The Machine

cello buskers
ukuleles
pussy hats and poetry
with lovely lack of discipline
the choir
sings

dialing drunk-
America?
leave your message at the beep
nasty nasty women
on fire

burning
the machine that swallows protest

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Poem

Poem, be wren swift and sing.
Be shapely as woman's warm thigh.
Play young with words and be wanton.
Then let lie.

For Kim's prompt at Real Toads

City On A Hill

The shining city on a hill
is real, but poorly built
and fragile;
thick with dust of neglect and shelved
short reach for grubby hands.

Shake, shake, shake!
the center quakes,
and our pitiless artifice shatters.
Of the shining city on a hill,
only ceremony stands.

For Real Toads

Inauguration Day

It rained on Inauguration Day.
Much like birds blacken the sky before an earthquake.
An empty head became our head of state.
And hope and change changed to fear and hate.

Like birds take to the sky before an earthquake,
we took to the streets to be seen and have our say.
We won't let hope and change become fear and hate
or what's precious to us be trampled and twittered away.

Taking to the streets to have our say -
marching - may be the last, best way
to keep freedoms from being trampled and twittered away;
eroded - six or seven decades.

So let's protest every day in every way
this empty head that's become our head of state
who wants to drag this country back six or seven decades.
And pray love reigns next Inauguration Day.

A rather rough draft for Midweek Motif~Change at Poets United

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes in the trees
if you listen.
Psalms from the rain soaked ground
if you slow down.
But I don't for fear of what
I might be missing -
moving faster
than the speed of Heaven's sound.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Voice Of God

I could bear the voice of God
if only it would stop

sounding so mean,
so male,
so Mars and misogynistic,

and so utterly de(i)void
of anything
like mercy.

For the Sunday Mini-Prompt at Real Toads

Earth Axis Girl

Earth axis girl
with a spring fever tilt.
Kneel dirty knees
wet with murder and milk.
You're flowering.

A beautiful flowering.

Ekphrasis girl
a paint by the blind
blood buried braille
for fingers to find.
You're sparrowing.

Starling and sparrowing.

You've got sky between your thighs.
You're built of the bones of archetypes
that know it's better to be alive
than wise and dead.
So open up your head

and let wildflowers seed.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Arsenic Mirror

When we scry with an arsenic mirror, poison
blackens the brightest suns,
fouls the fairest fortunes,
and smudges the saintliest souls.
Glass gassed with our own
undigested venom gives a glimpse
of the godless ghosts we're twinned
to in the womb.

Arsenic mirror (a highly unscientific definition) - an old method of detecting arsenic poisoning.  If the ignited gasses from the stomach of a corpse smudged a cool glass or plate, arsenic was present. Anyone else watching Taboo?

For Kerry's prompt at Real Toads

Dare

I dare you to love me
just a little bit wrong.
Forget what you've read
in my file and my palm.
Wrestle me down -
a robin and worm.
If I'm wet,
I'm easier to swallow.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Dinosaur

I'm a dinosaur -
bits of dinosaur -
a fossil buried deep

beneath a hundred feet
of shale and should.

I have a pickaxe in my backpack,
a therapist,
and some weed;

I need to know if I'm extinct
for good.

The unconscious -
my unconscious -
wakes when ego sleeps

and kicks the puppies
everybody loves.

I have a strong back
and a small sack
of symbols I found cheap

on the internet;
that will have to be enough.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Daguerreotype

What will you make of me?

A wanted poster?

A tarot card?

An advertisement for skin or a warning against

such pleasures of the flesh?

Stern temperance or wet 

for your long stretch of dry county?

Around me

light is a thought barely spoken -

its utterance snuffed against my angular bones.

My eyes are the stones 

cast at witches and whores.

My cunt is old 

as the four edges of the world.

But I'm just a girl.

All alone, sir

and awfully grateful for your care.

A girl,

yes, take me home, sir;

take my picture if you dare.

A rather rough draft for Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

Confetti

I've written my obituary and yours as well -
in cool, blue ink - the sperm of a star.
Every poet for hire in a hipster jacket
carries copies next to her heart.

The time has come to be kremlined, Comrade.
There will be sleep and sleep and sleep.
Let the Motherland read you the fake news at night
and tuck your covers around your feet.

Observe, the book - spider-cracked down its spine -
the broken back of the written word.
Behold, Students, the annexation -
the looming cliff, the herd!

Some musings on the future for Midweek Motif ~ Vision at Poets United