Well, it's another day in the daily grind. Hump Day, Wednesday, middle of the week. Get through today and the rest of theweek should be easy. Got a three-day weekend ahead of us for President's Day. Sweet. Otherwise, not a great deal to report. Let's just get to the weekend. So, while we're just coasting to Friday, here's some more poetry for you to read. Won't that be fun?
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So Many bad Apples


Not every day is a good day.
Dealing with people's dark sides
leaves no room for my benevolence.

Humanity's ignorance on display,
these are parents of tomorrow's future,
a future that looks rude and self-centered.

Abdomen full of writhing snakes
pushing bile from my throat like venom,
I spit misanthropy in a wide arc.

With assumptions and condescension
and more money than brains,
they are certainly not peddling respect.

Oh, if I only had a hammer
for all those bad apples,
I'd have a fortune in apple sauce.

But at the end of the week
I glue together the twig
that is my snapped brain
with a drink or two and friends
who remind me that not everyone on earth
should be ingredients for the book "To Serve Man".
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So Many Wishes


A desert night almost as far
from the sun as California can be.
My breath visible in the post midnight air.
I drive north to be closer to the heavens.
Traffic winds slowly upward, a giant, glowing red snake
seeking higher ground.
I find a place to pull off, breaking the daisy chain of cars
looking for a better point of vantage.
Standing in the chill air I didn't think I'd be warm enough,
but soon I wouldn't notice temperature.
Above me, I see the powder of the Milky Way
dusting the night sky.
Nothing else at first, but then - there!
A light, like a flare, but with a tail...like the trail of a roman candle.
Then another, and another - Oooo! Aaaaah! Ooohhh!
It's the Fourth of July in November.
Then it gets good.
The sky opens up a cauldron of molten steel,
sparks spilling over the side onto the earth.
It's ablaze in a fiery rain, trails of white-hot magic
shine and sparkle behind their bright leader, then slowly fade away,
another in its' place before the last is gone.
Never before have I seen the heavens give forth their spoils so generously.
It's as if the Gods were having a clearance sale on wishes, 'Everything must go!'
There's enough for everyone this time.
Stunned and spellbound, I imagine how it must look in the atmosphere,
then I'm suddenly aware of both my insignificance
and my potential importance in the universe.
I am nothing, yet, such a phenomenal display is created
by mere particles hitting earths atmosphere,
so small, so magnificent.
I am awed, I am hopeful, I am alive.
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I breathe cool, damp air.
Near crashing surf I await
Your warm salty kiss.
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Sun sets in orange sky,
waves crash below our table
almost touching feet.

Drinks and DJ spin
chill grooves mate with summer surf
soothing savage week.

Seagulls drift in place
friends point to passing dolphins
here at Moonshadows.
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- Sunshine staves off encroaching darkness
handing out summer's golden butterfly dreams.


- Moon doppelgangers the sun in a mirror
dancing a Degas ballet in glass.


- Love,
a deep pool of water,
changes parched seasons into
soft, rhythmic, swaying green fields.


- My questions echoing thoughts of suffering,
the quiescent everyday facade concealing caustic despair.
Desire for existence is dwindling.


- Time goads loneliness to lamentation,
my purpose riven
into love and fleshly desire
by implacable fear.


- Fierce sharpness of your delicious mouth
splashes my desire.
Hot rivulets splattering dark red
tattooing my dreams.


- I found the sea in your laughing eyes.
To resist their luring
is beyond my will.


- Share your laugh,
the joyous song of desire,
a chant rising as endless flame
on twilights wing.


- Love's recognition a question.
Always waiting,
I am a postcard in the lost and found.


- Light fog kisses her face.
It's faint lips touch, unassuming
as the soft breath of my love.


- Your hands trespass gently upon my helpless will,
touching, soothing, my exposed love.
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Red Cart


A bright summer morn at ten o'clock
is already warm with out-of-school sunshine.
Down the concrete slope
of the manufactured L.A. river,
sits a red shopping cart,
two inches of run-off soaking its motionless wheels.
Empty, it sits in the heat without purpose,
like a discarded Radio Flyer,
no children willing to retrieve it for joyrides through parking lots or
through the shallow water in which it resides.
Even the business for which it was built will never miss it.
It merely waits for a rush of flood water
that will never come,
to wash it away from sight.
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Scent of stormier seas,
strange incense of Nature's spirit
confessing it's dark thoughts.
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Wind whispers forgotten tunes over empty moors,
crying shadowy dirges
through creaking fences.
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Elevator interlude


A vision in peach silk and string sandals
consumes me in an elevator.
It's not quite a dress, not quite a neglige',
but she wears it like second skin.
Like a symbiotic being coexisting with her lithe form,
it reacts and compliments each movement she makes.
Her hair a brunette frame for a delicate, sun-tanned face,
with deep pools of brown that warm me without noticing me.

I only remember there are others in here
when she turns around to speak to someone I hadn't noticed,
as if none of us are real until she acknowledges us.
The door opens and they walk out together,
peach silk waving farewell to an invisible me.
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