to which he gets the words wrong,

in a circle by himself, surrounded by lackeys, slack-jaws

and  yokels, in rhythm with no one, harrumph and pshaws.

The DJ was wrong, the Prom King got the words right,

that DJ should be fired immediately and on sight.

How dare he disagree, he’s the Prom King with a decree,

“Everything I say is right, if you disagree, kiss my ass tonight!”

The Prom King’s tilted crown, lower on the brow,

confused by the unwillingness of people to kowtow,

to each crazy demand, statement or thought,

“Don’t they know how good they’ve got?”

The Prom King spits and froths near the end,

he wants a new limo, a new driver, a new friend,

he wants a new Queen (But we still haven’t seen her,

so there’s little drama to the scene.)

The Prom King’s crown tilted and cocked,

might not be the issue we thought to concoct,

It must be his head that’s so off center,

next Prom, I’m sure we’ll vote better.

The night is over, the dancing’s all done,

there’s no more spiked punch or fights to be won,

The Prom King, alone on the bleachers, he’ll fail this

year, because of the teachers.

“Don’t blame me, I was cool. They just hated me,

that stupid school,” he’ll be heard years later to say,

working at Dad’s office in real estate

and considering a role as a delegate.

Be careful who you elect as your Prom King,

he might be a bully, a brat or a ding-a-ling,

and he’ll grow up with that victory in mind,

classless, tasteless and unkind.

A Prom King’s tilted crown,

could become the bane of every town,

so smarten up, and listen,

we wouldn’t want this to come to fruition.   

Strangers

If everybody is “everybody”,

and we are “we”,

and you are “you”,

and I am “me”,

but I’m in your shoes,

watching you as you

join my group of we

so we can get along with

everybody…

who the hell is everyone?

A global family,

isolated in their

humanity.