lambaste

false equivalency
your hackles raised
at verbiage uncouth
yet barely recognize
caged or gunned down youth
until your next election
you may press your luck
and find yourself lambasted
you unrepentant fuck

tome

someday there will be heavy tomes

about those who’ve lost their fleshy homes

the sons and daughters, husbands, wives

about all those who’ve lost their lives

the innocents, the old and wise

because of those whose hate and lies 

manifested down the barrel of a gun

tell their stories 

one by one 

ostensible

the crickets sing early 

confusing storm sky 

for dusk 

cooling breeze 

the sign and signal

for their chirrupping song

ostensible heroine 

of my story

I stop fighting 

pausing the narrative 

to listen 

and cease my care 

for a space 
to steep in the summer

bedizen

always with an eye for shine
we gather up our trinkets
and shimmy into sequins
so we glitter and glow
bedizened and bejeweled
like disco balls enthralled
and we dance with shaky knees
all our little loves aglow
lit up like lighthouses
to guide one we've yet to meet
from the shores of shaky seas

kaput

"The End is Nigh," he said.

I saw his sign and laughed.

In every time and place that people live
they claim they are the last...
and, in the past, I judgement passed.

"So gullible," I glibly thought
and went about my way
no more distraught
than any other day.

But now,
amongst the smoke and ash,
I wish I could go back

before democracy was kaput,
before the shoe was on the other foot,
before my lungs were thick with soot,

and hug that sandwich-board sidewalk man
(or at the least, to shake his hand) and
apologize, for he was right all along,
he was right and we were wrong.

amortize

to be swallowed in the flood,
to find ourselves washed away
or washed clean
but nothing in between...
could we part and parcel grief;
amortize the loss across the years
to, in some way, lessen impacts -
would we?
change the flow from torrent to trickle?
to carry always with us clouds?
or would we choose this -
to recognize the hope of blue skies
from the depths of the abyss?

effigy

*disclaimer - this is actually the poem for 6/24 - written on my phone but did not post


ramshackle construction
a waxen effigy of you
from the crayon ends of memory
to melt under the sun
of who they wished you were
and who you want to be

skirl

over the moors

through the mist

the piper’s skirl

calls you

a requiem song

the song of yesterday 

the song of tomorrow 

while your heart 
sings today

notorious

oh how he wanted to be loved
but without himself another loving
to hold a grudge but by others be forgiven
expecting adoration without earning
claiming wisdom but never learning
requiring respect but undeserving
behaving in a manner so ridiculous
as to almost be uproarious
were his actions not nefarious
demanding to be deemed glorious
he had to settle for notorious

voracity

no sight
more soothing
to the soul
than the voracity
vividly marked
by a whole big
stack of books
and an eager child
raring to read them

balmy

dream of days
under balmy skies
away from the buzzing
of the flies
where the only thing
to disturb us
is the unim
and not the pluribus

quail

it never starts the way you think it would

unreasonable men
in reasonable suits
says treasonable things
in language so refined
and so redefine your world

suddenly you see the world anew and
so unlike the one you thought you knew

but a world that always has been here

you saw the nation shining on the hill
the one that people dreamed of...until

until their children quake and quail in fear
and you see "good" people close their ears
because the pundits twist and lie
and you want to curl up and cry

but get up
there's things for you to do
it's not the time to just emote
but march and call and shout
and vote

jabberwocky

find the thread
from the words
to the things left unsaid
in the jabberwocky chorus
of interchangeable chatter
the 24 hour
news cycle clatter
you mustn't lose sight
of morality
or subsume humanity
to jingoistic pride
in a false sense
of superiority

meritorious

we nominate and elevate
hoping they are meritorious
and represent the best in us
and won't desecrate our trust
so consumed by lust for power
that they disregard the hour
not recognizing the time has come
when each and every one must
account for who they follow
and for what they've done
or allowed, in their name,
to be done

tantalize

roses bloom
on summer day
fireflies dance
in dazzling array
beyond the edge
of memory
hints of what was
and what may be
to tantalize
you back again
to who you were
in the hazy then
and who you are
to soon become
combined in some
tomorrow's sun

