The city pounds. Pulse awakens. The beat
Is contagious. It drifts round corners. Hear
The booming heartbeat up and down the street,
Sending chills up your spine. Pace quickens near

The source of unfamiliar, rhythmic sounds
Of diversity writ large. On the block,
A generation’s imperative bounds
Into your consciousness. The cities rock

To a diff’rent beat, as unknown to you
As yours was to the ones who came before.
It’s harsh, you say, but then, it’s something new.
And new, you remember, could make you soar

To heights you thought that you could never climb.
This city, these kids, their beats:  it’s THEIR time.

They came with nothing, crossed the sea to seek

A better life they heard was waiting there.

The streets were paved with gold, they heard, not bleak

And barren futures faced should they stay. There

The land was plenty, fertile, rich, and free

For the asking. Abundance awaited,

Paradise for all, it was said. A tree

Of life, it was said. But they found gated

Walls, hostile natives, unfriendly faces

And words, anger at their appearance. Hard

They worked to fit in, but only scant traces

Of acceptance met them. Their false reward

For sacrifice to gain that better way

Was barriers. Is barriers, still. Today.

Like lightning from the sky it hit the mark
When least expected. Took the uncrowned king
Down a notch. The beast led a corps of dark
Forces plotting against the very thing

Those who most fear his agenda believe
To be truth and right. He had whispered in
The ear of the puppet, and bade him cleave
Vast division o’er the land that had been

Made ready for his brand of evil play.
He preached hatred and worshiped anarchy–
Sharp tools to trick an unsuspecting fey
Orange fool into something rash. We see

Now that hubris will always Trump it’s foe,
And sudden shocking change has brought him low.

These women, children, innocents lie dead,
The victims of an evil madman king
Who, faced with citizen unrest, rained dread
On brave and fearful alike. He did bring

From up above an awful death, and mock
All sane convention in a place gone mad.
A disbelieving world looks on in shock
Even as they look away. Once they had

An opportunity to change the fate
Of these undeserving casualties. But
Self interest, fear, politics, greed, and hate
Did visit on the land the deepest cut.

Is there humanity enough to say
That there will be no more turning away?

These wars are fought by men who, out of range,
Play fast and loose with other people’s lives.
Through history the tyrants never change.
The one with deepest pockets always thrives.

Blood on manicured hands will never stain
Or give pause to pretenders in the world
Who sit on high, above the awful pain
Of death. Their chests pounded, their flags unfurled,

They preen their feathers as a rutting duck
Might see submissive fodder for its need
To prove it’s superiority. Fuck
Convention, fuck right and wrong. Psychic greed,

Mastery, domination, victory!
Historic monster is their legacy.

The children. Always the children. How come
Whenever the elite class wants something
It’s always the children who die? They’ve done
It again. Evil from the sky, he’ll bring

A culture to its knees to make a point,
To render imagined enemies down.
To justify the monstrous act, anoint
Himself the messenger of God. The crown

Of his kingdom is cover for this act
Of  of evil intent, of genocide. And
Once again history marks the fact
That children die by one despotic hand.

The evil that men do steps to the front,
But always do the children bear the brunt.

The lonely cowboy sits above the plain
While longing love awaits and begs him come.
He’s spent a life of solitude and pain,
And yet he stays, too much a risk at home.

A life, a love, passes him, years go by,
But home, his loneliness would grow anew.
He knows there be fine things, feelings to try,
But safety in the known is his just due.

Oh Cowboy, please come down, your love awaits
Your long, lost presence; unchain your heart.
The hardest part is opening those gates
To find peace before it’s too late to start.

The winter’s over, spring is on the rise.
Give love the chance to bloom before your eyes.

She writes as if enough isn’t enough.
I close my eyes…and is it fantasy
Or is it really there? I’d call her bluff,
But saner thoughts just make it hard to see

How what she wrote was meant to be a cry
Out for something else. I do know better.
Good evidence abounds that poets fly
Word balloons that are no more a letter

Of want, than fictions from poetic heart
Of one who wonders of a different time,
The purpose only to evoke a start
To conversation carried out in rhyme.

A shame, as different souls might had a chance
To find each other in a different dance.

I wonder what it is, this thing I feel…
Isolation, distance, abandonment.
Been creeping up on me, can’t seem to reel
In the genesis of the strange, silent

Cloud of doubt that is hanging over me,
And which has me shaken down to my core.
Whatever I have done, what’s come to be
A constant companion has brought me more

Daily uncertainty. Where do I stand
With those whose love I’ve counted on so long,
And assumed was to always be at hand?
Is it now to be learned that I’ve been wrong?

A sense of impotence, of uselessness
Pervades. Each day increases my sadness.

So many years, alas, have come and gone
For memories to come easily. They
Seem so distant, so long ago. Each dawn
Takes the past further and further away.

I close my eyes, a lazy river drifts
Through sky-high trees and sweet refrains and friends,
Reflects a time when nights were little gifts,
A vast circular dream that never ends.

It makes me wonder…was it meant to be?
Can my memories all be residue
Of long, strange trips? I wonder, did I see?
Did I hear? Did I taste? What did I do?

Where I was once is not where I am now.
And getting here? I’m not sure why or how.