The Bill We Owe

Oh, William Shakespeare, don't you know that you
Are not as wise or relevant because
You are a dead white male -- so what you're due
Is less no matter what your writing does

To raise the soul, no matter who you are.
Perhaps the critics' brain cells have been charred
With cold political correctness: "Bar
The door, do not let in the greatest Bard!"

Are those they wish to raise so bad to read
That they must first destroy the reputation
Of you, the greatest writer, live or dead?
So great some think you must be some creation?

The critics do not pick who will survive --
The artists, readers pick those who will thrive.

A View From the Steps

She sits sideways on the bench, reading,
back bent at the same angle as the fountains
shooting water at each other, bending to a teepee
of foam. Her blonde hair, white shirt, light khaki pants
blend into the white water's triangular frame, the pale gray
concrete bench she sits on cross-legged. I wonder
what she's reading, what she's thinking --
I could go, ask. She stands, looks around, her hair flailing
out around her head, then walks away. The brick base
of the fountain creates sharp relief
between the bench and rising water.

Hover

The sky lies transparent to the sun,
ozone refracting light to blue, scattered
so it's all that's seen. Hovering, a bird,
black, screeches in the sky, looking down,
the ground a haven harboring food, birth,
death. She flies, finding updrafts, currents of air,
used to keep her place, a bent cross pinned in the sky.
Then up, aloft, away from sight, deciding now
against the ground, leaving the sky
empty of sight, break, or sound.

The Dead of Winter

I seem to have lost winter here in Hattiesburg,
camellias blooming, late November, December,
white waxy roses, thick, full, ideal, nestled
among broad evergreen leaves. January,
a tree bursts alone against the gray dead trees
surrounding into hot-pink floral flames. Four-petaled
bluets, almost too tiny to be seen, flowers millimeters
wide, navy-eyed, twin leaves on a hair-width stem --
a February full of lilliputian flowers. a thin vine
winding up a pole, hanging from a handrail, arrow leaves,
tiny orange trumpets -- I never saw it out of bloom
from August until now. I wonder what March
in Mississippi means to bring me -- azaleas,
mountain laurels, wisteria vines, unknown flowers,
white with red stamens on broadleaf evergreen bushes,
scent ascending, alluring, enticing.

Crepe Myrtle

This is the first I've seen crepe myrtle blooming
their crinkled torus blossoms all through summer,
or growing into trees. A tiny bush
grew near my childhood bedroom window wall --
I chose it for the hot pink flowers blooming
for an entire month in summer. May
to hot September here, I've yet to see
them out of bloom. Pink flowers everywhere --
along, between the roads and houses, only
the freshly planted the same size as mine
up in Kentucky, just now five years old.
The five-year-olds have grown to pink-torch trees
in Mississippi's summer heat. While mine
was one, unique and beautiful -- now, they
seem much too much. While through their commonness
I have already grown exhausted of
all the crepe myrtles that I've seen, I know,
when I go up, see mine again, the only
one growing, blooming in White Plains, I will
think it is the most beautiful of flowers.

Gulfport, MS

The gulf is dark, calm, forming pools
in shallow sand as water pulls away --
it's slipping silent from my feet. Sand scampers
across them. I thought the tide would be high
on a full moon. Jellyfish, long and blue, red, oval,
with tiny tentacles caressing water by, move
slow by my feet. I can easily step away.
Black skimmers -- long red bottom bill
that breaks the water's surface, scooping fish
with its black tip -- glide silently across the sea,
unseen until only a few feet away. Everything here
is unexpected, not at all how I thought it would be --
the moon, the birds, the sea -- and me, me most of all.

May Day

If Marx is right, the more I work on this
One poem, as I contemplate it's rhyme
And rhythm, I will see its value kiss
The clouds as labor builds up over time.

But if I simply jot it down, without
Much thought, just following the habits wrought
From practice, then there surely is no doubt
It's worth as little as the effort bought.

And surely longer poems must be worth
More than a couplet, quatrain, or haiku
Since so much time was spent in giving birth --
It's length, not content, that makes value true?

But no one cares if I took days or weeks
Or even minutes for the lines I write --
The only want what every reader seeks:
For wisdom, knowledge, something that delights.

And so I'm not exploited if I can
Not find a reader for my epic verse,
Nor I unfairly profit if a man
Delights in sonnets more -- we can't disperse

The value fairly to the written lines.
No, you must judge alone what lines you like --
The value's only what your taste defines --
It makes no sense for me to go on strike.

