Watch Yourself

You're on the phone, ignoring everyone
You're always angry at the world from work
You're finished but nothing has yet begun
Demanding more, and yet you always shirk

You're breaking bonds, insist you're ethical
You're envious, pretending you hate greed
You only push, but say you want to pull
You always speak, but never do the deed

Demanding justice, you're the most unjust
You hate all hate, but seek to segregate
You spread dark dissonance and deep distrust
You say you love, your actions spell out hate

Now ask, how do you think you'd act each day
If you could watch yourself in my next play?

Bare

Suck in the air--
You're sitting there
Right in a chair--
You look as anxious as a hare--
You're glancing everywhere,
Full of despair,
Afraid because the world's unfair.
You're withering beneath its golden stare,
You fail beneath its silver glare
And wonder if you dare.
You wonder if you dare. 

The Fountain of Vaucluse

The villa of Petrarch sits on a hill
Above the rapids tumbling through the rocks.
It's ruins now--the broken stones are clocks
That tick much faster than his poems will.
We fabricate his home to hold it still
While his verse blossoms like deep purple stocks
And his rhymes gather like ascending flocks--
We neither need his home nor feathered quill.

We cannot touch the love in broken stones,
And yet, we cannot help but seek them out--
We hope to find the magic of their art
Embedded in their ruins, scattered bones.
We're certain if we find ourselves in drought
An icon of them will make it depart.

The Misallocated Human Resource Blues

My mind is up for rent
But I can't find a taker
My offer's in descent
From being an art-maker

I wish it were not true
My mind is up for rent
But see the wind, it blew
Apart my woven tent

My life is warped and bent
Because you won't accept
My mind is up for rent
My value down has crept

My value is destroyed
I am not worth a cent
I cannot be employed
My mind is up for rent

Jaraik

The monkey spirit is aroused--
What do you now intend?
I'm safe, secured here in my sanctum--
My soul he will defend.

The monkey spirit will obey--
You cannot take the chance,
For he will make your spirit flee,
Your corpse your final glance.

The Abduction of Europa

When gazing down upon Europa's face,
Great Zeus was filled with love and lust. To lure
the maiden to him, he transformed--no chase
Was needed--to a bull on whom she'd pour
Her heart. She grabbed him by his hefty horn
And climbed on him and rode him to the sea,
The salty waves now splashing thighs now borne
To rocky Crete to bear for Zeus a three
From whom a king would rise to birth the West,
From jumping bulls to labyrinths and man-
Mad minotaur, King Minos would be blessed,
For that's when civilization began
In Greece and all the West that got its name
From beautiful Europa's bull-borne fame.