there’s a drum rhythm that sends a soul reverberating
a vibration,
resonant & synchronous,
building dynamic tension through the bones,
until the last slap of the skin shatters the crusty buildup on the soul wall,
and it shatters — crumbling to dust
the naked ape in its natural state
stripped bare of fear, living an altered trait
ashen against the sun, rinsed by the rain
his brain had long ago forgotten pain
they see so much, and, thus, think they know him
but they can’t read the face — smiling or grim
Nothing is mundane, but the mind makes it so.
They scream for monsters and miracles,
and miss the magic of the mighty cricket.
Deaf to the miraculous,
everyone reaches to turn up the volume,
too few sit quietly, listening closely.
Truth is under a rubble pile
covered in junk and debris
marked with (-)’s and (+)’s
chunks of value judgment
that crumbled under the weight of its immensity
or, maybe, because it was made of bankrupt material
many start the dig,
but the love of those (+)’s and (-)’s proves too strong
so they stack and mortar them into solidity
then the truth is no longer buried, but imprisoned
I strolled the streets of Hanoi,
-past Starbucks, McDonalds, and American fast-food joints I thought had gone belly up decades ago.
-past young lovers on park benches sneaking affections,
-past vendor carts selling banh mi in brightly colored wrappers,
-past the stock exchange,
-past incense-wielding worshippers at the temple,
-past a dancing Minion selling electronics,
-past Christmas LED lights shaped like pine trees,
and I couldn’t help but wonder how it would look if we hadn’t sent 60,000 off to be killed, 2-and-a-half times that number to be shot, stabbed, mutilated, or fragged — not to mention the three million dead among civilians and enemy forces.
Hindsight may be 20/20, but I hope we do at least 50-50.
I sit atop a tiny isle.
These rags I wear were never in style.
Impiety ‘s not my only sin.
I took no tonic with my gin.
I never called, hated the phone.
A table for two, yet dined alone,
and now I do once more.
Panic is danced into madness
by every soul that fears.
Bombing empty toy factories,
storming the field of tears.
And a million miles down that line,
you’re back where you began.
In the grip of some fresh mania
of leaders tall and tan.
Let me sleep upon that madness.
It won’t survive my dreams.
Your harbinger of holocaust
is daintier than he seems.
You knew me in the time of caves.
When gods and spirits nightly raved
and ghosts sat seaside watching waves,
as men and oxen were enslaved
in stories they could not fathom.
snowy woods
glows in the moonlight
fox tracks
silent hour
smoke, a farm nearby?
who knocks?
barren woods
morning light will pass through
night’s void
who huddles?
a roadside silhouette
hitcher? boulder?
cloud & moon
paint different homesteads
from same scene
divoted wall
bullet-pocked in a war long past
blemishes kept in remembrance
when foul winds blow from the past
we’re reminded how imagined catastrophes steer history
