The rain outside
draws patterns
on my window.
My mind is filled
with smoky memories
of the way we kissed
when we were full of love,
the way we gazed at
one another
with passion in our eyes.
We’d laugh and play,
then laugh again,
desire burning,
no control.
Our arms embraced,
we could not
quench the fire
in our soul.
I’m weeping for
those arms
to hold me
just once more.
How could you leave me
with this pain?
My tears are blending
with the rain.

Rivers of rain pour down,
soaking my jeans, socks, shoes,
and everything else that my
just-on-the-verge-of-breaking
umbrella cannot save.
I look at joy, lying on the curbside,
accepting its fate
in the cold, damp street,
as it does a sickly breaststroke,
aimlessly circling a dirty puddle,
while anger kicks at it trying to
disassemble what’s left of it.
My tears are caught in a dirty tin cup,
which distributes them around the
dysfunctional pond of feelings
that are falling apart.
Still the winds rage, the rain pelts,
and my brain fog ends up doing a
backstroke, next to joy, holding
onto my ears as paddles.
When will it stop raining?
(Will it ever stop raining?)

Sleep evasive, my retreat;
how can anything so sweet
be fugitive,
neglect my dreams.
Thoughts wound taut-
tight as a drum,
parade before me
one by one.
Staring at white ceiling,
losing all feeling,
save anger and despair –
who strut their stuff in
the still of the night.
Not a care, whatsoever,
for me and my plight.
Chasing the wind.
Chasing the fog.
Chasing a dream
like the tail of a dog.

Pandemics and Politics.
Both have seized the day.
Masks and Mandates.
Both have paved the way for
a lack of education,
a certain mind castration.
A funeral held in vanity.
Mindless of our sanity.
Humanity lies.

In eighteen hundred and thirty-eight,
tens of thousands met their fate.
Some in wagons, most by foot.
Children strapped to backs – they stood
in solemnity and pride,
till the frailest among them died.
The wife of Chief John Ross
considered her own life lost.
Her Christian life she gave
to an Indian girl she saved.
Old Man Cherokee
on the Trail of Tears.
Choctaw and Muskogee
on the Trail of Fears.
Lost to disease.
Lost to freeze
in the chill of a drizzling rain.
From New Echota
forced to walk.
Forced to be buried
where they dropped.
4000 silent graves.
4000 never found their way
to the bittersweet aroma
of Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Lazy days,
vermilion craze,
staggering shyly,
buzzing,
waggling,
slurping,
bow before me.
Without me,
you are not.
Will you sting me?

Narrow shade,
scent of musk,
quick death
beneath a clump
of clustering,
filtering,
dappled dusk.
Without you,
I am not.
Will I crush you?

I watch the shadow-wings
swooping/gliding,
blocking out the sun.
I feel cold death
looming,
tingling through my veins,
as I scurry/flee
through my field home-
swiftness, silence,
chasing me down.
The blackness
blinds me
until I feel my bitty bones
crunch and crush
beneath the weight
of talons strong-
so strong, the lifelight
fades from my
ebony eyes
and the lush green grass
of my field home
is no more.

Reach out. Let me feel your sorrow.
Hold it in my hand.
Tempt me with your grace and quiet madness
as I browse among your pain.
Mold my pathos with your clay.
Let dawn tend exquisite sadness,
then slip quietly away.
Your footprints sketch a path
on gilded grains of sand, they wed.
Each night they curl
around my pillow,
sweetly singing
to the darkness
sleeping in your bed.
Your dusty portrait blinks at me,
its oily eyes encased
within its musty wooden frame.
It longs to brush the silence.
It aches to hear its name.

The twisted trees are shedding leaves
Upon the autumn wind.
The air is cool. So peaceful, now,
I turn my gaze to view
The powdery clouds suspended
In a sky so soft and blue.
The lily pads ablaze with green
Across the water top-
Waterdrops like diamonds in the sun…
The red-orange trees are set afire.
The colors take my breath.
They shimmer in the morning sun-
Too soon they meet their death.