The Strike

The armored vehicle was rolling down
To meet the men in armor, masks--the black
Of each were shadows in the evening sun--
The heavy vehicle smashed out a crack

Into a pothole none would come to fill.
With heavy arms, grenades the men in black
Joined with the armored vehicle and turned
Into an alleyway for their attack.

And in the aftermath, a pregnant woman,
Two children under five were dead, their black
Bodies were smoldering out in the yard
Of their still red-glowing charcoaled old shack.

And no one dared to care for the deceased
For fear that they'd also become well-policed.

Trapdoor

Beneath the ground and holding down the lid
And waiting for vibrations on its mesh-
Weave tube to cash in on its patient bid,
A spider the color of human flesh
Is waiting just for you so you will sing
Your siren-song, your sullen song, your black
Swan song before the needle-straws can sting
And lay you, writhing, upon your fleshy back.
But in that final song that charms the birds
And makes them weep for your eternal loss
You'll find at last the music in the words
Whose toadstools trip you--lay now in the moss.
The door is closed--it opens to a room
Where all your songs are wafting from your tomb.

Poetic Existence

A Song from "A Continent of Kings"

The sun is rising, dragons fly
We celebrate the dawn
The gods are smiling, won’t deny
The children who have gone.
The children who have gone to live
Among the unicorns
Are happier in death to give
Their spirits to new morns.
Their spirits in the morning light
Are dancing to the mell,
Are dancing to young girls’ delight,
Are dancing to the bell.
The dragons fly and lift their souls
Beyond the desert heat
And griffons growl and feed their foals
Upon the children’s meat.

A Dialectical Sonnet

You threads who make the warp and woof the world
Emerges from and which dictate the shade
Of who you are and out of which unfurled
The patterns out of which the world is made

Are clothed in neural words and storied form
You edit in your minds and social lives
That make you each distinct and cold, yet warm
In unity and all your social drives--

You duel with the dual and the third
In chaos comes, attracting stranger strife
And love, reflecting nature in each word
To bring forth children as a husband, wife.

All virtue must have freedom to be true
And freedom must have virtue woven through.

Renewal

The bark is rough on the back of my hand--
The river is gruff in its reign--enough
Of this gray demand, of this grimy, bland
And morbid brand of moldy fluff--

I'll bring from these woods a brighter song
To wind our coulds into wild new goods
From the crimes and the wrong you crafted so long
In the wretchedest throng, I wrenched from all shoulds--

The thrush is now singing through my thought
In single sounds ringing in a symphony spring
That rages from naught into a river of ought
Whose newness has bought what no one could bring--

I borrowed from nature her beauty, from time
I nurtured the clay of the now, yesterday
And I clasped them in rhyme and clambered to climb
From the righteous day's grime to ride and to play.