20210909

Thinking ahead
Was obviously
Not a strength
Yesterday
Or before
I must do better

20210908.0430

Tigers once but
Chicken-blooded now, they
Hover, rotors whirring
Looking for a landing zone
Filled with bullets and bile
And I worry that I have
Made a clearing for them
Somehow
Already

20210907.0430

All out of season, I go again
Thinking I might harvest apples
But may have more to do to prune errant branches
Give good soil for deeper rooting
And maybe the fruit will ripen sweetly
Nourish those who follow after
I can hope so
Wish me luck

20210909.0430

So
The one man can
Lay out glowsticks as an invitation to a trap
Set a truck on fire
Flee
Fire on four others
Killing a dog
Killing three
One a babe in arms
Another its mother
Another hers
Try to take a cop's gun
And still walk out alive?
But the other cannot have his truck break down
Without making officers afraid
Signing his own death warrant?
Or another cannot have a quiet night at home
Without execution?
Gee, I wonder why.

20210906.0430

Beside you now, I lift my fist
And even if my wrist is weak
It is stronger not alone
As is the case with yours
As we remember on this day
As we ought on other days
Because we've seen what happens when we do
And when we don't
And one is clearly better

20210905.0430

I listen yet to the years-old refrain
I've heard so often it has become plain
And clear to even me; I do not strain
Untangling threads the harmonies will weave
Or picking out the words that I believe
Still speak good thoughts I delight to receive.
I still, though, see that other still rely
On what they think is one voice to get by
Even if it feeds them on a lie
And tells them so-called thought-control abounds
When it itself divergent thought surrounds
And seeks to have it swallowed by the ground
A fate that waits for all, as must be said
But one to which some are more swiftly led.

20210904.0430

The staring blank pages rebuke me
Wordlessly
And I shudder at their censure
But that quivering is enough to
Break me free from
What holds me back
And I begin again

20210903.0430

Today, of course, is the last day I will be working at the Hill Country Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Inc. After the weekend, I will take up my new position at Burnet High School in Burnet, Texas. Here, as I have done elsewhere, I thank the Council for the good years it has given me, and I wish my erstwhile coworkers all the best as they move forward--and as I do!

No poem for today, as might be thought--but I do have to offer the titular dash of lucid prose every now and again...

20210902.0430

Still the sparrows sing together and the wrens
As one among their number gains a new feather in a brighter hue
Promise of fairer plumage and more valuable to come
And the old staring owl looks to greener fields
Whither it will fly off all too soon
There again to vomit out what it has taken in over years
On fields where bulldogs frolic on the green

20210901.0430

Winding out the last few days
Where I have worked and garnered praise
Not yet a corpse yet still decay
But I recall that rot provides
More nourishment for future lives
And so my lingering helps thrive
Those who will follow after