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

Artwork 1975

Crosswalk

Waiting on the skate park

To dry

After

A long night of rain

Is a good time

To write!

Down time

Is

Write Time

Most times!

Opening my journal

My pen starts its flow

Of

Ink across the page

The familiar scratching

Of

Its tip is always

A welcome sound to me  

I saw a woman

This morning

Trying to cross

A busy six lane roadway

On my way to the park

She threw her hands up

In frustration

When she realized

She was stuck in the middle

Of

The road!

Standing on the small curb

Of

The median

She looked less than thrilled

I guess

The crosswalk

Would have taken

Too much time

To walk over to

Hell

I can’t blame her

Times ticking for all of us

Tick tock

Tick tock

The feeling of time

Running out

Is probably

Hardwired 

Somewhere deep

In our brains?

To look for shortcuts

In life

Can pay off

But sometimes

Shortcuts

Leave us stranded

In a place

We don’t want to be!

For

The thin slab of concrete

She was trapped upon

Can easily be

The unwanted job

The bad relationship

The wants

You really don’t need

So

Step true

Step with purposes

If not

Your steps

Can lead you to misery

Can lead you to being stuck

With nowhere to go

As life passes you by

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Aggies

Aggie, Aggie, on this day

You roll around

As we play!

Long before video games

Before the internet

Before cellphones

There were games

Of

Marbles AKA Aggies

Played in the sand of school yards

Shot in and out

Of

Circles drawn in the dirt

By little fingers

From

Little hands

Ready to win the next game!

Losing could mean

Fist fights

If the loser didn’t pay up!

Turning over your Aggies

Was always

A hard thing to do

For, Aggies were also currency

Along with

Hand drawn

Ink pen tattoos

Ten cents a pop!

But that’s a whole other

Story all together

Then there were

The shakedowns

Teachers would ask you

To empty your pockets?

Confiscating anyone’s marbles

They were holding!

Dostoyevsky would have

Surely shook his head in disgust

Wasp And Spiders

I watched a wasp today

Dragging a spider

Back to its nest

For dinner

Now that I think of it

It was a dirt dauber

Yes

Definitely

A dirt dauber!

Spiders

Must be a delicacy?

For

That is all I ever

See them

Dragging home!

It’s one hell of a dance

This winged hunter

Does for dinner!

For

One wrong move

And

The wasp could be

On the spider’s menu!

I guess

In one way

Or

Another

We’re all dancing

For the next meal

The real question becomes

How much are you willing

To dance

To survive in this world?

The

Dance with death

Between

The wasp and spider

Was magical

I’m sure

Isn’t everyone’s dance

With death

When the time comes?

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Lamb’s Quarters

Lamb’s Quarters

I see you

And

Your kind

Growing in the

Sludge filled runoff

From

This oily parking lot!

You look healthy enough

To eat

But

I know better!

Your

Bluish purple stem

Is

More than likely

Flowing with

Chemical carcinogens

From

Dripping car motors

And

God knows what else

This city has been fed

To keep it alive? 

Cancer salad

Is not on the menu today

Yet

Cancer seems like it

Is

Everywhere these days!

It has to be

Coming from somewhere?

The world

Is slowly being eaten

By the mouth

Of

Greed!

Livestock is pumped full

Of

Hormones

Or

At least that’s the rumor

Poultry is twice the size

It was when

I was a child

Profits of companies

Come

One tasty bite at a time!

It’s almost impossible

To consume anything

Not pumped full of something

Before it’s sent

To the processing plant

To be killed

Gutted

Hacked up

Sawed

Sliced

Quartered

Then packaged

For our dinner tables

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Martian Sky

I feel like I’m looking

Into

A

Martian Sky

This morning

A splotched pink skyline

That looks like it was

Painted by giants

With sponges in hand

Glowing behind these

Pink patterns pressed

Into the puffy white clouds

Are

Swirling

Red and yellow lines

As far as I can see!

