Afraid New World

 There was no room for emergency

in the emergency room

so she settled into her car

as life emerged from her,

and then life left

her infant, too.

What were the doctors supposed to do?

If you said first, no harm

then no harm done,

but that math isn't fooling

anyone. It's attention diverted

from the harm of inaction

when fear has gained traction

and pro-life is merely

forced birth,

and such births will happen anyhow

and that the baby died doesn't matter

to the screamers now-

having happened in a car

not a clinic.

Call me a cynic, but if you call this 

an act of God, or

an act of fate,

I would say no--it was the state

that barred the door

that tied the hands

that choked the heart

that buried the child, 

all mummified in red tape. 

Tape as red as blood. 

The Piece of Work

 There he shrugged 

boasting of his mission

while a great task lay before

the staring eyes of the world. 

Plucked from his river

bed soft as a baby otter

he sees the injustice of the world

and having taken his place

in the house of Pharoah

his mind too narrow

to do more than snap,

he isn't going to do crap

to remind of us of

his imagined avatar

but to be sitting in a stalled car

overseeing an exodus.

To Those in the Stands

 You who sit by the fragrant smoke, 

you, punters, never having carried a spear, 

hear me in this arena, for I speak

of the man who has fought here

and never left.

Shame on us if

having placed a mantle of duty

upon old shoulders, 'tis we

who wince at the weight 

and mock his white hairs.

You complain you are in

the shade of a colossus

from under this banner,

as he stands in the heat.

Were we ready to shoulder this burden

as if young Atlas ourselves?

Who with such speed and certainty

came to stand in this gap? 

(Who are these, the 

grasshopper champions who wake

having slumbered so long

and can do nothing but spit?)

Our generation has shrugged at

the heft of the world--

who would now leave it

to these idle hands? 

To your feet! 

A Herculean task awaits--

stables are in need of clearing 

and hydra-headed woes 

have need of your torch. 

Ignis Fatuus

 Would I be taken to task

if I were to ask

if an arsonist would be shamed

by a candle's brief flame? 

In a roaring bonfire, 

what is another match?

The catch is that

the great act of 

self-sacrifice is the 

pyre of future action,

the dwindling of choices

to one final

kindling of despair, 

to fare with the struggle

no more.

I do not think this is what

the great gift of our lives 

was for. 

It is not complicity to merely breathe

in a world of ashes,

and although I may grieve 

(in my own way)

I would not make an ash of myself. 

Burn not without, but within,

with motive pure,

go on with your life and yet fight.

Endure. 

On the Wing

 In our beaks

the taste of it--

the thought that

the cage around us would

melt away,

the breeze beckons,

and then?

That wild, vital thing

inside would 

take over

and we would be

alright.

Maybe not for a long time,

but a good time.

Masquerade

 I have a persona.

You see this me I have to be

the real me isn't even known

to me. I haven't been that me

since I was maybe three. 

I made a me subliminally

and you would get my jokes

folks if you watched me doing this

can I can I think I can dance 

throughout 50 or so years of knowing

I don't think like you all do. 

But I make like I do because 

I have to. And it's OK.

I don't know how any of you 

are doing this on the real anyway. 

I don't think you don't do a mask 

yourself, I just suppose

you don't know the mask you wear 

when it's under your own nose. 

The Chase

 It's time for this ritual again

as the quarry has appeared,

moving out in the rough like

a jewel--I have seen them

like pure white elk or

perfect red heifers or

an ebony doe, streaking

free and unminded

and then brought down

by a thousand arrows:

or at least, by Heaven! 

the men will try.

Every one of them an attempted sacrifice

to the withered limb of a 

bitter little god with a face

like a dried-out apple.

Powerful witches who had to be

stopped, lest their magic shrink men

to the size they want women to be.

The hunters shout after them: "Medusas! Jezebels!"

as they watch the desired prey,

uncovered hair waving like

tired snakes threatening to snatch

these sorry heroes like

fish in a net. They cry like dogs, 

sent raving mad after a 

flaming brush disappearing into a field--

until the grass itself is set afire

with her brilliance.

They could never hold what they intend to catch;

but they would see it destroyed.