The cost of doing nothing is too steep
I guess that means it’s time to “roll up sleeves”
We’ve landed in some shit that’s more than deep
It doesn’t matter what the Trump believes
The “shit” is his election. What the fuck?
How many millions wasted precious votes?
I guess too many like to press their luck
Obtuse to what their orange choice denotes
So, time to scrape up pig shit one more time
A job nobody ever wants to do
But pigs will shit like criminals will crime
And cleaning up will fall to me and you
Democracy requires work that’s tough
Sometimes it stinks, but we are strong enough.
This sonnet is an allusion to the re-election of Donald Trump. It also contains an allusion to a summer job I had as a teenager, shoveling shit out of a pig barn. I still remember the farmer telling me that I was the first kid he’d hired who wasn’t afraid to get in there and scrape the pig shit off the floor. I use the metaphor of “shoveling pig shit” as a reference to anything that may be distasteful, but still needs to be done. I think it works perfectly in this case. For the next four years we need to roll up our sleeves, plug our noses, and wade boot-deep through the shit as we do all we can to clean it up.
Pig Shit
November 7th, 2024Coventina
October 21st, 2024
I call to Coventina in my need
To bring to me her blessed healing rain
She calls to me with words I feel and heed
She sings with showered notes a soft refrain
When Coventina hears the parched who thirst
She sings the dulcet songs of living wells
When water came to be, she was the first
The first to learn the stories water tells
The stories and the songs she shares with all
Are filled with brilliant life and brilliant love
She loves the life of every waterfall
She sings of rain that falls from clouds above
The goddess Coventina comes to heal
With water simple words cannot reveal.
The Word is God
October 19th, 2024The Word of God is everything you write
I write The Word of God in structured verse
It’s not The Truth, The Truth is not The Light
The Word is God like everything perverse
Perversity is such a clever Word
It turns away from normalcy with cheek
It’s also God; at least that’s what I heard
Perversity is when you hear God speak
The Word of God is found in every book
And every song whose lyrics are defined
By words the poet finds where they might look
Whenever God might linger in their mind
So speak or write and know that Thou Art God
And know that Words are words and might be flawed.
A Foraged Sonnet
October 18th, 2024I found a sonnet on my path today
Ironically it sat right on the trail
Just past the point where nuts would often lay
I often forage words to no avail
But this time I picked up a whole damn verse
The squirrels had passed it by like something bad
A nut with weevil larvae or much worse
I guess they didn’t see it like I had
I heard the sonnet fall through autumn leaves
I heard it just before the bridge, the brook
Inviting me to cross what it believes
That sonnets may be found if one will look
I think i heard the brook call out my name
A forager, a sonneteer, the same.
A Pathway of Leaves
October 15th, 2024
I walk a path adorned by fallen leaves
It must be autumn now, the air is crisp
A treasure trove of colors, not for thieves
Although I steal their colors like a wisp
A wisp of little metaphors, all mine
Oh look, the final sigh of maple’s breath
The trees prepare to sleep; the trees are fIne
The forest path is not the way through death
I walk this living path to comprehend
That life is full of seasons to enjoy
These vibrant colors do not mark an end
They simply show the art the trees employ
The pathway bearing leaves, a living thing
Reminds me they’ll be back again in Spring.
Foraging
October 13th, 2024I’m not just some “damn yankee” in my mind
I’ve foraged all across this fruitful land
I find great joy in everything I find
Yes, even if it’s not what I had planned
I’ve foraged oysters from the Puget Sound
I forage nuts New England loves to share
In Utah it was Camas that I found
In Idaho there’s rose hips everywhere
But midwest morels always call me back
To Michigan, a place I’ve also lived
The U.P. doesn’t seem to have a lack
My foraging expresses life un-sieved
For foraging, America’s the best
Come forage now with me from East to West.
A Cuckold Named Tom
October 13th, 2024There once was a cuckold named Tom
Whose wife thought that she was “da bomb”
But when she “went off”
The neighbors would scoff
And he had to try to stay calm!
The Ghostly Carousel
October 13th, 2024
The carousel is old, but still it turns
Will it succumb to time eventually
The gears will rust and rotten wood still burns
I try my best to set the horses free
The carousel played music made of joy
But now it skips through songs like broken glass
A ghostly little girl and ghostly boy
At times appear when living children pass
A spooky shortcut to a different time
It marks another place where fear is found
As if the joy it knew was just some crime
And still it’s old, and still it turns around
The carousel is old and we are too
The ghosts of kids we see are me and you.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei
September 26th, 2024
Who hails the Queen of Femininity
Who calls on Her to pray for us who sin
The Mother of our own Divinity
A call that often comes from deep within
Is bitterness the essence of the call
As Maryam protects our ship of reeds
The essence of Her name protects us all
A name that even Sancte Pater heeds
The Mother God is Strength and Love and Grace
She hears us when we call on Her in need
She hears us from her high and holy place
A place where She espouses Word and Deed
And so we know to whom we need to pray
Deliver us in Glory, Mater Dei
The Christian God
September 18th, 2024Not “turn-the-other-cheek” or “eye-for-eye”
The Christian God will kill you when you’re bad
When Ananias stole, then told a lie
He forfeited the joy of life he’d had
And then his wife Sapphira did the same
And so God killed her too, a point to make
The gospel isn’t just a simple game
Good news is only good for God’s own sake
There was no ram, no thicket, like that time
When God told Abram, “Go and kill your son”
And God let Jesus die a death “sublime”
Another death, and oh, another one
This Christian God is God and He can kill
Whoever doesn’t kowtow to His will.
(Acts 5:1-11)