On the Hills

Dark pines on low, rolling hills,
hiding those hills so slightly.
What life hides beneath their boughs,
springing up between pine needles?
Little life in such acid soils
produced by pines and oaks and magnolias.
These seem sufficient for the beauty
of these hills, a different beauty from the hills
I'm used to -- towering hills spotted with caves,
covered in oaks and maples, redbuds, dogwoods,
tulip trees in full flower, filling the forests
with whites and purples, a touch of pink. These hills
may seem more plain --
unless . . .
unless you look more closely . . .
then you can see the beauty's just as clear, only
a little different in the dark green needles.

Open

My heart opens --
a book, a rose, the beak of a baby bird
in an old, bent apple tree --
until I know, now, its warmth is not wasted
on your door, cracked open.

The Sandhill

In a swamp along Highway 49,
between Hattiesburg and Gulfport, Mississippi,
I saw standing, still and straight,
a long gray bird, beak jutting out
from under a small red patch
on a small gray head. He didn't seem
to be hunting swimming fish or frogs,
only watching,
watching the road,
the cars going by --
as if he owned everything he saw.
I wasn't one to argue.
I believed him as I drove by.

A New Wal-Mart

"We do not want it here," they chant and cry --
The time, the money spent, the vigor of
Their protest -- fools alone would dare deny
This all is for a neighborhood they love.

The Wal-Mart Corporation wants to build
A store in a dead shopping center -- dead
For years, and killing all who came. Those killed
Will not come back, yet life is viewed with dread.

And when the Wal-Mart does at last renew
The center, making it itself, where will
Those old protestors be? What will they do,
Defeated by a corporate-city shill?

They can be found now, down each good-filled lane --
Convenience and good prices? Why complain?

Brown

I sleep and dream of beautiful brown eyes,
Your long brown curls cascading to your breasts,
Big brown nipples beckoning to me, sighs
Rise to my lips -- a face I bring forward,
Your lovely body I want to embrace
Again -- you are my lovely and adored
I must leave behind for a short time -- you
Are all I think of now. I want to come
Back to see you, never leave you, and view
You in your beautiful browns -- my heart's numb
Without you -- I can't wait to see your brown
Eyes again, dear -- in them I live to drown.

Screech Owl

The screech owl sits, adorable, up in
The open oak, alone and looking out
Upon its prairie that it had to win --
It rules its roost; it sits there with no doubt.

Around the oak are little balls of fur
With girter bones and stomach acid spackle --
The undigested all that's left of her,
The mother mouse. The owl emits its cackle

That terrifies the chimpunks, mice, and shrews,
Then lifts on silent wings. There's no endorphin
Rush -- there's no time to spread the awful news
That crushing claws have made another orphan.

The mouse's skull is crushed by this cold brute,
Who, tufted, colored rust, looks very cute.

Antitrust

The politicians say they only care
About consumer safety -- no debate
When people must be safe -- we would not dare
Deny that government must regulate.

But why do CEOs feast Congressmen
And ask for regulations to be made?
They capture regulations in their den
Of bureaucrats, so everyone is paid.

And when monopoly is made, it's fine
Until the wrong official is made mad --
And then the antitrust laws make it dine
Upon the fact it was a power fad.

The regulations make monopoly,
While competition is what makes us free.

Symmetry and Equlibrium

The coin is standing on its end
In perfect symmetry --
The little time that it will spend
(Potentiality

In quantum fluctuations, air
That's blowing from a vent,
The tiniest vibration) where
There is a small percent

Chance that no equilibrium
Will find this coin a place
Upon the table as a sum
Of our creation's trace.

Nostalgia

Medieval girth
Once showed the worth
of women, wide wastes, hips for birth.
A healthy Venus reigned
From stone age times of ice --
In recent times we've hardly gained --
A rail-thin culture has a price,
For with our wealth
We lost our health
And sensuality has waned.
A look at poverty is what we've earned,
Starvation-sallow cheeks and skin that's burned
From working in the fields
Is what our culture yields,
And so it shields
Us from our natural tastes
For fleshy hips and waists
Like that we see
In ancient pottery,
In totems and in paintings, luxury
In overflow.
But now the women are so lean
We do no grow
In health -- instead, we grow obscene --
Aesthetic judgments turn to rust
When faced with lust
We cannot trust --
We deserve only mirth.

