lycanthropy

we all have our phases
pulled by orbital gravities
our inner tides rise and fall
and though we may not sprout
tails or talons, teeth or claw
lycanthropy affects us all


rawr

caterwaul

as a wounded animal
just when the trap
snaps shut
so from our mouths
a collective caterwaul
of confusion
and anguish
as we inch closer
to armageddon

shambles

the innocents slaughtered

politicians say a madman is to blame
not the system that they've built
on violent rhetoric and donations

as schools and stores and synagogues
are turned into a shambles

the politicians cry
"we'll never stop every madman
so why would we even try,
here's some thoughts and prayers"

but never real reform

never the gunmen
or lobbies to disarm

multitudinous

the barrage incessant
multitudinous sorrows
delivered by this world
we must find our comfort
where we may

pamphleteer

where once the humble pamphleteer
now pundits preen on every stage
and every thought is given voice
on every screen and webpage
but measured voices all are drowned
in the cacophony that abounds

holy writ

anger rises as bile
threatens to burn
a hole within my breast
eat away my esophagus
and melt my heart
into an acid pile of goo
for what I took as holy writ
now I know was never true

fugacious

smog does not
burn off like morning mist
but clings and chokes
our throats and bleeds
our lungs like smoke
such was our fugacious hope
that this obfuscating brume
in democracy's sunshine
would melt away

indoctrinate

seeing them
both young and old
ignoring scientists' report
ignoring facts
that don't support
what they were told
was in their best interest
by pundits paid
by special interests
grasping all
for wealth and power
on faux news
hour after hour after hour
they would not believe it so
in fact would say it's me
indoctrinated by
the liberal media
yet I would question
their summation
based upon my education
I was taught, it's true
but I was taught to ask
the where, the why,
the how, the who
I was taught to
check my source
to question both
the mouth and horse
straight from whence
the "truth" was told
and reason out
reasonable doubt

mawkish

pendulum swings
from anger to weeping
from mawkish to maudlin
breathtakingly sweeping
mad as hell
or mad as a hatter
oh, what does it matter
he knows the right people
and looks the right way
it makes absolutely no difference
whatever he'd say
and that, my dear friends,
is privilege exemplified
he took the ticket
we take the ride

brouhaha

to build a pillow fort
and hide away
from the brouhaha
of what has become
the every fucking day
more tempting
than a siren's song
but no, no rest
for the weary yet
we must fight dragons
in more pernicious shapes
than ever myth may wield
we must band together
'gainst the monsters
and refuse to yield

rebuff

in stasis
carbonite could not
trap me better
than indecision has
unwelcome respite
nonetheless
I still rebuff advances
made in less than earnest
escape desired
from the shackles
of a book and barstool
but desperation delayed
I wait

superjacent

we being begin
a decoupage 
bits and pieces 
of times and places
persons met
decisions made
glued superjacent
built up in layers
around a frame
the world designed
filled with joy
and anguish too
piñatas waiting in
desolation or celebration
for the universal stick
to swing and spill us

linchpin

unjust
that it is so
but so it is
we feel the loss
of some more keenly
for in their loss
we others lose
unlikely linchpins

their absence
leaves a wake
by which
we are dispersed
as the is
dissolves into was
and the us
into they

de rigueur

that it was once
de rigueur among my set
to daily drudge and toil
with the ardor of youth
and a dream of tomorrow
was fine and good
for that's what youth
is made for 
and yet somehow still
here I remain dreaming
and drudging 
and they have all seeming
moved right along
their work seems worth more
their lives like a song
and yet I know
that seems is not is
the difference between
wine and champagne
more than just fizz

acceptation

the frailty of normality
is the thickness of a strand of hair
this tenuous thread we walk upon
to cross a chasm over a gaping maw
where acid geysers spit and spew
refute the former acceptation of
the acceptable; no more the world
we thought we knew.
civility only works when calibrated to
a universal that everyone claims.
wherein lies the civil
when babies are in chains?
when young black men are slain?
when women's truth disdained?
rise up and lend your voice, for certain,
to make your mark but mark this more,
go make your mark behind the curtain

