Twisted Legacy

Twisted Legacy

Why do you speak in lies, so damning your countrymen to strife?

Why does not a desire burn to leave a legacy of a kind, caring life.

Of prosperity to those who will outlive your aged vessel, 

Having gained the riches of kings and stood on the pedestal.

Your sickness spreads to the ignorant, the misguided, the desperate,

Toward an epidemic of further pain and neighborly war without respite, 

With themselves, with the very principles of our nation

Disguised in the veil of rights and freedom, while the face is a twisted mutation.

Narcissus, his face distorted by the cruelty of his soul,

Looks at the clear pool and blames his ugliness on the bowl.

“Yes, it’s the water my lord, it’s the water,

Let me drain it and build a more flattering altar.” 

The world burns, the ocean gasps, trees fall as the air begins to kill,

And adding to sickness, comes sickness, and blood of a nation is spilled.  

Burden

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and grandmothers.

Burden

A mother’s love, from which that first breath given

through pain and sacrifice, is a burden carried.

A burden cherished, a burden bestowed to women,

for no man’s heart for nine months so wearied. 

Cherished weight! When after that first breath taken,

with first steps, first words, first pains and cries,

Love grows as new instincts awaken,

And the young wife becomes the singer of lullabies.  

Then lilting songs once sung to tuck in bed,

Become hard lectures of how to navigate

An uncertain road we all must tread,

With fullest heart and a steady gait.

So, from that first breath until our last,

With trust, to mother’s love we hold steadfast.

Them and We

Them and We

When will we rise above this you and me, 

A constant obsession with them and we?

When will we grow bigger than our tribes,

Our separate Peace and our separate lives?

A land of isms divides us, as we wallow in our individualism.

Our conservatism and nationalism, our liberalism. 

Our criticism, our sexism, our racism.

A land grasping, desperately clinging to the edge of our schism. 

Me, I’ve never seen a white man; Or a man with skin that’s black.

But I’ve cheered a sportsman with dark braided hair as he scrambled from a sack.

My wife gave birth to an auburn-haired child, with skin the color of crème.

And I’ve listened to the words of a caramel toned man and thought my country redeemed.

I’ve never seen a white skinned man; I’ve never seen a black one.

Only humans whose ancestors received different embraces of the sun. 

Sun’s grace be damned—we cling to alternate facts.  

I belong, you do not.  I am white and you are black.

A shot rings out, and children fall,

Little ones, learn to corner and crawl.

A grown man drives his car in fear,

Be ready to smile, wide and placid till all is clear.

A gay man hides, lives life alone,

Ignore the hate, it’s all sticks and stones.

A woman suffers her role as prey,

So stay in groups, cover up, go out only in day.  

How do we cling to such ignorance,

Meet such injustice with complacent acceptance?   

When all of science, the work of the learned are at our beck and call.

When with eyes and ears we experience events that should appall?

My God, my rights, 

My clung to vice,

My money, my party,

My self-righteous army.

How dare you try to lump us all together,

When I’m ahead and your people wore feathers.

When I came first, well, second, or third,

But I came with guns and the written Word.

And yet as I call shame upon those and them,

I fear my own hypocritical right to condemn,

What privilege in rhyme do I intone,

From a middle class and sheltered throne?

I don’t know the answers, and my voice is my voice.

To stay quiet is to condone, that shall not be my choice.

While I bear no guilt for the events of the past,

I must share the burden of injustice still vast.

I care not your skin tone, only such that the greatest art comes in all shades.

I care that you listen, that you think, that you cause no one to be afraid.

I care that you are kind, that you are noble.  

That you nurture and love our children and let them rise and grow hopeful. 

Solar Melody

No explanation needed at this point.  When under stay at home orders, poetry I write.

Solar Melody

Why am I so captured by your beauty?

Not that which catches the eye, shining like radiant sun, to steal breath at a view,

And cause good sense, faced with celestial countenance, to mutiny.

I speak of the soul’s majesty that too often doesn’t realize its virtue.

Why, when so logical in thought, applied with success I’ve done

To others of less impact to my heart’s rhythm,

On knees, reverent before brightest sun

Do I find myself a worshiping pilgrim?

Is it, perhaps, not venerated light but tempting melody?

Of two instruments merged, with each moment a new symphony evolved;

Our Duetto building tension with dissonant harmony, 

Always searching for consonant chord’s resolve.   

If no answer comes for my query, I shan’t appose.

Let me be the satisfied musician, who plays on, bathed in the sun’s warm grace.

And may that music we, joined, composed

Play until all questions depart unanswered, all doubts by song replaced. 

So all that remains is music and light,

Euphony for my soul, as your radiance to my sight. 

More Poems

Hello Everyone,

Hope you all are staying safe and are as well as can be expected.  Hope you are all enjoying the poems, although I do realize they are a sorry substitute for the next book (in my case, not in the case of all poetry).  If you are looking for something a little more refined, you should check out Patrick Stewart's facebook page.  He is reading a sonnet a day and it is delightful.  But first, read on my friends:

Steady Tread

I’m jealous of time, inexorable, surging, even when our paths are cruelly diverging.

