shot-clog

when pints are poured
in every group
a shot-clog
holding forth
remains to hold
the bar right up
tight as tipple
loosens up
uptight tongue
and herein find
may make up mind
they start the night
and stay behind
beyond the time
when wiser heads
their beds may find

disbursement

poor pauper, I
once waited upon
disbursement of affection
from miserable misers
to feed my hungry heart
better instead to forage
and in wilds find
sustenance sourced
from nature’s bounty
than starve in hope
for crumbs falling

bread

by trial
and error
we learn

flour to start
and something else
to make us rise

mix ourselves together
knead our lumps
allow us rest to grow

we are the bread
baked in the oven
of hearth and history

we nourish ourselves
and share of us
to feed a home

lacuna

as elixir metabolizes
into bloodstream billowing
a brief lacuna lolls
twixt the final sip
and morning drip
surprise arises
blackout beneficent

commemorate

today we commemorate
those who have gone before
who fought for a love
be it a love of country
or god or family or friend
who risked all to uphold
the idea that we are not one
but a part of something greater
than the ego than the id
than superego
we are more
than ourselves
and so became
angels

yen

in darkest hours
when most dark thoughts
rise from deeps
subconscious singing out
we all have
a yen for comfort
and in you
i find it

disparage

question your motivations
question your assumptions
and associations
make distinct facts
and opinions
discern what conditions
influence you
and once you do
if your determinations
won’t leave you full
of self recriminations
change or remain
but remember
the world may disparage you
for holding true or alterations
but will you sleep
you are the company
you most keep

apposite

sincerest sentiment
delivered timely
better than
the apposite
and urbane
strained
and delayed
after the fact
detracts 

scavenger

collect from
the last gasp carcass
of this dying earth
pluck and pull
and pack away
remember thee
the honey bee
sing along the last song
of Kirtland's Warbler
or croaking frogs
or wild dogs
or flowers bloom
in garbage bogs
be a scavenger saving
from the wreckage
a collage more beautiful
than dreaming

peer-to-peer

change dictated
struggles to survive
beyond the dictator

fiat founded it fumbles
when the masses rumble

instead the spark sent
peer-to-peer will thrive
like neurons firing
or roots of runners
spreading underground
to burst forth come spring
in hope uprising

pungle

we define ourselves
by what we buy and what we make
morals quantified
we prioritize and civilization devise

decided by the people's people
....presumably

so it behooves us
to pungle up our part
for schools and roads and art
for we also pay for bombs and banks
with never any thanks
and how much we pay for each
tells you what our value ranks

remittance

paper parcel

left upon

the doorstep

enclosed within:

1 heart

1 hope

1 dream

remittance due

upon receipt

or

if items damaged in transit

please return to sender

coin of the realm

though has never
been truly the case
still for one brief
moment it seemed
that integrity might be
the coin of the realm
instead of perfidy

tenacious

fever dream
awoken by
tenacious cough
infection exhausted
sheets swarm
like snake cluster
rest brings respite

palimpsest

i am a floppy disk
obsolete palimpsest

and you are but a memory
of a first draft
of a file
saved
and saved
and saved
and deleted
and recovered
and rewritten
and moved
to a hard drive
on a different desk

countermand

if i had a nickel for every time
my mouth countermanded
an order from my brain
and kept on with its refrain
i would have all the money
that every mint has ever made
were my blurting paid

glitch

the opportunity
to overthrow
a feature
not a glitch
democracy is
beautiful
even when
it is a bitch

borne

and so it passes
from person to person
like an air-borne pathogen
transforming annoyance to rage
at every stage increasing momentum
like an avalanche like a pandemic like a
hurricane of hate growing greater and greater
until we are destroyed in the asteroid-like impact

regale

gather ye round, sit ye down
and I will regale you
with a tale of damsels more
distressing than distressed,
where every knight must
do better than their best,
where wild beasts
from myth may roam
and the Fairefolk call
your home home,
where terror or triumph
behind each door awaits
the heroes herein who
fight the Fates
gather ye round by the fireside
for the shadows are deep
and while the storm rages
you must stay inside

darling

time has washed away
the ache from memory
no more with regret
do I remember what was
but still a phantom twinge
as of a wound long healed
reminds me of a time
when given names were
never a whisper
or wished to be
I was just baby
you were my darling
and such we were
before distance made us
strangers with surnames

incipient

the days keep coming
and chiseled away
certain things we
thought were done
and fought for
but the incipient truth
appears through
the glass darkly
that rights are no more
than a shared dream
and we are drifting
into a nightmare
unless we communally
shake ourselves awake

footle

better tis to fill one's days
with hobbies, cats and friends
and hope that love
will find me on its own
a string of suitors
has footled with my heart
taking up my time
and I have let them
no more to entertain trifles
as though they were treasures

stratagem

the enemy is bold
and in their boldness
baldfaced lying
ignore consequence
to those dying
they are not their people
so what care they

how can one reason
with apathy
with bigotry
with sheer disdain

their is no stratagem
to devise that will
reunite the enraged
with empathy
for they never had it

hypocrisy and narcissism
the banner they wave
and clutch their pearls
at those who say
the right thing wrong

muse (v)

carve out a little
space and time
that's mine
and mine alone
to muse upon
might have beens
delicately trace
upon the page
stillborn ambition
and use derision
to pen away
all self denial
manifested into art
to take the mind
apart and reassemble

links

the link that links
these dirty finks
not just time
spent on the links
but adulterous hijinks
and that the one
of the other thinks
a meritorious distinction
earned with
nods and winks
you could ask
the all-knowing sphinx
and even he could not
explain that riddle
but his cat eye blinks

ephemeral

they danced
on gilded feet
to brass bands
reverberate
before a war intruded
with grim consequence
scathing and pruning
but for this
moment ephemeral
young and bright
and blooming
these hearts met
and in movement
found surcease from 
fear and imminent grief

trivial

so much we cannot control
easy then to fixate on the trivial
to lull the mind into complacency
with a pantomime of power
pretend presumption persuading
ourselves just enough else
we would wild go if truth be told

hypermnesia

odd blunting and erosion
of the waves of time
washing over life’s beach
yet some are bulwarks
against the rising tides

hypermnesia builds
a perfect bridge stretching
out over here to there
linking our bits of land
with precision

so you are in memory
preserved from drowning

asperity

patience run thin
like mascara in
a double rain
and pain onslaught
the inky black
dissolving and
painting washed out
watercolor cheeks
in volcano ash hues
as flicks of mud
freckle the calf
fleeing the asperity
of heartbreak's
perversity
feet pound out
the proclamation
couched in cliche
not good enough
not smart enough
not pretty enough
not funny enough
not enough
not again
not today

prodigious

time reviewed

vision skewed
to ends unthunk

prodigious talent turned
titanic treasure sunk

down beneath the waves

days eroded like the dunes
no more to stop a rising tide

coral dreams for parrot fish
to snap with beaky jaws

digested aspirations make bleached beaches

valetudinarian

once robust
unpotted and
placed outside
esteem
struggles
to survive
valetudinarian
in the silty soil
the world provides