April Madness

4.
it's the same sounds every year
of comfort and routine
and baseball somewhere;
salty sweat caked after hours in the sun
wiped with grass stains and dirt
that finds its way to sock-covered heels

you remember
with nostalgia, not fact,
and the created memories hold sway
over certainty and the lies you told yourself
just to get through

but the sounds bring you back
to the sun beating down
and an old pink radio
[faded and too hot to touch]
that cackles with "strike three!"
between an announcer's butchering
of another batter's name
and the heckling the crowd can hear
from the dugouts over their own cheering
and the ever-circling birds
looking for crumbs.

it's the crumbs you remember.

The General stood seeing the sun,
He came far, not to run,
This was the last enemy, just one.

He marched forward slowly,
Courage filled his heart wholly,
He wasn't going to bend to the lowly.

The war will be told and retold,
Only if he was bold,
Thinking this, he tightened his hold.

He knew that he could do it,
His grip trembled a bit,
But this wasn't the time to quit.

The enemy finally came,
The soldiers started to claim,
Those they will maim.

The war horn began to blow,
They saw their advancing foe,
Moving steady and slow.

The General thought fast and grime,
Waiting for the right time,
The moment was the perfect prime.

"Charge!", he shouted,
The soldiers followed undoubted,
It was prime time, or they would have routed.

The heat began,
Through the body, swords ran,
And went down, another man.

Clash of the steel,
Sound of squeal,
Everyone could feel,

More men fell,
Battlefield filled by death's smell,
Looked worse than hell,

Now, the vultures and eagles hover,
Overlooking the battlefield's stover,
Soon after the battle was over,

The truth, they cannot abide,
No one could have ever lied,
That this day, millions have died,

To the General, truth did bite,
He couldn't sleep that night,
He really hasn't earned from that fight,

What the war had brought?
Why have they fought?
Only men, in the death's jaw caught.

Nothing but Blood, only Blood,
More Blood, just death and Blood,
Blood from the old, only Blood,
Blood from the young, still Blood,
If you said, there wasn't enough Blood,
You may be right about Blood,
Because there was still more Blood-,

In the widow's eyes,
And the orphan's cries.

Morning Ritual

I think of sitting on the steps
before your cafe, hot chocolate wisps
curling toward the grey light.
Smoothing the yellowed edge of classics,
turning quietly as your skirt brushes
green and gold against my knee.
You match your sign, I say.
Watch you nod over coffee fumes
and cinnamon swirl, licking diamonds
from your lips. Dawn cracks over head
and doors begin their opening,
with one sigh we surge upward
and the moment holds a second more.

Jocasta's Bangles

My shoulders are heavy with oracles.
The eyes slash across the world, linger as they
jab into half-finished ideas.
They observe before history has unfolded.

What trouble they cause! These oracles!
They are flies on the great shoulders
of Free Will, scolding her and fixing her design.

The one time when the company of just one other
is as oppressing as a room staring,
anticipating your next move. Thank god
Writers Pads are without the anxious waiting
of seeing them read the screen.

I walk alone
Within a crowd
Always a step away
From every cluster and clique.

I'm fairly sure it was always this way
An outcast through no fault of my own
It's not that bad, but there's this disconnect
A clipped wire where the charge stops.

I suppose it's true
Everyone's a snowflake
But it seems everyone
Has more in common
Than I do.

A blind man sitting on a stool,
about him the marketplace is frantic,
And it's roar assaults his ears.
He is greeted by a young man,
and the sweet sound of his wooden flute.
"Blind man!" he calls, "Be free of this noise!
For I shall play for you
The most beautiful song in the world."

"Is that so?" Inquired the blind man.
"Aye!" said the young piper,
"I know all songs that are sung,
each and every one, and for you
I play the most beautiful of songs
ever crafted by the hands of men and women."

"Sing for me, then," the blind man said,
"The song of the wind that whispers,
and laughs a warm, light breath,
and roars in gusts and gales
like no orchestra of man,
that wails like no choir,
and moans through the ear, I say!

"Sing for me then," the blind man said,
"The song of the trees that creak,
and groan with the voice of the woods,
deep and great as the chorus of winds,
And how their trunks quake, and branches shake,
and the leaves that rustle and fall.
Sing for me that song!

"Sing for me then," the blind man said,
"The song of the river that giggles,
a brook that chatters, a stream that trickles,
A waterfall that roars, the hissing of the spray,
on the stones down below, as the rain falls down,
applauding as it meets the calm of the pond.

"Sing for me, then," the blind man said,
"The song of the calling birds,
their chirps and sweet whistles,
or that of the squirrels that chitter and squeak,
or the long, slow mourning song
of a wolf in the night.
Sing for me, young piper,
The most beautiful song in the world!"

The piper there stood, and was humble.
"Blind man," said he, "I know not the song
of the wind that howls, nor the river that laughs,
or the leaves and the trees that rustle and creak,
or that of the animals that chirp and chatter."

The blind man smiled. "Of course you don't!
For you have never listened!
Where the sounds of man are silent,
where his influence is gone,
there play the songs of nature,
not for mine ears, nor thine,
They sing because they are,
whether or not you are there to listen."

Yesterday’s yesterday, I found a box
Buried in the park
Under a rose bush.
It was old, or
Seemed so at least,
With a dancing elephant carved
Into the soft light wood
Blackened with dirt.
I was digging for buried treasure.
Seems I do that a lot these days,
Search for things I know
I won’t find.
But maybe I did find it,
Somehow,
Buried treasure at the heart
Of an enchanted forest
Where young couples walked
Hand in hand
Amidst the screaming children
And lonely walkers.
That thrice-damned box.
It’s sitting on my bedside table now.
I don’t know what to do with it.
If I open it, who knows
What I might find?
Closed, it could be anything.
A secret journal.
A dead man’s skull.
A million dollars,
My ticket out of here.
But even I know
Elephants can’t really dance
And they always did say
I was a coward.