OR-7

Alone, yet tracked, pacifically this wolf

Has wandered through the Cascade’s mountain passes

From Oregon to California –

He hides behind the pines and in tall grasses

In mountain meadows filled with flowers, filled

With game the wolf can eat. Alone, he finds

It’s mostly rabbits, pika, squirrels that he

Can catch and eat. When full, he mostly winds

Down old elk paths. He’s looking for a pack

And cannot know he is alone, the one

Lone wolf in California – he lives

Up to the name. He basks in the warm sun

And drinks from mountain lakes whose sapphire blue

Reflects the thin-aired sky, but when the moon

Is out, his haunting howl crowds out the rounds

Of hooting owls – he hears a calling loon

Instead of what he hopes to hear – another

Gray wolf to join him on his namesake quest,

To journey on with Journey as a mate

And hope across the new Pacific West.

Leonine Wisdom

Savannahs, deserts, forests, plains --
Environments that actions make, but have no goals
Like lion prides, each ruled by shaggy manes
And seeking to bring down for lunch weak zebra foals.

The wind blows through the grass in fractal waves
The lions interrupt as they go stalk and hunt
The antelope or zebras, what each craves
In proper networks so that none will be in want.

The lion does not seek to make its pride
The model into which the vast savannah must
Conform itself, for nature has denied
It both the knowledge and unwisdom of man's trust.

The Carpenter at Little Pawpaw Lake

"When I was a little girl," my great-
Grandfather said.
We laughed.
When he was young
His mother clothed
Him in dresses,
Lace bonnets,
So he and his sister
Could look alike --
"Else what use is there in having twins?"
Strollers with two girls,
A baby in drag
At the turn of the century.
"When I was a little girl,"
My great-grandfather said.
We laughed.
"You were never
A little girl."
And a tinny yellow
Picture would appear
From a faded jewelry box --
Two toddlers,
Faces framed by frills.

Walls or Wilderness

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -- John Lennon

You hide in shadows cast by thick brick walls
You built around your city -- urban plans
Are made to keep out all the wild life, calls
Of wolves and meadow larks silenced by bans
Enforced to keep all that is wild at bay
For fear the wilds in you will answer them.
Come into the fields and sunshine and play
With me, the wolves, the meadow larks -- the stem
Of thorns holds roses, the color and scent
Are dangerous to your fears -- let them die
And live your life dangerous and wild, spent
In beauty and love, where joy makes you cry.
When your city and wilds join up in strife,
Then maybe you can love both me and life.

Weather

Through snow and ice I drove to see
My family, friend -- for you, I drove,
And when I come to you, you flee
Into the frozen, barren grove
I find dividing you and me.

Ice glistens branches weighted down,
The gray row sparkles in the sun --
Yet, here the brightness on the crown
Of trees does not invite -- I shun
The trees draped in their virgin gown.

I'm lonely on this salted walk,
The gray of sidewalks aren't the same,
The ice on them won't make them talk
As ice on branches do. A shame
The snow here's not like Dover's chalk.

The gray road brings me back to home,
Away from where you are. I miss
Nothing about the trees, the chrome
White skies, your absence, lack of bliss
I sadly felt -- so now I roam

Among these buildings rising tall
Around these short-sleeved, lonely men --
These men the same as me, we fall
And fall, are groundless -- that is when
The snows divide us. I should call.

Unwelcome

I dwell in this house and know I should not
Live here in the dark and dust when I know
It is nothing but unhealthy. I must
Tear down these unholy walls and rip up
The floors. I must spread kerosine and light
The roof with it. Instead, my gray hairs lie
With corpses rotting in my bed, in dust
Decades old -- or, so it seems. My windows
Reflect away the sun, created as they
Are with aluminum foil. The dust
Cannot dance in the sunlight rays if I
Cannot dance within these gray, dusty walls.
The dust dries the air so much that my nose
Should bleed -- if only life ran red through me,
As it should but never really had. Tears
Vanished long ago, leaving me looking
With unblinking eyes at my reflection
In the protective aluminum foil
I do not even have the strength to tear.

The Absent One

Why keep on looking when you've found the one?
What if your love does not share in this view
And then turns out to be the one to run
Away from anything that had the hue
Of happiness or permanence? True oneness
Would frighten frigid this emotion-child,
Away from the only love who could bless
Her with the love that kept out the wild.
What happens when this love will not be yours?
Must you live life alone, in awful absence?
Must you live a sad life where no one lures
You to their heart since they would have no presence
In that one place where your true one could fit --
A tragedy your one could not commit.

