Falling Banjo Punk Blues

Slacklining

Flip Trick

Shieldmaiden

Pockets Of The Profit Maker

Everything is necessary

In everyone’s

Own needing of necessities!

The machines are taking over

At least

It seems that way!

The laborer

Is becoming more and more

Scarce to see these days

John Henry was the first to

Fight this

Way of working

Where machines

Take the place

Of

Muscle, blood, and bone 

I heard his song

Many times as a boy

This

Folk hero in the lands

Of

My youth

Gave us hope that mankind

Wouldn’t completely

Be taken over

By oil

By steel

By plastic

Yet

We all kind of knew

This day was coming

We just didn’t expect 

It would be so soon

Or

Maybe we never realized

How fast it would

All go by

I guess

There are too many profits

To be maximized

Too much money

To be made

To not go this route

And the machines are

Not only taking the place

Of

Working flesh

They’re taking the position

Of

The mind!

Of

Critical thinking!

Is it possible

In centuries to come

We will have bodies like jellyfish

And

Grunt like cavemen?

The sun will burn brighter

Than ever by then

And the air

Will be too poisoned to breathe

Machines will be our only

Choice

To work outside

Mechanical movement underneath

A radioactive sun  

All for the pockets

Of

The profit maker

To continue

Making their money!

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Boudicca

Boudicca

Queen of the Iceni

Wife of Prasutagus

Daughter of Britain!

Upon her husband’s death

Rome came to take everything

That was his

Not recognizing

His daughters as heirs

His wife as

The new ruler reigning over

Her people!

Boudicca was flogged

Humiliated

Beaten

Blood-soaked   

Her two daughters raped

Her property seized

Her soul stripped of all

She knew and loved!

But

Rome would soon regret

Their treatment of Boudicca

Revenge on Rome was hers

With

Fury and fire

Sword and chariot

The uprising she led

Wiped out whole Roman cities

Now known as

Colchester, London, and St. Albans

They were

Burned to the ground

A culture cleansing of anything

Roman!  

60 years after

Nailing Christ to the cross

Pushing a spear into his side

Watching his blood

Soak the sandy soil beneath him

The same generation

Of

Roman soldiers

Now retired

And

Living their last days

Off the plunders of Rome

In these cities she sacked

Would live their last hours 

On the crucifix!

Eighty thousand Romans

In London alone

Were put to the sword by Boudicca!

To this day

There is a layer of charred earth

That blankets the underbelly

Of

The city

Scorched soil seeping

With the souls of the dead

In the end Boudicca

Was defeated on the battlefield

By Suetonius

Thousands of her people lay dead

The great Roman author Tacitus wrote

She survived the battle

But took her life

With poison later that day!

No one truly knows

Boudicca’s final hours

But her story of resistance

And

Fighting oppression

Will live on

For centuries to come!

Blunt

An old friend of mine

I’ve known for thirty years

Told me

I was blunt the other day

He then said

It was one of the reasons

He has remained friends

With me

For so long

He knew exactly where

He stood with me

At all times!

I was surprised by this

I said, I thought I believed

I was careful

With people’s feelings

My wife then joined in

The conversation

“You thought you were

a sugar coater?”

A smile then pulled gently

Across her face

His wife chuckled

“You’re no sugar coater!”

I spent the next few hours

Pondering all this

Like Archimedes

Pondering Physics

I wondered

What people would think

If I didn’t try to sugar coat

My words?

A few days later

And

Hours into a day

Of

Dealing with customers

A coworker said to me

As her brow

Slowly moved upwards

“You don’t have to be

antagonistic with the customers”

I said,

“I’m not.”

“But I’m also not promising them

unicorns and rainbows”

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave