20200331.0430

The one large gun has sent many shells downrange
Some of them have even hit their targets
But the heat of so much firing off is
Warping the barrel
And the metal begins to scream its fatigue
While the targets grow ever further away
And it's not clear why we're shooting anyway
Because such war as there was has been won
By the combatant who always wins in the end
Because none best that final foe
However well armed they may be

20200330.0430

Montgomery Burns is the body politic
But the doorframe he is crumbles while
Its limping form still struggles along
Staggering weakly but still
Not falling
Yet
The jambs creaking as they begin to splinter
The hinges warping out of line
And it is too much to hope they will
Seal the door shut

20200329.0430

Thrumming from being hammered
Pitch ascending as the key is turned
While a single thing is fingered again and again
But there is always a danger that
Something will snap
And woe to the one who looks too closely when it does

20200328.0430

Content for now to be carried
She is growing greater
And it will not be long before
No arms can lift her
And I fret that her wings will not
Bear her aloft
Let her soar so high
As I know she deserves to fly

20200327.0430

Hearing others' songs play dissonantly
I recognize the tones I sound in my turn
And I realize I need to tune myself
And play a damned lot better

20200326.0430

The simple step repeated often
Scales drilled and drilled and drilled
And each gliding stroke of brush or pen
The practice needed and but seldom seen
Valued only for what it yields when
It value is itself
An effort toward the perfect moment
That never comes for some
And seldom even for those who come to know it best

20200325.0430

Now once again, the Stupid God complains,
Lifts its voice again in old refrains
Echoing from mountains across plains:
What is is really not, or, if it be
Such that few can say they do not see
It is, that it instead should merit glee,
And not the censure that the wise bestow.
Amid discordant sounds in pitch below
What easily is heard, choruses go
That many sing again in awkward guise,
Giving voice again to oft-told lies
That many take as truth--to no surprise
If to too much regret and to address
That never does suffice to purge the cess.

20200324.0430

The old poet writes that
Lesbia peels men in the back alleys
And readers have known the peeling for
A thing done before the cock crows
And perhaps it is
A drier and less common trick
Turned for a butcher's fee
Paid for a piece of rump roast
Or bone-in ham
But perhaps it is
A thing done less happily
Not so much opening the satyr's gift where
The package will be tucked away again
But
A split in the wrapping that
Lets a different fluid flow that
Life demands
Because the hand is not all that tears
With too much rubbing on it

20200323.0430

The lines of her suit cut into sight
Sharpening the curves they cover
And highlighting other things
Showing yet other lines
Unintended, maybe
But still sounding a voice in mind that says
Unbutton
Unzip
Uncover
Read the lines more closely and carefully
Plunge deeper into the job

20200322.0430

Sitting in the meeting
Surrounded by people who
Look like they know what they are doing
At least
I can smell myself
The onions and garlic of last night's meal
And an acrid undertone I can only call
Fear
Along with the musk I cannot help but wear
And another that comes from thoughts I perforce but should not have
I hope their noses are not so good as mine
Who permit me to sit among them

20200321.0430

Jiggling slabs catching light and throwing shadows
It would be cracklin were it less of a pig
Squealing as it rushes to the trough
Trying to cut with the work of its mouth where it might have had tusks
But they
Like other things
Have been lost at the demands of others far removed
And it is little wonder that it compensates where it can
Swelling such to show that it can swell
Somewhere
Somehow

20200320.0430

What joy in taking up the glass
Putting lips to its cup
However small
And letting its weight rest in the palm or
Holding in hand the swellings of its stem
Slender though it is
It offers enough to grasp

20200319.0430

I'd run the race
Tried again and again to make the kind of time
That would let me move past the one heat
And I finally did it
But I had to change events
Go from sprinting to a distance run
For which I thought I had trained enough
Wrongly
And now I am plodding along
And hoping I do not get knocked out of contention

20200318.0430

The sun peeks out from behind the clouds
But chilly breezes still blow
A swamp-cooler working in what passes for winter
Where snow seldom falls and ice seldom forms
But there are threads of green poking out from a tapestry that
Is brown from its time in the weather
And colored embroideries may soon show themselves
Where the cloth has been washed clean