pugnacious

eyes blur from double vision
made by double standards
don't doubt the double jeopardy
of having a vagina

if he is commanding
she is pugnacious

stud connotes dominance
slut denotes deviance

boss versus bossy

and so it goes
the mixed doubles

as we double down
on the progeny
of misogyny

defenestration

i must have forgot
a mirror i broke

his grinning incompetence
lo, these seven years

and seven stories high
i wonder would they acquit

oh, defenestration dreams
sugarplum dance in my head

while impotent with rage i shake
as he asks how to cut and paste again

mantic

eviscerate me
spread my guts
upon the ground
in tangled augury
divine what will
become of me

disembowling
could wound
no more than your
mantic machinations
scried in the reflection
of my tears 

epithet

time was once
I heaped epithets
upon your name
like dirt upon a corpse
I feared vampyric
would rise to feast
upon my sanguine soul,
but now I know there is no
incantation to extirpate
your memory
or the love I wish
you'd felt for me
better to memorialize
neither disparaging
nor with plaintive sighs
but simply as one
neither good nor bad
likewise for the times we had
so in equanimity
to find tranquility

abrogate

two rictus grimaces grimly grinning
in smiling simulacra of cordial convention
ignore former slights and abrogate the grating past
in a rubber-banded tension that cannot last
despite the determination to hold fast
rather than give the other the satisfaction
a smattering of still mattering, you nod and tightly turn
before the walls you constructed come clattering down
and the rage barely caged releases in rogue wave
before in enmity you drown

roseate

though clouds
oft gather overhead
and through the grey
the world takes on
a shadow shape
the roseate glow
goodnatured
from a grin
may set the sun
to shine again

shenanigan

together 

we defy 

convention 

secure in 

our convictions 

to those who scoff

at our demeanor 

at shenanigans 

beyond their ken

who say 

we should 

have aged 

out of them

we stick out 

our tongues 

again 

again

again

whelm

too much

the world sometimes 

the weight of it

would make Atlases 

of us all and leave us

to carry a giant ball

of angst and dread

through a tsunami of tears

threatening to whelm us 

but when the waters 

seem about to rise 

above your head

and as the rock works

to drag you down

take heart in this

rather than sink 
into the abyss 

let go and trust that 

you have some buoyancy yet

to help you float 

boondoggle

desire for self improvement 

a precarious proposition 

in proportion to motivation 

if generated within 

then begin 

but generated without 

or from self doubt 

be wary and be warned 

boondoggles abound

when grand plans stem

from desire born
not by you but “them”

unbeknownst

**********

*** her balloon ***

**buoyantly bobbing**

*may burst blown to*

*smithereens for*

*unbeknownst*

*to it, the*

**bit**

of

*

 joy 

that     

held         

it          

aloft 

      was

                 hy

                             dro

                                   gen

                                           and

                                                      you

                                                               were

                                                                    a 

                                                                              spark

fustigate

be kinder
to yourself

it is hard
knowing all
that you have done
that you have thought
that you have lost
that you have won

it is easy
when faced with every flaw
so intimately
to fustigate and fume
to beat yourself so far down
you never leave your room

but though
easy to go hard
on yourself
and call to mind each fault
you'll find that better
to recall and then release
learn the lesson
but then seek peace

we are imperfect
yes, we are all
be kinder to yourself
even angels can fall

proficient

it's not
that I
am lazy
but spoilt
for choice
surrounded
by variety
my interests
like a jackdaw
distracted by
the shiny
but should I
set my mind
proficient
I'd become
in this thing
or perhaps
that or perhaps
another one

opportune

others minds
we can in truth
never rightly know
declarations thus
can never
find a time
opportune
but must
arrive on ears
willing or not
and we can
do nought
but say
and hope

ingenue

no more
the doting ingenue
but what has she become
the hardened broad
wisecracking friend
angry spinster
gentle mom
the world
will put her
in a box
and tell her who
they think she is
but she and I
both know that
we all are more
than just a list

mise-en-scène

a darkened room
a woman's tears
the realization
of all their fears
upon the ground
or so it seems
the journalist
the mise-en-scène
the ruse was set
to thus draw out
the ne'er-do-wells
of foul account