And me, left missing you, clinging to the moments united that time rushes through, 

As this demon mocks with a viscous pour in moments apart, a teasing tilt of the sand filled jar.

Tell I of how little it cares, unaware, nonchalant in its flippant theft of youth so fair.

Should I focus instead, on the wisdom its steady tread brings the most hapless abed survivors of plump hours bled?

Consider the blessings of watching the ever-changing beauty of growth, decay and rebirth rearranging, cycling through stacked years progressing?

How can I, dignify acceptance when even best days are marked by good-byes?

But in you, I ponder wisdom behind the glacial prisms.  The laugh lines that hint at the edges from the smile I fall always victim.

What of the poise, to which all might aspire, that throve from naïve beauty into the woman I so much admire?

Can I be angry at such a force, be adverse when no matter how unyielding, it composes such glorious verse?

I can not.  Although, might I ask it to multiply or perhaps it could slow, be languid, when you and I entangled.

For given time to reconsider, even when away, rush not the days or minutes; for my mind and soul finds you within it, and even longing is worth delay. 

Corona Poetry?

So, apparently, when trying to nail down the ending for my latest book (a new series that is geared more toward adults), I like to amuse myself by writing poetry.  Who knew?  Good or really bad, at least it gives me something to share.  It's also better than my forcing the ending.  It is going to be a large series and I'm adamant that I will give each book a proper ending and not just a set up to the next novel.

The Viral Siege

The pregnant pause, gravely unspoken

as we now live in the perilous space between.

Our foe swarms wearing Hades Helm

and we wait to bear arms until foe is seen.

Yet bear we must under siege.

We struggle by lonely survival suffered,

wanting in ways comical

to those whose compared need it seems absurd.

Middle aged, we hoard in our collective panic,

lashing out at beloved players,

whose wealth we gladly gave for our amusement,

but now deride, the new scape goat Ayers. 

Heedless, leaderless, guided by a barking clown,

our young, once heroes of our future,

act as petri dish revelers.

Dancing throngs waltzing the aged to butcher.

The learned ones, with exponential models,

with their experiments, and evidence, and epidemics,

with their distancing, and isolating,

with graphs of curved pandemics.

Why hear their call for sanity?

When all is a hoax and we shop for our brand

of fact, of figure, of talking personality,

to tell us truth we shout from our own social newsstand.

Somewhere, between logic and love,

between Gautama and Theodore,

are all the provisions to endure the siege, 

and claim victory of this viral war. 

A Dabble with Poetry

Hello out there.  I have been noticing a bit more traffic to my page, no doubt hoping for new books, but finding nothing new and that is a definite failing on my part.  The books I can't do anything about; publishing is a bit complicated, but I promise books four and five of the Scarlet series are coming.  That being said, I thought I should at least share something.  So here is some poetry.  I'm not really a poet, except in the sense that we all are somewhere in our deepest souls, but I like to dabble.  Forgive the COVID bunker ambiance of the video.  I didn't really think about the visuals until after I recorded it.  Be safe.  Take care of one another, from 6 feet away if possible.  Eat your veggies.  And be kind.

Words.

Words that express.

Words that cherish.

That bring us close,

And give life to laughter.

What words would I have for you,

if in their expression

I could explain my heart?

If in their expression

I could gain passage into yours.

Words.

Words of rage.

Words of contempt.

That render,

Making fluid our morality.

What words would I have for you,

If in their speaking

They could give you my pain?

If in their speaking

I could take back my stolen time.

Words.

Words of kindness.

Words that elevate.

That give us hope

And make promises that might just be kept.

What words would I have for you,

If in their uttering

I could heal with compassion?

If in their uttering

I could forgive and be forgiven.

Words,

So inadequate for love,

Much too powerful in hate.

Words.

Give our inadequate love words power with deeds.

Rob those hate words with our furious grace.

The Wasting Chair

The Wasting Chair

In chair He sits as the manor decays,

Old enemies gathering at the gates.

Grown strong with time, and malaise,

Ready to feast upon His chosen fate.

With saddened eyes His children watch,

Emulating—womb state bystanders.

In their own small chair, legs do notch,

The moments too easily pandered.

His wife’s love is all but gone,

To be plucked away by the gathering horde,

Who laughing—mocking His lack of brawn,

Chase her from His heart without need of sword.

The mob has come to claim last of the bole,

New lumber wrought from His weakened soul.

The Coward is old before His time.

His bones ache on ill-used hinges and rusty joints,

His muscles buried and covered with lime.

A corpulent embrace ready to anoint

His favored and constant companions—

Fear and regret are never far from His side,

And they whisper the lulling songs

That keep Him rooted and tied.

He has not forgotten the dreams from youth.

The feel of His sword held tight in His grip,

His mind soaring in search of truth,

His heart His body’s chosen flagship.

Only the love that He bears His family

Hangs fast to guide His last move of sanity.