Upon What Tomorrow

My cat swaggers when he walks
and talks sometimes
and is aloof a lot
He'll roam off for a drink
and come back and think
Leap onto a lap
and knead my kneecap
then jump off
and beg to go outside
to chase birds and flutter byes
and occasionally chew the grass
The greatest thing is he has a twin
and another sister, once again

So those three
keep company
with sky and earth
and all our humble belongings
the woods and our pond
the snow and the long dreaming
as cars drag by like someone sweeping

the snow crushes the silence
packing it into your ear
so spring seems like a dream
and summer is a plane ticket out of reach
So one burrows deeper into that silence
'til imagination finally takes a can opener
and prys wide your head,
and spilt beer conflates all
into one spoiled wish or dread.
Then the wished for, appears
as Christmas heralds christ's calling!
life back into worlds embrace.
for Sun climbs back into face.
And that sunny winter day

brings not joy, but its caress
of remembered truth and beauty
now slumbering
in pitch of winter
under blankets upon both eye and ear
upon both sky and earth

can you taste life?
you have it
can you touch life?
you live it
can you hear life?
it is near
can you see life?
it's within reach
can you smell life?
It is within you.

How Goes The War

99 wages of war
more ways to die
99 times more than before
with a legacy of hate
with history written in blood
We have more words for war
than Inuits have for snow

But apparently I need to get a life
get a wife, get some strife in my sights,
and... slowly pull the trigger
Why?

Because I might criticize
a national past-time
which also lime-lights
what else, but violence

and in my re-education
I should hop up and down
shouting
I want to kill! I want to kill!
till the psychologist I'm talking with
starts to holler
I want to kiill! I want to kiill!
with me.

For our land was bought with blood
Our liberty is paid in blood
And our material happiness
is the pain of those
we close the door on to ignore.
And all the poetry of developing nations
echoes dying in our very own throats
while our hands bleed from making
a Halloween costume
for some anonymous thirteen-year-old
in America

And they're not priviledged...
We're just unfortunate, my ass.
When hope leads you to a better job
only to find out that dignity is a swear-word
and fair wages fled with trade wars
Only then do you realize
the scope of the hole you've been thrown in
left to live your days in misery
as long as you do as your told.

And how goes the war?
How goes Any war
...madly...!

Heaven's Gate

Football as a cigarette

poisons one lickety-split

as it feeds your mind's high

and depresses your low's low

So that as one slowly

becomes couch potato

Poor diet and exercise

quietly kills your life's health

Just like the cigarette

in equivalent numbers in the U.S.

Slowly your life's ocean ebbs

sucked into television's synthetics

'till life is unrecognizable

as we praise prowess and athletics

while we ourselves grow beer guts and barbecue pits.

(that will one day roast us!

by the mindless hoards of televisions

that overpower newscorps and prepaid programming)

And as we light up that injection sight

we pay millions to corporations

that daily... instill dependence and addiction:

to feel, to hope, to dream... of winning,

of beating all odds as preoccupation

of weapons of mass distraction

as excuse to forgo all solvent solutions

to real problems facing our Nation...

our lives and our wives and our children.

And as we absolve cigarettes of death

by new doohickeys of untested dependence,

We watch commercials that spiral debt

on credit cards and farm mortgages,

But that's not enough... football begs,

pleads! And Demands attention

On and off through day's tide

and under moonshine.

On the field we absolve football of violence

by teams getting paid and living through days,

While glamor and sexy cheerleaders parade,

mixing subtexts of sex and violent roleplay

But... that's not enough, cigarettes light up,

fog, and scotch pours to intoxicate

On and off through quarters of games

and during tailgate parties...

When's enough, enough, in the case of football?

When you've lost your shirt betting?

When you're gut starts to stick out?

I'd guess it's like smoking,

when it starts to destroy your life

and makes you a moody dog

from a lack of exercise and poor diet.

Real Men write poetry.