billion

the world
has over seven billion people

over seven billion smiles

over seven billion hearts

over seven billion dreams

but only one smile is yours
though you have two hearts

your own and mine

and together we dream

over seven billion dreams

just us two
out of over seven billion

grift

caught fish in a net
so too the gullible
in the grift are ground
chum for bigger sharks

avuncular

dressed in sky blue windbreaker
he dragged on a filterless cigarette
with avuncular aplomb
dispensing wisdom and disdain
in equal measure and we would
hang on every word and treasure
his curmudgeonly advice
repeated once, repeated twice

impetus

sometimes
the impetus
to comes not
from within
but without
with screaming &
with shouts & bouts
of rage & shame
for letting things
go on so long
sometimes that's how
we embrace change

sequester

yesterday,
in the mail,
I received
a summons
for jury duty.
today’s word
is sequester.
life is funny.

chockablock

possibility stirs the pot
swirls together all
the joy and ginger
tenderness and trial
love and labor of life
fills one up chockablock
from top to toe until
we overflow

minion

you think them
your minions
but beware
when they rebel
oh the stories
they can tell
cross them
if you dare

hoopla

it's begun
the race
they run
some sprint
and sink
before
the brink
some steady on
some run for fun
and in the hoopla
find their feet
some stumble
some retreat
some tread
a steady beat
but all find
fast or slow
or some
other time
we cross
a finish line

obsequious

beginnings are fun
when we become oblivious
and friends find us obsequious
in service of a fickle king
enthroned heart adjures
giddy and glib and
insufferably sweet
both too protracted
and too succinct

emote

you listen to me
rant and rage
and wish that you
would act your age
then you emote
and swear repentance
before I even
finish my sentence
but do you mean it?
not one bit,
we both know that
you're full of shit

prestigious

Oh, I could wish acclaim -
set my sights on heights prestigious,
long for titles or for fame;
instead, I merely yearn for this:
an open heart, a willing ear,
the time to make the things I love,
more time with those that I hold dear,
that's all. I've nothing else to prove.

disavow

I do not comprehend
those who claim they
never have regrets.
did never once
they hurt someone they loved?
did never yet declaim in anger
words unkind or in ignorance
unjust accuse or rage against
a slight slightly too much?
and yet for all that
I would disavow my past,
I cannot.
my faults most faultless teachers
I have known.
without regret, would I repent
and would I have ever grown?

gibbous

we walk in
shadow cast
from grasping fingers
reaching for
the gibbous moon
like diver’s fingers
combing the sea bed
in search of fallen pearls

apotheosis

spontaneity not my habit;
casual not a cloth I often wear.
I am the apotheosis of awkward
and find the kind of serendipity
that you enjoy so adventitiously
odd, to say the least, but for
a moment brief, too brief
I revel in extempore and
in abandon wild find relief

heartstring

unstrung
i polish
and fix
my frets
laboriously
rethread and tune
so someday
when nimble fingers
pluck my upon
my heartstrings
the song they'll sing
will ring out true

cacophony

in the aftermath
the silence is what strikes

in contrast to the cacophony
of disaster's display
the quietude of dismay
muffles sensation
like a wet blanket
choking waterlogged grief

the sole sound
a gasping to breathe

teem

salmon swimming
up the urban stream
commuters teem
in writhing wiggle
push and shove
and jiggle the doors
stick to the floors
eyes askance
or in a trance
willing the train
down the track
hating the person
who wears a backpack

bardolater

I must confess that what you guess is true:
in every thought and every twisting rhyme,
my love for Him suffuses through and through,
to Him, I will return time after time.

He taught me how to love and how to hate,
(and though schoolchildren in him oft despair)
he showed me best to rail against my fate.
I find his wordplay well beyond compare.

Bardolater I am, and without shame,
"Twas ever thus," he whispers in my ear...
Sweet Willie Shakes, to call him out by name
to any logophile that holds him dear.

Tragedy, comedy, or history -
his facility is the mystery.

finicky

we defeat ourselves
so finicky in choice
that we deny the pleasure
in plain sight and so
we lose the thing
most desired
mired in a mind set
that leads to regret

prescind

chaos abounds
chattering cacophonous
surrounds as a swarm
of clicking pincers
pricking piece by piece
so from the storm
prescind perforce
to find surcease
from chaos into peace

wiseacre

click your clever claws
and smugly smile
like the cat that caught
the canary but beware
your precarious position
is fraught for some
will learn what you've taught
and turnabout is fair play
you'll eat tomorrow the crow
you dished out today
for now you may have
the upper hand, but alas,
the wiseacre is plowed
by the dumbass

abstruse

imposter syndrome
born of knowing one
possesses some
intelligence and yet
constantly finds oneself
in utter befuddlement
by others motivations
more abstruse
than the fictional
astrophysical spinning
of splintered atoms
in the mind of
a deranged god

ratiocination

in days previous i had plans
more plans than fit in one lifespan
gloriously laid / meticulously made
my ratiocination so refined
it would have blown your mind
but now i take things as they come
or not

mettlesome

tricksy age youth
marked by awkward mix
of timidity and bravery
in tie-dye fire panorama
middle-age more mild but
more mettlesome
inner conflagration
flares rarer but more bright
beyond diamond incandescent
as charcoal by years
carbon compressed
blazes before we go
our supernova spent
to darkness we relent

condone

a gentle nature betrays;
leaving one undone by
friends of longstanding
who take advantage
of benevolence
and cannot or will not
acknowledge that
they gain through
an other's passivity,
neglecting amity's duties
and misdiagnosing docility
as though one condone's
one's own destruction.

senescence

like poles rushing past
train windows
so the days go
from one into the next
hurtling through senescence
and before you can
catch your breath
you’ve breathed your last

portend

sometimes the universe
decides you are meant
to renew a friendship
and so it occurs
that though you have
made plans again and again
it is some randomness
that portends and at some
random bar on some
random night you and
that random friend both
do find yourselves
for birthday parties

largesse

step right up!

behold!

rhetorical acrobatics

of the billionaire unfold

he's just like us

in private jet

instead of bus!

oh sure, he'll bestow 

his largesse

on those of us 

who have much less

but not by tax or corporations

paying all their contributions

but by political machinations

still, take heart, friends

history teaches sticky ends

for those who value dividends 

and their own asses

over the striving huddled masses