Fall Rain

The rain is coming down,

Drumming on the walls

Outside in the dark,

Causing morning to drag its feet.

I’m okay with that,

As recent events are consistent

With a gloomy morning,

Raining before the parade even has time to start.

It would be different if it was spring,

The rain making everything fresh and alive.

Now fall is moving on,

The rain knocking the trees around,

Stripping the leaves, spindly fingers

Unable to cover the naked bark.

They stand cold and abused by the weather

With only their stoicism to protect them.

Pyroclastic Flow

It was only my feelings,

Wispy things, hardly tangible,

Not something to grasp in the hands

And throttle to a particular way of thinking.

The right to say,

Regardless of its impact,

Considering the choice not to notice,

Is clearly more important

When intolerant of differing points of view.

Looking down from on high

Must make seeing anything

Other than the lofty position

Very difficult,

Especially for those beneath,

Caught in the pyroclastic flow

Of judgment. 

Same Bike, Different Shaft

I overslept today

And woke up repissed

After talking to the insurance company

The other day

About their pay out

For my bike.

I would like to write something else,

But grand theft seem to be

The gift

That keeps on giving.

Looking into Maybe

I envision a time

When outside my door

Will be more green than concrete,

Where I will go for a hike

Instead of to work out,

Where working out

Will have something to do with salvation,

And working alternates between

Shop, keyboard, journal, and trail.

I see myself walking across a field

Alongside a small creek towards the woods,

Maybe to meet Jackie

Who likes to sit beneath the trees

And watch the water flow,

Or maybe I’m scouting for firewood,

Or more likely

I’m just out for a stroll,

Luxuriating in the ground beneath my feet. 

Of Killer Whales and Other Wild Things

How frightened we are of wild things

Not reined in by fences or kept out by walls.

We love locks and keys, security cameras and guards.

We manicure our lawns and even tamp down our hair.

Yet there is something in us that still remembers

The scent of a forest and the thrill of the hunt,

Something that exults in a gathering around a fire

With embers roaring up to meet the stars.

Some things should not be tamed.

If there is God, God is uncontainable.

God would not fit in our fences.

We could not keep God to ourselves behind our doors.

And we who are said to bear his image,

And are fearfully and wonderfully made,

Could not be tamed or domesticated

And still remain who we were intended to be.

Enough

In those days there rose

A voice crying across the dark city,

From out of the rural backwater,

From beneath the corporate thumb,

A voice of the dispossessed, the foreclosed,

The laid off and discouraged,

The under and uninsured.

The voice was not right.

It was not left.

The voice was.

And the voice was tired, cold, hungry,

And the voice came from deep inside.

It was volcanic and came forth with power.

The voice roared out over the land,

It roared over the waters.

It filled the air.

It said,

“Enough.”

Bloody Fingered Men

We are a broken bunch,

Held together by the faith to believe

Trust is enough to bridge the gap

Between hurt and healing

If it is under the submission of love.

It is stronger than any chasm of fear

If one is willing to let go of

The hubris of knowing.

If one is willing to trust in the forgiveness of love

And journey with us through the pit of ashes,

There is no limit to the depth

We are able to crawl out of.

Me Again

I found myself

On a country road

Where the waters once washed me away,

Where strong towers now stood,

Where courage and a roaring lion held sway,

And forgiveness rose up

With free and steadfast men

Who felt the wild call

To stand shoulder to shoulder

Around a circle reaching to far lands,

And high up

Where the oldest among us

Leads the way.

Alterations

Poem a day will be off line for a bit.

Thoughts will continue to churn.

Events will continue to happen.

The senses will accumulate perceptions.

The mind will notice what it will,

Construct letter-strewn phrases.

Words will leak onto the page

The old-fashioned way,

Later to be digitized,

Uploaded to the screen

And pass over the ether

To you. 

Capitalism 101

My Harley has disappeared into the great maw of capitalism;

Let the buyer beware.

The same structures that sanction

The horse trading tactics of used car salesmen,

That fueled the robber barons, old and new,

That excuses political rhetoric and grandstanding,

Patronage hiring and the legalized corruption

Of the status quo,

Letting the financial industry off the hook

For their world shaking Ponzi scheme,

It’s no wonder, with the example set,

Why some asshole would steal my bike.

Roller Coaster

Emotional roller coasters aren't nearly as fun

As the real ones.

The up’s and downs are more a sideways thing,

Lurching from one mood to another,

Churning your stomach in a similar fashion

As a regular roller coaster.

And the ride is a lot longer,

So the hard pit in your stomach lingers.

You wake up with it,

Walk around with it.

