Monday, May 29, 2017

In This Garden, May 28, 2017

In this garden there are no rankling voices
With answers and choices that are neither.

Sunday with a woodpecker and a fat jay, all
Singing for our stake, in the shade of hazelnut

Bushes, now trees you can’t control no matter
How much you need deep down to grab hold

And steer them, hydra-headed they come back
Like offspring of war. Today I let it grow as will,

With squirrels bellyflopping from branches
To help undo the best intentions gone sour,

This moment when the lizard madly dashes
Between nettles both sides of the path,

Their leaves wide open for a handful of sun.
I already hate what I'm about to jot down.

Monday, May 22, 2017

America, the Game

In the game some play
By the rules, others slay

According to the aim
No matter what shame

Gets visited on the game,
The aim is always to win

And climb out of that sin
Losers feel all the same.

Unless your God awaits
With a book of notations

And timeless quotations
For your choice of fates,

Playing the game of lies
And disdain for the whys

Lands you the only prize:
Fear, in power’s disguise.

Rules apply to saps
And those with a vision

Of eternal damnation,
Feathers in their caps

Burning as beacons
For the whole of creation

Like blushing deacons
Witness dog exultation

On the corner where Go
Has an electric fence

To fry the poor and low,
Whose capital offense

Is being. Hence a God
Or a conqueror’s bod

Since the game’s rules
Are meant for the fools

While life means zero
To the capitalist weirdo

Whose one God is fame
And a moneyed last name.