20200317.0430

I have never remembered
How I learned what I know
And even if I did
I do not know how others
Will learn what they can know
Of what I do
Though I know no others will know all I know
As I know not the whole of what others have learned

20200316.0430

To none is it given to excel in all
And those who may seem to but put on a show
Yet more can be done by each in every thing
A truth made but little though many it know

20200315.0430

The altar is but crudely made
The temple built from ill-cut stones
Laid haphazardly and at odd intervals
For that god to whom it is sworn and consecrated
Has not demanded better
But an earnest worship should ever give its best
And the keepers have just the one task
For which they are compensated as well as they could expect

Perhaps they should be dismissed

20200314.0430

I spend my days with pen in hand
Or hunched over keyboards
Or smaller screens
Scrawling and typing and pecking with a single finger
As if rummaging around in a nostril for a
Sickly green soft crystalline prison
Trying to dig out the speck of grit caught in the middle of my head
So I can flick it away
Or
Too often
Swallow it back down again because
Nobody needs to see it

20200313.0430

Consider the potato
Lumpen earth-apple shedding clods
But if it is whipped enough
And creamed
It is a rare delight

20200312.0430

Sometimes the clouds part
Showing the bright blue sky behind them
Or the shimmering sheen of the
Jewel-strewn cloak Ouranos wore
When he came courting
And afterwards
But the skies are often overcast
And I command no winds to push back
The curtain they let fall

20200311.0430

The field yields best that lies fallow for a season
And land sold off because a single crop does not produce
Quite
The harvest that was sought
Is not so easy to reclaim when it becomes fecund again.

20200310.0430

Her happiness is the shining sun
Bathing all it touches in a pleasing warmth
But burning what basks in it too long
And my skin is all too pale

20200309.0430

Has there ever been a child who
Seeing a slide standing in the sun
Did not try to climb it
Eagerly as going down?
When did I lose the impulse?

20200308.0430

What they share
I know
Is something I can never know
A certainty I have never had
And cannot remain myself and have
Though I often think it would be nice
To have
And to be able to join therefore

20200307.0430

Seeing how they run amok
I think I was never so young
Even when I was that age
Half a life ago and more
Nor could I afford to be so kind when
I realized I ought always to have been

20200306.0430

A herald under Apollo's banner
Brings tidings at which many sing for joy
But others know a herald comes ahead of a marching force
And fear the army certain soon to come
And try to take some measures to slow its advance
However little
While others still say no such swords will swing
No such spears thrust
Or arrows fall from on high
To pierce to the inmost heart and root
What elsewise long would grow

20200305.0430

I do not want to see her bound
By those same strictures under which I struggle
But she struggles so to put them on
And though I know she will labor under them
I know she will work no less for lacking them
And I'd not have her lazy

20200304.0430

Straining once again to
Cut time
Moving as one
In harmony
And stirring the souls of those who still hear
And there are many who still hear
The ringing of a liberty bell
Or songs of Garfield's rise and fall
Or the oft-played paean to the
Stars and stripes
Forever
Anthem of the king of the marches
Whose day is this
And whose reign is yet unchallenged
And likely never shall be

20200303.0430

They say sunlight is
Strong disinfectant
So what must I think
When I am burned beneath it
Or when it strips the white away
From those who are too proud of it

20200302.0430

One member of a select firmament
Standing alone
Celebrating the day when it first
Stood alone
Today
More than most days
Because this was the day
In those long-ago days
When first it said it would
After others had overrun it
Time and again
It did not stand alone long
And it faltered in smaller company
Sometimes looking to repeat the mistake
When headed by
The empty-headed
Wearing their oversized hats

20200301.0430

They seem so at ease with one another
In the open light of day
Shining in the sun when I see them in glimpses when
I can look up from my accustomed tasks and
The weather is good
Which conjunction is a rare happening
And when I see them
A longing of an all too common sort rises in me
I wonder then
How many of them know each other well
Under cover
Of darkness
And otherwise