Dismantled magicks
rust in shovel-ready heaps.
I have outgrown all –
learned I cannot fix the world –
and now? Feel foolish.
~
12 Jan 2023 – Tanka
This flop eared jackass
runs down Main Street’s center stripe,
braying his brains out!
He knows this won’t win him friends,
but who says Death plays favorites?
~
11 Jan 2023 – Morning
Sunrise is coming,
not so far away a cock
crows out his warning.
The mists of midnight
swirl about my headlight beams,
and shine back concrete.
So soon Dawn’s paintbrush
burns away my little life
in orange and crimson.
~
10 Jan 2023 – now what?
Okay, so now what?
Bow’s been rosined, fiddle’s tuned,
but there’s no music.
~
10 Jan 2023 – New Congress
Today the monkeys
wear red shirts. Tomorrow? Blue?
The sky? Still falling.
~
10 Jan 2023 – Senryu Sequence: After a Lifetime Writing
After a lifetime
rearranging Adam’s dust
what’s been accomplished?
I hunted trophies
shaped like stone, except – they’re snow.
I was a moron!
Oh, what a windbag!
Lord, the way the burlap heaved
I thought so special.
~
07 Jan 2023 – Disappointment
All your dreams and aspirations? Proud projections,
thinking Love is strong enough to crack the armor
of another, who was doing fine without you,
only needing your support for their neurosis,
only wanting Hades stairwell left unhindered –
this is not Christ’s Kingdom, just fresh crucifixion –
this alone I’ve learned from passing through their churches:
playing God Almighty seems to never tire.
~
04 Jan 2023 – Tumbleweed’s Hymn
Winds hammer windows, cold rain beats the roof,
if ever a tumbleweed, here’s the proof!
Constantly calling me: “Beds may be warm,
but your heart belongs to the heart of the storm!”
Lightning illumines what’s otherwise dark.
Night rules the nations where dogs do not bark.
No one believes that the reckoning comes,
ear to their pillow, they swear that’s no drum!
Only a heart that leaps high at each crash
as horsemen draw nearer, mad ‘neath their lash.
My hour comes, I was born just for this!
The storm others flee, I was formed to kiss!
~
31 Dec 2022 – ProsePoem: Old Years Day
Although the day is young and doubtless 2022 still has a few more cards to play, it’s running out of time and I for one will dance about the house with joy once we’ve jumped clear of its protracted train wreck!
No bets upon the morrow, we’re all getting by and we’ve already tapped strategic reservoirs of hope too many times and overwhelming risks we know won’t go away continue to present themselves, precluding foolish, optimistic gambles.
Madmen East and West pursue their adolescent cruelties. We all know their names. Something’s in the water or the air or DNA or in our heads no swizzle stick can reach to dig it out of there.
That’s why progress is a shimmering mirage you’ll never get your fingers on no matter how you may exhaust yourself, reciting market mantras. 2023? Once you see you’re simply running laps until your skin falls off you’ll stop this chasing 3D printed carrots.
~
25 Dec 2022 – Haiku
If age taught nothing,
nothing should at least consist
of this: we’re infants.
~
Wurkz OfArt 