21-30

Gander

I want to play follow-the-leader,

And not pay my bills, too,

Blame the other guy.

I mean, what’s good for the goose

Is good for the gander.

And, if you aint been paying attention,

Us ninety-nine percent

Is the ones been getting you-know-what,

So gander kind’a fits.

 

Campaign rhetoric

You do realize all the political bru-ha is a sham,

A disguise by the mucky-ups tugging at the opposite ends

Of the same piece of the American pie,

Get their toadies running

A hearts-and minds campaign,

Confuse the locals

While they steal everything you have.

Do you really believe a few bad apples

Tanked the world economy?

Do you believe they’re still following

“Buy the people, for the people?”

I can hear them laughing on the way to the bank,

Spinning the words;

“It only says pursue. It never says catch.”

You have to admit, getting us fighting among ourselves

Is a good plan.

Divide and concur is as old as the hills.

If politicians and banksters tell the truth,

Why do they need spin-doctors?

What’s that thing about the root of evil?

 

Hound of Heaven

Yahweh’s pursuit of his creation

Is sometimes compared to a dog.

The Hound of Heaven, it’s called.

It aint no tame thing,

Nuthin warm and fuzzy,

No Huckleberry Hound.

It’s more akin to the Hound of the Baskervilles,

Terrible to behold,

Ferocious and relentless, supernatural,

Older than ancient. 

Now, the Hound of Heaven is a good Hound.

It is not set against you,

But for you.

It is also true the fear of the Lord

Is the beginning of wisdom,

And He has given the Hound your sent

And set Him on you.

Hound of Heaven never gives up.

It’s only a matter of time

Before you come face to face.

If you listen,

You can hear him coming.

A Place to Start

How do I tell who to believe,

Fox news or NPR?

In a world of spin doctors and pundits

Where do I go for truth?

History has always been written,

Or at least subsidized by the powers that be.

If the democrats and the republicans

Are two sides of the same coin

Flipped by a man

In an Armani suit, does it make a difference

Who’s in office?

If I acknowledge the simple fact

I do not have all the answers,

Let alone know even what the questions are,

How do I know which fork in the road to take?

I could go with the flow,

But the flow always goes downhill.

I could follow my bliss,

But I quit smoking shit a long time ago.

There are more dead ends then not.

I remember, in my younger days,

Coming home trashed after bar-time at the Chaetae tavern,

Sitting on the back stoop, and looking up at the stars.

I asked if there was anybody up there.

Was there anybody who cared?

It was as good a start as any.

Arms Race

The end-times lurks beneath the waves

In big black steel tubes.

Human bodies scurry about inside

Insuring doomsday has a fighting chance.

The great leader 3.0

Rattles his apocalyptic saber

While Israel bides its time until it,

And only it, thinks necessary.

India and Pakistan wait for each other to blink

And nobody is quite sure what happened

To all the bombs

When the Soviets broke their block.

This is the NRA’s argument of unregulated militia

taken to the extreme.

You would think we’d have learned by now

Discretion is the better part of valor.

 

Around the bend

There is never enough time,

Forcing me to pick and choose

Less than what I’ve hoped for.

I’ve said before about writing

The best I ever get is close, but

Falling short is the human condition,

Else, where does striving come from?

Where regret?

Drive comes to me from this, too,

Knowing I’ve yet further to go,

Curious to see what is around the next bend.

 

One day at a time

I can only live one day at a time,

Old hat to seasoned twelve-steppers,

Stepping their way to salvation,

A step ahead of everybody who doesn’t know

It can’t be done on your own,

Who don’t know we’re all addicted to something,

Blind pride, fear, or substance,

Individually choosing our own poison,

Pretending it’s the needed elixir

That gets us through.

Time will do that,

Drag you through to the end if you’re stubborn enough.

It’s better to open your eyes a walk,

And unclench your fist,

To look at the mess you’ve made

And make your way through it

Into the light of another day.

 

The meaning of a poem

A poem should not be read from the middle or the end,

Nor should assumptions be made.

An author’s purpose, if it is a good poem,

Cannot be divined.

One should not assume the end of a line

Is the end of the thought,

Or even the final period

Is the end of the poem.

Take the poem word by word as it comes.

Let is surprise you.

Let it mean to you what it will,

But do not assume that was the author’s intent.

Words are slippery things,

Wiggling in and out of definition,

Able to surprise and delight at the oddest times

If you let them,

But don’t try to force them.

If you piss them off

They can be unpleasant.

 

Barrier

Physiological barriers can be stronger than steel,

Being constructed of muscle and bone,

Misplaced desires and cuts of untold depth.

Linked together with unseen electronic synaptic bridges

And unintended consequences,

Numerous and hard to see,

They are often bumped up against

At inopportune relational moments

Confusing issues best approached

With delicacy and caution.

Insidious, they stretch in every direction

Unbound by the limits of space and time.

The uninitiated can be distracted indefinitely

In efforts to avoid direct confrontation of the wall

When a sledgehammer would better serve.

 

The Confused Ego of Writers

All the words of today’s poem

Are inside my head,

Stubborn little buggers

Like toddlers holding their breath

Refusing to budge

And I sit her with no good bribe

To seduce them out of their tangle

Other than the rhythm of tapping, insistent fingers

Blindly groping in the dark confusion

For, what I assume wants to come out,

But is held up by fear and uncertainty

That any of it will make any sense

And who’s going to care anyway?

But, apparently, my ego

Is stronger than one would surmise,

Considering the preceding lines.