It follows you like some annoying yapping dog

Biting at your heels

That you would like to stomp out of existence,

But it retreats just out of range

Until you let your guard down.

You realize somebody else arranged

This bizarre twilight zone carny ride

And you have little control

Over how long it’s going to last.

Anger, With a Side of Sadness and Shame

I’ve been avoiding this today.

I even took a ride in my wife’s car

To look at the place where I parked

Yesterday morning for work,

So maybe, by some miracle

I wouldn’t have to say,

My Harley still wasn’t there

Because some bastard stole it.

So I’m checking in with anger.

I can feel the anger churning my belly,

Tightening my shoulders.

It started out as vengeance.

There was a brief wanting the guy

To wipe out doing eighty during a high speed chase.

Now I just want it back.

I want to walk outside and not notice it’s gone,

Not feel helpless and stupid like it’s my fault.

That’s when I flip to wanting to cry,

And I hear my old man asking

Why can’t anything ever go right?

And that makes me want to cry, too,

Because nothing much ever did go right for him

And I wonder if that’s who I’m turning into,

Which I’m not, but

I’m angry at the bastard who stole my bike,

Being responsible for sending me back
To feel this crap again.  

Malcontent

Maybe, in the long run, it’s all for the best,

A US default causing a catastrophic collapse

Of the world economy,

Destabilizing already unstable governments,

With shifts in power nobody can predict,

To combat break downs in the social order

Spiraling out of control

Giving rise to lawless areas

Like they have in Pakistan,

Where tea party fanatics gain control

Through religious dogma and fear

And everybody goes about in proper clothing

And malcontents are strung up or stoned

And the riff-raff will know what’s good for them

If they don’t watch out?

Lowered Expectations

Is there anything new to say about the shutdown?

Is there anything new to say about politicians

And the compromises they make to get

And stay in office,

The trade-offs they make,

Or the corrupting influence of power?

I can’t really say I’d do any better,

Though I’d like to think so.

I’d like to think I would not pander

To the lowest common denominator to get votes,

To sell my beliefs to maintain my office,

To stay out of other people’s pockets altogether,

But I don’t really know.

Still, I’d like to believe

There are some legislators with integrity,

Maybe still with a little idealism left

From what made them want to run in the first place.

But I suppose “Mister Smith Goes to Washington”

Was just a movie I watched when I was a kid,

And, now that I’ve grown up, unfortunately,

I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.

Future Shock

We the minority of the house,

In order to form a union more to our liking,

Ignore justice,

Incite domestic animosity,

Thumb our noses at our common defenders,

Dismantle the general welfare,

Secure the blessing of power for ourselves

And screw posterity,

Do scorn and piss on,

This constitution

Of the United States of America.

Dangerous Prayers

I think something has gone wrong with my prayer,

Maybe a lot of prayers?

So I caution proper articulation

When beseeching the deity.

I was thinking about selling my house

Back in oh-eight,

I couldn’t make up my mind.

One day, after a little too much wine,

I prayed for a fleece.

Now, considering what went on,

I can only assume I was slurring my words.

I admit, I’m grabbing at straws for an explanation,

And I’m stretching it figuring

There where all these other people

Praying slurred prayers

And we all actually ended up praying to be fleeced,

But why else would all these banker dudes

And politicians

Be getting off Scott free

For tanking the economy over and over?

Act of God is the only thing I can come up with.

I mean unless it’s pure greed and hubris,

Which would mean the other guy

Is answering someone else’s prayers and,

I don’t even want to think about that.

Overflow

Poem a day wonders, with the shutdown,

If all the crap their full of

Is building up and overflowing into their brains?

It certainly would explain what comes out of their mouths,

And all the stuff coming down on the rest of us.

Does anyone know if Cruz has brown eyes?

We can only hope that eventually they’ll all burst.

Then we can clone Hercules

To divert the Potomac to clean the place out.

Fire Alarm

Authorities say they do not know

The identity of the man who self-immolated

On the national mall,

Or why he did it.

A Tunisian man did in 2010,

Frustrated with his authorities,

Thus launching the Arab Spring.

While certain citizen might decry

The influx of Muslim ideas,

An American Spring

Doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me.

We can only speculate why a man

Would set himself on fire on the national mall?

Surely some statement he was willing to die for,

Evan if it was frustration with the authorities?

I guess the question is how frustrated are we?

I realize many of us have issue with

Opposite sides of the aisle,

But I’d venture most of us have issue

With the fat cats pulling the strings.

So what do you say?

Is it spring time yet?