It seems to me

I’ve written a lot

About the sky

Over the years

Or

Maybe

It’s just my inner thoughts

These past few days

Wondering

If anyone

Ever looks up

From their phones

To see past

Their screens

At the world around them?

Above them?

The things that

Are

Alive

And

Happening

Like the Martian Sky

Above me now

Before it slowly burns away

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Lincoln

Your Eye

When

Something’s in your eye

You want nothing more

Than to pluck it out

And

Yes

To pluck out debris

From one’s eye

Can be

Quite painful

To dig into one’s self

Can be unbearable

But in order to move forward

We must pluck out the painful

And

Fill our souls with hope

That the pain never returns

Pull the knives

From

Your back

Or

There’s no use

In moving on at all!

It’s these hard learned lessons

In life

That shape us

And

At the same time

Show us who we really are

As people

So

Remember

To forgive is powerful

To not remember

The reasons why

You had to forgive

Is foolish

So continue on

With open eyes

And

See all that’s before you

Not

Just what’s presented

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Tornadoes

To live through

A tornado

Is a terrifying thing

Indeed!

Over the years

I was told tornados sound

Like a freight train

Rolling down the tracks

Straight for you!

So

When I realized

What was coming for

My family and I

It made it

That much more

Terrifying

Than anything

I could have ever imagined!

For

The hand of death was close

And

Only moving closer

A violent deafening mown

With

An underlying sound

Of

Trees snapping

Power lines

Whipping wildly in the wind

Rain and darkness

A blinding wall of power

Inching closer

And

Closer

But

What I remember most

From that time

So long ago

Was holding

My child in my arm

My wife by the hand

And fleeing

Into the howling shadows

Of the night

Then

The next morning

Pumping gas barefoot

No shirt

40 degrees

In the drizzling rain

But

Being thankful

We all were alive!

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

Smog Sucks

Bars

Monarch Butterfly

Monarch Butterfly

Maiden of beauty

Queen of flight

Your wings are

The color

Of

Tangerines

Dressed with spotted

Black dots

That smear together

As one

When you fly and flutter

About!

You seem like you

Maybe floating on

Something beautiful

Like the music of

Melody Gardot

Or possibly

Madeleine Peyroux?

Someone’s amazing music

Has to be lifting

Your wings upwards?

Floating on notes

And

Melodies

You have to be!

Your journey

To me

From

Across the sea

Is

One I hold dear

When I gaze upon you

Saying hello

Here and there

There and here

Throughout my day

Moving about

In my world

Braking the sunlight

Into

Segments of flashes

Like the end of a movie

On an old-style projector

When you and your kind

Swarm the sky above me

Oh

What a sight to see!

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave

The Man Without A Nose

A man

Came into work

The other day

Who had

No Nose

Just a big gaping hole

Where it once was!

It was hollow

To look into

Empty to gaze upon

A moon crater

A Grand Canyon

Scaled down to size   

My coworker

Was totally freaked out

By the sight of this

The man told us

He had cancer

And

The doctors had

Cut away half his face

A facelift

Of

Lifesaving slices!

He said  

He now

Was going through

Radiation treatments

Chemotherapy

The thought

Came to me

As it does every time

I run across

Yet

Another example

Of

Modern medicine

Who needs horror stories

When we have examples

Of

Saving lives like this?

Doctors keeping people alive

With half of their face

Missing

Is not some amazing feat!

What’s amazing

Is the folks that have

Not had their bodies

Cut on

And

Are not taking

Radiation baths

Believing somehow

The ones who are

Are better off than

Surrendering to death!

Yes

Cancer is the gnashing teeth

Of

Humanity

Yet

People tremble

At the thought of death!

With all of the steadfast beliefs

Of

Better tomorrows

On the other side

Or

Coming back

As something else

To live again

People are still willing to boil

Themselves down

With nuclear exposure

To not go on

To the next world!

Reality is strange

Sometimes

And

Is bursting at the seams

With an undeniable truth 

When self-preservation

Is involved

From my book, When The Cedars Shade Your Grave