Thank You !!!

My blog will be 1-year old on April 1st. It started as an experiment (and at thee gentle encouragement of a close friend), a place to store my one-a-day poems I wrote and posted with Sol Writing Projects prompts for Poetry Month in 2014.

Since than I have continued to post some of the poetry that comes from this keyboard finally ending up with 75 posts. YOU Dear friends have been kind enough to visit 1937 times since that first posting. Moreover, visitors have read my poems from the following countries:

United States	1768
France	56
Poland	30
Germany	29
Nicaragua	4
Ukraine	4
Australia	3
Finland	3
Indonesia	3
Mexico	2

All of this attention has encouraged me to make preparations to begin my first book of poetry that will be published during this coming summer. Again thank you all so much I am in your debt....

Dystopian Present

Sacred islands ringed by rusted steel, barely covered by flaked disappearing painted

scaffolding, standing like a forest with barren limbs,

empty of leaves, fallen over time

blown into space, like people leaving, boarded windows, parking meters expired

find the airport, the train station, the greyhound station

go to Illinois. Indiana’s steel cities are empty-finished now

Small plies of coke and coal line the roads where services had storefronts

the barber shop is closed  , the windows at the dry cleaners  broken, medical care shuttered

50,000, 24/7, with its own fire department, trucks gone hoses rotting

Its bus system gone closed deserted

a ghost town with mill scale streets and heavy dust

obscuring the world that was

big steel is gone now and little steel struggles

but the children of the corn remain

steadfast in their beliefs of their own righteousness

and worthiness in eyes of their almighty

be like them or you must leave therefore suffer banishment

from the promised land for popcorn

of harsh winters and hot summers

and endless pollution left behind by the mills

but they are surprised, in this age of instant communication

to find  that others across the states don’t agree

that legislation protecting religious  freedom is at best

a painfully obvious attempt to roll back the clock

to our dystopian past

חֵטְא הַעֵגֶּל “The Sin of the Calf”

A shadow named indifference came creeping,

invited to the sacred ground

by a killing and a lie

that trampled the dignity of one

insuring guilt for all, by their silence

complicit in two acts

avarice replacing humanity

the gardener thinking about the next garden

ignoring the work  in front of him

followers agree

blinded by misstatements

praying for playing field victories

Aaron won,

Dignity of the spirit

zero

The Lady and the Thug

The breakfast buffet was set out before sunrise
the regular early crowd was waiting by the door
anxiously waiting the food to arrive
the gentleman in the white coat
who slept on a cushioned lounge chair near the buffet
was, as always the first to arrive

jumping up and down the little sisters, one dressed formally in fashionable black and white,
and the other more seasonal in spring tweeds
raced around trying to be the first in first bowl
stretching from bowl to bowl to see what was best, better
finally settled and down on haunches
the sound of chewing could be heard several feet away

two of the usual stragglers finally showed up
always late but always before the arrival of the sun
the burly thug wearing a mask across his eyes
and the lady in black and white
a flowing black train with two white stripes following
usually ignored each other and ate in separate settings

but that morning the sisters and the old gentleman

ate early and hearty,  consuming  all the food on three tables
leaving only one spot for both the latecomers
these two frequently ate at the same time, and next to each other
but never from the same place
the lady was a delicate eater taking small mouthfuls  and chewing her food

the thug was a gobbler eating with his hands and his mouth,

occasionally leaving the buffet and going to the pond for a drink
then would race back and gobble some more
the different munching styles strongly suggested
eating together, sharing, taking turns, would never work
and the others diners moved away, anticipating tension

first the lady would take a mouthful

the then thug would grab the bowl sticking both hands in to get his food
then the lady would with deliberation bent her head to the bowl
until the thug couldn’t take sharing anymore
and with a sudden action grabbed the bowl in his hands
holding it close to his chest, and away as he ran as fast as could

later when the lady left and regulars came back out

I went looking for the bowl
Around the side of the house
And finally through the gate I saw the errant bowl
In the front yard, in the grass
Empty and licked clean, the thug was nowhere to be seen

Dust and Ashes

You anger is so deep

You pretend its devotion

You must destroy all that isn’t you

You must burn the world so that all is dust and ashes, even sand

You must demolish all that offends thee,

You must demonstrate your resolve of purification

Statues offend thee, crush them, they are idols, avatars, evil

Dancers offend thee, you practice obedience not celebration, hang them if they don’t convert

Prayers offend thee, don’t listen false to words, cut out  tongues of those who pray to false G-ds

People  offend thee, if they are different,  hang them by their necks, at the gates of your cities

You must stand alone,

You must rule the planet

You must command beyond the horizons, perhaps beyond the stars

You must dominate all that is known, all that remains,

dust and ashes

A Focus on Vaginas

What is happening to the world,

when did the ‘other’ become in charge

you know the one who flunked biology

the one who had issues, who went away

before high school was done

And then came back and went to a college

struggled and flunked out

blaming the lazy faculty for their academic failures

while they were popular and admired by their peers

and wasn’t that enough to earn passing grades

And rode that admiration into life

with no knowledge of the world,

saying vaginas can be seen by tiny swallowed cameras.

but I fail, having passed biology, to understand how the gut is connected

to the female reproductive system

I do see striking similarities

mandated burqas  and mandates against yoga pants

God forbid the sight of the outline of vagina would drive men crazy

and away from God, especially if you were focused

on those part of a woman anatomy in the first place

I fail again to make the connection

between fungus and cancer

I suppose I could understand this

if I had never gone to school, never listened in class

never took notes, never asked questions

I will drink baking soda prophylactically

My ignorance is profound and I am ashamed

I fail to see why yoga pants are more important than health insurance

than a budget for education

than adequate food for all people

access to medical care

I fail to understand why woman’s gynecological exams

Warrant public vetting

And I especially don’t understand bunk science

That touts medical miracles if you just go to Nevada

Baking soda tiny cameras and no yoga pants will be the salvation of us all

If we forget that we were once educated