nary

the world cracks and crumbles
baked by drought and ceaseless sun
her native grasses of more peaceful days
tassels in the wind long gone
dug up for a pasture long past
and now the desert dust blown in
the rain, an inconstant lover
drops by and as soon leaves again
no roots to hold her and nary a soul
save a rustle in the scrub can stay
like the rain, the people gone away

tergiversation

she did not mind
the lack of love
but that he claim her
as friend sans respect

agency removed
told what she should know
but no more
his sins omitted
and her teeth gritted

truth so deflected in a
linguistic mirror with distortions
these tergiversations let her go
relieved her of regret
but could not make her forget

crapulous

even by his own standards
crapulous, he crumbled
tilting towards the floor
but for the bar grasped as
a sailor in a typhoon swell
and looked to me
as though with all
my mighty height
of five foot four
I could maneuver his
six foot three
back towards the door
and drag him home
oh, better tis to be alone
I do not miss those days
no, I do not miss that man
and when I lonesome pine
I ever mumble this refrain
better all my days forlorn
than deal with that again

quip

oh love
despite my drought
still hope remains
that one will come
take up my reins
and lead me cross
the barren plains
to love
with laughing quips
our repartee
equipped with smiles
my fear allay
and all my awkwardness
he'll say
is charming more
than my dismay
my love

emblazon

as a nervous mother might
before her child, off to camp is sent
stitch within each item
the name to whom each thing belongs

so would I
across your heart emblazon my name
that I might claim a space forever there

as is your name
upon my heart
not writ
but branded

by and large

         the leaves swirl
               in little
          leaf tornadoes
      as they fall
from tree
   to ground
      by and large
           a ballet
              danced without
             an audience
        how lucky then
             are we
        to catch
   this matinee

Luddite

they mock me
for my old phone
but I still get my calls
they mock me
for my old tech
yes, they're all so in thrall
to the internet of things
and every little toy
that beeps and dings

but when the waves rise up
and when the power goes
their gadgets will all brick,
their gewgaws and gizmos,
and Luddite that I am will laugh
because even without video
I still know how to cook and sew

ambivalent

the towering wave
about to topple
sang froid difficult
when confronted
where the ambivalent
by the violent are swayed
they cannot be bothered
to defend against the tide
and faith's erosion
taken as inevitable
and not regrettable

Occident

no accident
how oft we orient
by Occident
the writers of
our western histories
hold up themselves
as GMTs
and set the world
by their own store
sharing less
instead of more
the news we hear
most oft our own
the maps we read
reflect one zone
this narrow focus
makes us worse
the world is wide
the world diverse
the more we know
the more we care
we grow the greater
the more we share

scintillate

kindred spirits
recognized as eyes
light up like fireflies
when conversation
scintillates as shy
reticence abates

gloaming

beyond the firelight
shadows lengthen
as the gloaming sets in
the crickets begin
chirrupping to fiddle
their end of summer serenade
campfire smoke billows
infiltrates your hair and clothes
to remind you tomorrow
of tonight

peripeteia

a slow groove channel dug
by water trickling
till twenty years have passed
lost in routine and daydream
from the bottom of a canyon
waiting for a delusive deus ex machina
to catalyze a peripeteia
to catapult above the ledge
of omnipresent twilight
in your self made shade

the choice
now to climb
to see the sun
or be resigned
to the comfort
of your known dark

intestine (adjective)

when the people running a thing
are set on ruining a thing
to prove that there's no value to be found

in the thing they've spent their lives
and fortunes and husbands and wives
to get to run into the ground

when intestine altercations
tear apart a party from inside
when all good men and women
look for a safe place to hide

when those brow beaten every day
who by all rights should hide away
instead stand in front of the rushing train

when whether cause false or true
we all are exhorted to
the equivalent of "remember the Maine"

when the unjust are entrusted with justice
who will stand up for the rest of us

weltschmerz

oh, the sturm and drang of adolescence
when everything full of importance
in doldrums of middle age the war we wage
most oft against ourself and not the world
and finds us filled with weltschmerz
for a time when we raged instead of disengaged

cloister

how you all
don't succumb
to the temptation
to cloister
your children
and hide them
from the wicked world
I will never comprehend
but I am glad
that you do not
for they must learn
what it is
to remake it

manifesto

the temptation grows
to retreat
to cabin or cave
and scribble
a million manifestos
wherein I rant and rave
and bemoan
what the world's become
hidden away
from everyone