The Blocks

 They tell you things

to ramp you up

until you have found yourself

on blocks,

Your wheels are left spinning

but you

have lost all contact with 

the road.

And what you have left

is stripped for parts.

There is nothing to do

but be very, very

aware.

Shed

I have been clawing myself 

open

hoping something will change

underneath this 

pale human skin

to find the natural animal within.

And it is not a rabbit or a doe. 

Great Disney set-up, though. 

When I found her,

barking, chicken stealing and

skylarking,

I found my name.

I understood what strangely happened here

a wild adaptable canid

loyal as a tick, 

owning your trash, 

looking for a life

amid constant change. 

And I know many things

that steal away from the one big thing you

think you know.

I shed the self that was 

only human

to learn to grow. 

And my bark

is like the cackle of a witch. 

You can never see through me

because every day there is a new me,

because I remember your past

so hard I never remember mine.

And I feel fine. 

I shed my human skin,

and the wisdom

within falls out. 

I am here for your doubt

and your remembrance. 

Let's dance

in the light of a harvest moon,

and gather our thoughts together

and tell them

so cleverly

that we think they came from ancient history and not

just you and me. 

 

Father Moloch

 They in their purple and their crimson

faces painted like a mural in a brothel,

their tired hair piled high and

hands in an attitude of most 

Holy Sacred Prayer did

take their children

to the temple of their fathers

and their fathers' fathers, 

there to be fed to the brazen beast

as was the custom

and their great privilege.

And you could not say them wrong

for they would have no ears to hear it

nor did they have eyes to see

their babies' faces

as the priests took their spotless virgin

offerings--and no god intervened.

Gathered and Checked

 If you go out not knowing

when to be checked

the world will see you wrecked

because you sway out there

not with a chip on your shoulder

but all made up of chips--

stacks to gamble for, stacks to bargain with,

and this life will just

chip, chip, chip away.

Your most loving friends will

gather you up in their loving arms,

but O! Up in arms you will 

surely be gathered by them, too.

Get your chips on the table--

you may be gambling with the world

but you can still enjoy the game

depending upon who you play with

and if you know when not to play.

Scrolls

If you unwrap these

charred skins

depicting a scene of war

you would read of

a world: a universe

of trapped and 

channeled woe, a tale of

persecution

for the wrongs of others

at last

with nowhere left

to go,

And you might think

them ancient,

the scarred remains of

history's flow.

But they breathed life

the same as ours

only sadder

but a little while 

ago.

 

This Butcher Low-Fallen

 His landing was hard 

they said, euphemistically 

in a place where words 

are made to hide truths,

not to reveal them,

and he was 

brought down

as his prized meats 

were still hanging--

because he was a butcher, caught

in the blades of history

sliced for others 

to dine on as he once

ate and ate and ate.

Who is served by this?

Who knows? Just

get ready with your plate. 

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.