Missed

I rush out of the house
Having awakened in time
To miss my breakfast
Cool air hits my face
It's nearly Fall
A few says left of Summer time
I darted down the concrete way
Dying flowers all along
Having missed them in my daily rush
I'd missed when they were beautiful
I stepped out on the blacktop road
And saw a gray and lonely car
Quickly pull around the curve
I've missed her yet again
As I've missed so many in the past
Perhaps I can catch her now
If I run along the street
And try to make myself known
Before she's completely out of sight

Living Together

She's always in the room with him, and yet
She always feels as if he is alone,
He's disconnected from her, everyone.
He only ever wanted love, a woman
For true companionship, to feel her close
Beside him, next to him, within. He feels
He must become a different one for her,
Another yet for each he knows, and so
The only man  he isn't is himself.
She will not listen. He won't speak. He thinks
His silences say everything. They would --
If only she would notice them without
His making her. She watches the T.V.
As in the other room he paints. He reads
As she plays games on the computer. They
Live in the house, together, all alone.

Castle Walls

When I became a single man, alone
Once more, I found myself cold, wondering
For hours on end if my love life was sewn
Up as a case, my desperate foundering
Could ever end. I simply had forgot
To know what must be done or where to look.
My poor experience simply could not
Envelop what has happened and what took
Down all the little confidence I'd built
Around me as a safe, stone edifice,
Meant to help me and to reduce my guilt
Not dissipated and made meaningless.
In this new life I find I must create,
There must be more love -- I must drop the gate.

Transparency

No man, emotionally, can be distant from the one he loves --
The horizon never comes near --
The porcupine mates, but is never in love --
The groundless moat, the topless wall
Are never built between friends
Or siblings --
And lovers least of all.
Hold me, cuddle, caress and snuggle
With your love, joy, the sun of your heart --
So I will know you love me
I will hold you, cuddle, caress and snuggle
With my heart and head, my eyes
So you will know I love you.
I will not hold you off -- prick me, make me bleed,
Send me running to you, afraid
I'll not be pricked again.
The bricks and mortar fill the moat --
You are the mountain faith brought near,
The faith that made me crystalline to you.

Wings

You say you love my soul -- you keep that love,
This bodiless love -- do not love me like
A brother, father, cousin, uncle, friend.
I tire of these friendships. A gray shrike
Gives mice less pain when he impales them on
The woody thorns than you do when you turn
Down my proposals and advances. Hawks
Can see less clearly than I can your stern
Core deep below your smiling ice -- you smile
At my desire and will not see the fire,
The underlying pain, the love I feel
That comes with each of my half-joking pleas.
And yet you hide your head from everything,
More ostrich than ostrich to the way
I feel -- I will not listen to excuses
About your lack of time, such words won't sway
Me to believing you. So tell me now
Instead how you must really feel for me,
And keep all other cold considerations
Aside -- just let desire be your key.

An Alphabet Poem

A is for Apple -- it tastes really good
B is for Ball -- and they bounce, as they should
C is for Cat -- they meow every day
D is for Dog -- they sit still and they stay
E is for Egg -- they're from hens, don't you know?
F is for Food -- if I eat I will grow
G is for Good -- that is how I will be
H is for Hand -- I will raise so you'll see
I is for Inch -- see how tall I have grown?
J is for Jump -- see how high I have flown!
K is for Kind -- I'll be all of the day
L is for Lunch -- here mine comes on the tray
M is for Monkey -- they play high in the tree
N is for Name -- and I have one, you see
O is for Ocean -- where the fish like to swim
P is for Playing -- with my friends, her and him
Q is for Quiet -- shh, don't make a sound
R is for Rabbit -- as they hop all around
S is for Sharing -- I share toys when I play
T is for Teacher -- and I'm learning all day
U is for Us -- we sit singing this song
V is for Van -- as it's driving along
W is for Whale -- they live deep in the sea
X is for X-Ray -- to see inside of me
Y is for Yellow -- the light color of hay
And
Z is for Zoo -- where the animals play

Your Superior Song

Great Muse of mine who sings of the love that is
Light, sun, Apollo's kiss on the cheek as you
Pluck sirens' feathers from their bodies --
Sirens whose songs cannot tempt me from you.

