When your future is uncertain
And your world filled with stress,
Can you mitigate the worst,
And still work for the best?
Can you find hope and happiness
Despite the setbacks,
While girding yourself daily
For life’s constant attacks?
In your moments of sorrow,
Can you still find some ways
To look beyond the chaos-
See through to better days?
Can you view the great maelstrom
And recognize how the spin
Is nothing more or less
Than how opposing currents descend?
Our lifetime is a struggle,
From our birth to our grave,
But all that is required to live successfully
Is to stand and be brave!
So let the storms billow over
Till they lose power and end,
Hold on to your hope
And be human my friend!
Fort Knox
While he was training,
She did unprepared.
Raising the little girl,
Visiting when she could.
300 miles in Caprice
The car overheated.
Rolling into a pitstop
Of just a single pump.
Sipping coke, waiting
With a three-year-old,
for the Hillman to fix
A broken water hose.
There wasn’t enough,
The check’d bounce,
No, they’d eat later.
Will you go to sleep?
The girl kept talking,
And worse, noticing.
A pack of cigarettes,
Six hours left to go.
Arriving at Ft Knox,
There was no gold,
But a sea of green,
Gems in geodes.
“You want to know
What mother did?”
Only if she wants
To tell, Nana said.
The girl dismissed,
Another secret safe,
And the transmission
Was the only neutral.
The Warhorse
Through the window, at a distance, I saw him today
As he meandered aimlessly in fields of weeds and clover —
Moving as one unsure of what would happen next,
Unsure if the danger of battle was truly over.
He bore the scars of a life lived- hard and full and well,
As only can be found in draft animals in service to the state;
Taught by unforgiving moments to think and plan for the worst
While carrying upon his sagging back the burdens of duty and chaos and fate.
When the thunder comes, the warhorse must run to the sound of the guns,
Remaining stalwart in the pell-mell charge of animals and men against fire;
Despite fear and fury, if the animal-instrument fails in battle just once
Then comes the flailing upon flanks and withers scarred by national ire.
Today the destrier, once a fine sleek stallion, now worn and old,
Gelded by the chaffing of time and burden, finding his days of service through;
And must create a new life and status in the field or the range or the stable,
Else the groom decide the warhorse worthless, short of factory and glue.
I catch my breath and realize —
No image through glass pane I see;
But reflections in a silvered mirror,
For that old warhorse is me.
St. Valentine’s Day
The legato of gunfire
Flowing like music and
The beating of hearts
Now lost to love
Rhythmically pumping
The Red splatter of life
Spilled out in warm rivulets.
Seven slumped
Pierced by lead arrows
Against the cold brick and
Upon the dirty concrete
Floor of a Chicago garage.
When the sultry smoke cleared
A dog and a gangster
Were all that was left alive
Though the man passed on
A short while later
“No one shot me”
He held on to
The code of La Cosa Nostra
So only the dog knows
And Highball ain’t a snitch.
Under Pressure
Running away,
Hiding in squares,
Churches, attics,
Cemetery, trunks,
The crawl spaces
Under the stairs.
Lungs burning,
Electrocuted,
Pressure boiling
Like kettled air,
Forced through
Narrow confines.
The wheezing,
Sharp whistle of
Ghosts escaping
Seeping sucking
Chest wounds.
Gases expelled,
Corpses return,
Of pleural space
to Earth and sky.
Pews, headstones,
Boxes and rooms.
Heart chambers.
But round flesh
Cannot conform
To hard corners,
The rigid edges,
Or square spaces
Of men we love.