Day Dream

Poem a day is biting its tongue

So as not to get in trouble

From saying things it shouldn’t

Over the mess in Washington.

Instead it invasions a writing shack,

With a wood stove, kettle heating,

French press at the ready.

It on the side of an Eastern mountain

Overlooking the valley to the high ridges opposite

With the fall colors starting to peak.

There’s might be an eagle or hawk swooping low,

Though more likely turkey buzzards,

Sore on the updrafts.

Poem a day will be thinking and writing

Of simpler times before the tea party,

And fracking and Fukishima,

Being unconcerned to justify

The state of the art laptop

With the newest next generation battery and wifi.

Flying Monkeys

Poem a day continues its effort

Not to be bummed out by the

Irresponsible jerks in Washington

From both sides of the aisle,

Though in fairness, special mention

Needs to be made for the tea party whacks.

It should be said, however, poem a day

Reserves the majority of its contempt

For the moneyed interest

Pulling the strings of these wankers.

(If a word works, it works.)

They stand to make much profit in a collapsing economy,

Buying up everything at slashed prices.

The myth of our classless society is exposed people,

The emperors have all the clothes they need,

We're the ones getting stripped down to the bone.

The monkeys of Oz shutting down the government,

Bickering back a forth about who’s to blame,

Is a big curtain that needs to be pulled back.

The wicked witches are running the show,

And all the flying monkeys just do what they’re told.

Everybody’s gone serfing,

Serfing USA.  

Stupifaction

This is a poem a day special report.

Dateline: Washington, United States, day three:

The nation is reeling after

An unprecedented attack of stupidity on the first of October.

“We saw it coming, but there was no stopping it.

They just got stupider and stupider every day.”

There are conflicting reports on how the virus was introduced.

Some say tea was responsible.

Others say it is spread through intimate contact with trees.

There are unconfirmed reports

Politicians started acting strangely

After being bitten by a small red creature

And then listening to non-subliminal messages

On the radio.

There is even speculation

It was intentionally introduced

By a secret cabal of bankers

Who’s infected dollars ended up in the lawmakers pockets.

Wherever this scourge originated,

The stupidity seems to be spreading

And unchecked, could quickly engulf the nation,

And possibly, the world.

We can only urge people use common sense

As this seems to be the only effective measure

Against the contagion of stupidity.

The government has been overwhelmed with it

And is effectively shut down.

Sadly, no help is expected from that quarter.

We pray for you all in this time of need.

This is poem a day signing out until tomorrow?

A Call to Arms! or Pens, or Keyboards, hell, Quills (We can use all the help we can get)

Poem a day continues to be steadfast

In its refusal to be bamboozled

And steals a battle cry and the royal we,

And declares
We will not be assimilated!

We will not shutdown.

Poem a day issues a call to arms.

We call on all poets,

All writers and artist,

All open mikers everywhere,

To remember
The pen is mightier than the sword,

(speaking in the long-run, of course)
To continue the tradition of

Raging against the machine.

And becoming a public nuisance.
What can they do to us?

We’re already broke and get paid a pittance.

Call them out, play no favorites,

Take no politician prisoner.

Stand with Poem a day

And give me a good excuse for using the we

When I say we will not be silenced,

We will not stop stealing phrases

Until they pry the pen

From my cold dead fingers,

Or my backside from the chair

In front of this keyboard.

Stand with poem a day and

Sit down and write.

By the way, if you foxian journalist

Want to come back to the light,

That would be cool, too.

This has been another communique from poem a day.

Manifesto

Poem a day will not shut down.

Poem a day will not be bought by special interest.

Poem a day will do its best

To stand for truth and justice,

Which is not necessarily the American way.

Poem a day will not engage in preemptive strikes

With anything other than words.

It will not consider corporations people,

Though it may consider them evil.

It will disparage banking interest

And occasionally fox news.

Poem a day will make jokes where they are found,

Including the mirror.

Poem a day will do its best

To be a voice crying in the wilderness,

Or at least laughing.

This has been a communique from poem a day. 

We’re Tired

I would sing “Here we go round the merry-go-round,”

But they’ve cut the funds for that, too.

I wonder if we can do a giant class-action suit,

People vs. Congress;

We, the people, find you guilty

Of using weapon of mass fraud,

Of conspiring to use your elections

To serve yourselves

And other moneyed interest

To the detriment of humanity.

We find you guilty of a callus disregard

For truth and transparency in government,

For the will of the people,

We find you in direct opposition to

The preamble constitution

We the people

Are giving up on you in droves,

Are wondering if you guys are capable

Of doing any good at all.

We the people are tired of you,

And you should know your place is becoming precarious.