Plucked sirens lie around on the ground, a few
Sharp notes untie themselves from their beaks, unwind
Wild wails unbeautiful and heartless --
Others are tempted, but never me, love.

Great Anna, always sing of your love for me --
Kill sirens dead -- why pluck so they live to try
Temptations once again? You bring me
Safe to you -- sing of love, dearest Anna.

Dark sirens cannot tempt me away from you --
Great Muse, my Anna, singing your harmonies --
Light shines when you are singing, loving --
Sirens are silent around me, frightened.

Dear Anna, greatest love of all, sing with me
Great songs of love which I will refashion and
Compose for you, my constant lover --
Life without you is a songless living.

Unquenchable

I thirst for you, but when I see
You walk in through the door, I see
My thirst for you cannot be quenched.
How can my thirst ever be quenched?

When I see you all that I want
Is just to see you more. What kind
Of bright desire makes me want
To have you more and more? What kind

Of beauty . . . ? Yes! Beauty it is!
Desire drives me, for it is
Desire for beauty that grows
As thirst for it is quenched. Love grows.

Psyche

With every kiss your breath and mine combine --
With every finger-stroke I feel your soul
Intermingle and come in touch with mine --
We are two halves of a soul, now made whole.

My Aphrodite, lovely agony,
The tension and wholeness of beauty made
So everything next to you is phony
In comparison, or hidden in shade.

When you lift me, white, into heaven's light
And bring my black third under strict controls,
I can see true beauty, bright, clear, in sight
In ways I never knew, led by two foals.

You lift me to the sun, my lunar love,
And help me see the brilliance in true beauty's
White light. I feel I am now high above
Life's concerns -- loving you my only duty.

Joyful Drowning

Shall I compare you with another, dear,
As you are now to warm my heart -- no sun
Would shine on me, all rain would be my tear-
Drops flooding lakes and streams until they run

In overflowing grief. Could anyone
Bring happiness to my heart, warm my blood,
As you do every day? If I looked, none
Could step up on the shore out of the flood.

But you will always bring me joyful light,
A life of pleasure, full of love and fun.
My heart fills full of warm blood at your sight --
I marvel at the fortune I have won.

I want to drown within your sun-warmed dew --
To drown's the only way I'll live -- in you.

Garden Fields

My love for you's a set of blooming fields,
All fenced off with an ever-folding fence --
And interest in their growing detail yields
An attraction that tightly bonds each sense.

I'll tend the fields and make the flowers grow
More beautiful as I try to remove
The weeds that in their growth will try to slow
The flowers' growth -- this garden, I'll improve.

Yet, in the bound of the environment,
A natural growth emerges and unfolds,
Insisting on collecting what it's lent,
So we cannot know what the future holds.

But nature yields more when we till the ground,
And love grows only when it's tightly bound.

An Alba for Anna

The sun breaks on the Texas fields
For the first time for me when I
See you every day. A cavern-
Like darkness descends, a dreary
World of shadows, chains on a wall --
That was my one world without you.

You are no mere mirroring moon,
You're a sunny source of bright light --
Your creative color cascades
Brings life to my world, my nighttime.
The dawn -- you are the dawn, the light
That brings life, lingering, lovely.

Without you there are no new dawns --
Bare your breasts to bring the bright dawn
As the Hindu goddess does -- rose
Rays rising radiantly up
Into the sky's highest reaches.
Always bring me beautiful dawns!

Melina on the Beach in Monterey

The sea is gray and rolling slow upon
The beach beneath a haze that never lifts
And never lets us see a dusk or dawn.

With every wave that comes the water sifts
The sand that swirls around my baby's feet
As she, unmoving, grunts at waves. She shifts

Her gaze away for nothing. Waves retreat
To stop more waves from reaching the small girl
Delighting in each rhythm and bored beat.

What does she see in this light sky of pearl?
What does she see in each wave that's withdrawn?
What beauties will for this young girl unfurl!

To Prosper

Could I give up the magic I have earned,
The power over spirits I have fought
To gain? To see the spells I love be spurned
By me and never given any thought?

Perhaps I cannot do it, since I waste
These talents, rarely casting these true spells
To animate the spirits. I can't taste
The potions bottled in the cowrie shells.

Yet even though I often fail to live
Up to what I know I can do, my spirit
Is willing, though my time is weak. I give
In spells that come so rare I almost fear it.

I'm not a sudden flash in iron bowls --
I'm slowly burning magic cauldron coals.

