Wild Bird Cultured Roses

The flower that grows while the crow that crows

are attached to both ends of a horizon

stretched over its features introduces

a day like no other that’s come before

when the stem brings to beauty a mirror

as symbol of the sustenance of love

it perfumes with so ancient a perfume

scented stamen adheres to its color

presently across the sidewalk I pass

each speaks to me one is inaudible

cracking through the cosmos into the dirt

the other by two’s chants its messages

wild as birds and cultured as roses

fly wings of the sky, opaque and spacious

A DAY IN THE SUN

Majesty beauty the sun in bouquet      

spills over surfaces of earth and drapes

painted over shadows darkened to shade

brushed across the world and cast on the clay

these are its radiant greeting flowers

for audience living creatures partakes

strings of the music the universe plays

a day is an instrument,  note and key

the soul knows only by its harmony

what knows it of mysterious power

like the distance between color and sound

is the absence of faith in its presence

senses divided unite by their sense

the music is ancient ancient defense.

PHYLLIS WHEATLEY, IMAGINATION

To Phyllis Wheatley

Your Majesty I Summon Partially.

Its Beckoning so Mystic as Beauty

Ascends to the Astros and Pirouettes

The Particle’s Substance is A-Rhyming.

Beautiful Sunset cast in my Orbit

Remarkable as Marvels of Heaven

Imagination, you who know Everything

I adore you, you are more Radiant

Than all the WOrld’s RIches Twinkling Sparks

You appear already Luminos, Word

FOr I did not strike the Phospohorous Wood

Before you came here and Warbled a Lark.

Beauty of Beauty awakes in the Dark

Illuminate my Vision with your Art.

PLAGIARIST

Oh No!  Here comes the Ragign Plagiarist!

She strides down the hallways a menace face

Two hovels  eyes with bitter eyelashes

The terror of discovery--again Agh!

Columbus, Cortez, and the Fascist Boss

They bend over backwards with Avarice

Asses of Downtrodden Artifices

that To think ofs to Swallow ABysses

Virtuous Orifice the Dungeon of Minds

HEre come Vicissitudes without a Clue

Nondescript, Rhetorical, and Abstruse

The worship of the noose in the Minion

Beggar of anything but Opinion

ASSANGE AND SCHMIDT

Assange and Schmidt  (the State Department, too)

at the Ecuadorian Embassy

Like two brothers-- but, no not exactly

One may surmise he is invinciboo

unlike Beyonce sang in “To The LEft.”

The other is running an Empire--

Government is Good if Gov is a G.

Old school, inclusive yet still powerful

mind while I rescue your GF’s laptop?

--Your instinct is fast, you saved me a lot!

Not that I need it, I AM the dot.gov

Are you Ready for Hillary Come on!

I am having a cerebral hemorrhage

Where is my army, my navy, my gun?

LIFE AND WAR ON EARTH

There is a world which humans inhabit

It lays at their feet a beautiful place

Of arbors so blessed the heavens they kiss

Wide arching mountains knot on its surface

Stone, wood, and mineral, stone, wood, and poem

Fauna and people, their tracks leave behind

when treading on a ground that is a home

forces for motion and forces for time

All made available for all of life

Each particle is beheld by itself

Nothing is wanting not lacks anything

but to be what it is and let to live

All War is madness grown into disease

that hungers to the end of existence.

TOLSTOY AND TWAIN

Tolstoy and Twain meet in the afterworld.

One looks at the other and both confirm.

Truth has two ways to get around mischief.

Illustrated or Painted, takes methods.

The Russian and Ruse depict the same thing

One writes Epic the other tells Tales

Mercy has two mouths to make them Wail

Innocence is nothing til its is something

Genius and Genie appear near the Ocean

Above is the sky below is the Sea

One draws the horizon into a Tear

the other journeys into the Fountain

Muse and Musician what have you come for

but to weep and to fathom evermore.