Upon the Seas of Anarchy, Canto III

Canto II

Canto III

There is a certain circular justice

In building the first charter city on

The continent of Africa. A kiss

Of freedom for the world, a kiss of hope

For all the world that looks in the abyss.

I want to talk about the time I went

To Freedom City, met with Song – the “Pope”

Of liberty, we snidely joked – was sent

As a reporter to expose the truth

Of what was happening, so Hel-bent

To show it was corrupt and exploitative,

To show how it was run by the uncouth

And show that it impoverished the native

And immigrant alike. I went to see

My fantasy and what no contemplative

Person, one who truly understood what

Mankind is like in his complexity

And not as I would improve him – a slut

And saint at once – a fractal golden mean –

Who, praised or curse, can always give a “but . . .”

No, I was sure that I would find corruption –

And that, indeed, is what I found: a scene

Of desolate corruption, interruption

Of wealth and progress Song had made upon

Sanaga’s mouth by Kalabi’s disruption.

But I’m ahead of myself yet again.

I went to Freedom City, met with Song,

And entered his great city with distain.

I could not see the wealth and freedom there –

No matter what, I would see only pain.

But even I could not deny the sight

I witnessed there. A city growing where

A river delta swamped the land, delight

Of senses, energy, and work displayed

Itself in every nook, both day and night.

I saw musicians playing by the streets,

Each one well-dressed, each sounding like they played

The Met each night; the poets rapped their beats

In coffee houses; on each wall there hung

The city’s artists’ works in well-sketched sheets

And brightly painted canvasses. The smell

Of food filled up the city, and my tongue

Had never tasted food and drink so well-

Prepared, no matter where I went, so fresh

And clean. And yet, so certain this was Hell,

I could not see or taste or smell what all

Emerged before me naturally. I’d thresh

The city that I saw to give it, wall

And street alike, back to the people who

I knew this Song had stole it from, install

A government who always would provide

Each citizen the smallest thing and do

All things for everyone. I would divide

The classes, rob the rich to give the poor

What I thought they deserved and chide

Them if they dared complain. Unhappy, smug,

I thought that my unhappiness was more

From all the suffering I saw – the drug

I fed myself – but generosity

Is never true from those who, like a thug,

Would take from others. No, true happiness

Can only come when you give honestly

From what you own – that’s how you get the bless

Of happiness. You give what others earned

And you will simply live a life of stress.

It took me many years to learn this truth,

A truth, despite the evidence, I spurned

In articles and in the voting booth,

Until I looked upon the devastation

Of Freedom City that was so uncouth

As to dare challenge my ideals. But when

I went to see the city, revelation

Was still a long way off. I saw a den

Of thieves at work, and searched until I found

Corruption there, as though a place where men

Existed would not have its stench. But Song

Would have to learn a city needed ground

Of solid stone, that bribes were sand, were wrong

Not just as abstract morals, but because

The bonds they built were simply not that strong.

Perhaps I helped to bring the city’s fall –

Perhaps that’s what a good reporter does,

Exposing wrong – perhaps I pushed the ball –

Perhaps it would have happened anyway –

But when my article collapsed the wall

Of secrecy in Cameroon, a cry

Went out against the city on that day.

The government reacted – they’d deny

Corruption, but General Kalabi

Was sent in right away, and therefore by

The end of that same week, the General

Was occupying Freedom City. He

Had somehow failed to capture Song, but full

Of victory at taking unarmed men,

He declared victory and killed a bull

Right there within the city square, a kind

Of sacrifice, to cleanse the city. Then

He said all Cameroonians would find

The city theirs, but all the rest must leave

Within the week, or he would make them blind.

I think it now barbarity, but then

I thought it right. Back then, I would believe

The lies of all dictators, big strongmen

I now see raped and pillaged those they ruled,

And did it with the mere stroke of a pen.

Once More!

I could not ever say I hate my life

For if I were to say I hate today

I’d thus reject my children and my wife –

And I could never have a day so gray.

I must affirm the pain, the things I hate

To do, my money worries, tiny stresses

That always needle, grind, annoy and grate –

For smiles and Matchbox cars, chanklas and dresses.

I won’t resent the things I have to do,

Because I would resent the people I

Most love. I will not live so that I rue

My days – my loves I will not, can’t deny.

My “yes!” to life is also yes to pain –

And every sorrow is to my life, gain.