+



Life bond anneal 
Reminders of Breath 

           Let  eyes  awaken !

And  I drop to feed the Stars 

      I  Know 
          with  Heart Beats 
                Rhythms   on  Song
No mission is Left unattended 
                       as  Spirit  rises 

        Like  no  time  Before 
              Dreams meant nothing 
                        until now
        My forgotten Sight 
                 Knows  no  Bounds 
Falling Backwards to the unseen 
                              Yet expected 
                      Blissed  Out !
         willing  to  stop

    drawn through shielded flames 
       toward Stars in a quiet night 
                      and   Home   again .

Lets be       As the greatness melts
moist in the life of new Beginning

                                                                ...
 

     by  John Edward Culp 
        January 20, 2020

after the smoke cleared

outside my window
somebody in a car
is blasting the clash
& a pack of motorcycles
is revving in unison
& a woman is feeding
her dog an ice cream cone
right below in the square
& the blue night is coming
on ever so gently
& all the voices floating up
to the second story
are telling me all is well

————————-

sometimes i remember springtime like this

mother pulling marigolds
from crinkly plastic trays
digging holes for roots
no gardening gloves
just earth-stained hands
father sinking wooden
stakes in turned over soil
for waiting tomato plants
beagle loose running
back & forth along chainlink
yapping w/ neighbor’s dog
soft spears of green grass
welcoming bare soles
grandmother visiting from city
sitting in lounge chair
beneath maples full of sap
humming to old music
on radio
no hands swinging
no hammers shattering
no tongues spitting
no leashes choking
no knees pleading
no limbs snapping 
no points jabbing
no feet stomping
etc…
just hearts like bright
bouquets of grace

——————————-

prayer for the unborn

stay in the trumpets of the daffodil

stay in the tears of the wisteria

stay in the grit of the anthill

stay in the spots of the monarch

stay in the posture of the frog

stay in the network of the oak leaf

stay in the wind thru the wheat

stay in the flatness of the shadow

stay in the nerves of the sand flea

wherever you might be just hold, stay


———————————————

tonight

w/ each poem
i take the risk
of reaching
my hand out
in the dark

& placing
a flower
behind
the ears
of each
of my
monsters

i think
i see teeth
flash

their mouths
open
but
only to
sweetly hum

this time

                TRUMP TRADING CARDS  #2

		When Trump checks his mirror, what does he see?
		A surface image or Herculean depths?
		This second batch of NFTs* gives clues.
		The old porker’s bootlegged frame is lean.
		The face is Trump’s, and easy to recognize--
		except for unlikely expressions:
		kindly smile, serene bearing, dignity.
		Never pouting and fuming,
		scowling with narrowed eyes,
		or name-calling and drawling spiteful slurs.

		Behold: a Trump-faced 14-carat chess piece
		topped with a Medieval golden crown. 
		For scepter, he displays the stars and stripes. 
		He holds the whole world in his other hand.
		Message: man of wealth and winning moves.
		MAGA groupies dote on golden idols.

		He wears an emperor’s crown as King of Hearts, 
		the tarot’s symbol for complete control.
		He finger-frames his heart to show he has one. 
		Donald’s lawyers clog the courts with card tricks,
		and yet he’s been indicted in New York. 

		He’s Elvis, too, the king of rock and roll.
		Sequined cowboy shirt and pompadour,
		guitar at hip, Trump rocks the microphone--
		curls his lip and brays “YMCA”
		better than anyone else has ever brayed it.
		His song-and-dance brings men to tears. Or giggles. 

		Then there’s Donald wild and free, a biker
		garbed in a leather jacket,  with black guitar.
		As he rides, he wails sad country tunes--
		women troubles, jail woes, and his favorite:
		I won, but voters stole the whole election.
			
		Five times this guy’s avoided being drafted,
		but it’s all good!  See “Army Trump” in camo--
		dirty face, a mud-stained combat helmet,
		and plans to call a halt to war in Ukraine
		by letting Russia take all Putin wants.

		Grill-king Donald stands next to his Weber,
		sporting a flag-striped apron, red and white.	
		Hot dogs? Burgers?  Fresh from Mar-a-Lago.
		He waves a spatula in lieu of scepter.
		His next-in-command’s a Labrador Retriever.
		Easier to boss around than turncoat Pence.

		Trump, the symbol-loving super-Patriot,
		holds up the Liberty Bell, his sacred shield.
		The bell deflects attention from his crimes: 
		inciting insurrection on Jan. 6.

		Trump in tricorn hat as Washington
		stands straight and tall in the bow of a painted boat,
		spyglass trained on Stormy Daniels. Wowza!
		His left hand grasps a long sword by the blade—
		but Trumpster never faces consequences.

		The final icon shows Trump in a suit
		next to a flaming force, a gold-crowned lion
		as orange as Donald’s hair,
		who pounces on the planet, sharp claws bared.
		I am lion tamer; also, lion.
		When I rage—watch out!  Ketchup will fly!

		Does Trump picture himself as a fiery lion?
		Founding father? Golden chessman? King?
		If so, who with the sense that God gave geese
		would choose this deluded dude to rule our nation?
		Or spend big bucks to download Donald’s daydreams? 

		Copyright 4/23                Patricia Doyne


                	*Non-fungible tokens

"See How We Fell"

See how we fell without knowing...
Years ago, ago, ago...

Blowing air through the barrels of our nostrils,
singing songs surrounded by walls of people.

Pounding drums and plucking electric guitars,
roar of low heavens in our ears...

Hollywood movies bulging our eyes full,
then drugging them almost shut.

Dancing circles of crowds flaunting,
nights dark with flashing bed escapades...

Too young to know
down the hall hospitalizations...

Stumping our barefoot dreams and schemes,
mind murdering those we seldom thought of...

Dead toads on the road smashed
and dried behind the high school auditorium.

Always wishing for true love
and marrying a saint we didn't deserve.

Babies crying in the middle of night.
Sending them to school in a blink of shock.

Working 2 jobs into old age,
wishing for a reboot with bags under our eyes.

The world becoming chaos in a diaper.
The dollar becoming acid in our pockets.

The only way out has always been before us.
A prayer of grace with unending tears, tears,
tears....

When The Lightning Struck

     I wasn’t there when the lightning struck the top of the fireworks stand out on HW 80, the year we were broke and had lost our apartment. Peddling silver salutes and cherry bombs was a dream come true. We started selling three weeks before the 4^th and slept on the grass of our locked fireworks stand. Each night after we closed at midnight, I put the cash box in a hole I dug near my sleeping bag and covered it with a box. 

     We were hippies then, in our late twenties, peddling rockets and silver salutes. We hoped to take in enough cash to spend spring and summer in the mountains near Santé Fe, New Mexico, on national forest land.

     I’d taken the pickup to get change at the bank. Katherine ran out the back door when the lightning struck with a boom, and high up the structure began to burn. Everything we had tumbled off the shelves, but not one rocket took flight or one firecracker snapped, crackled or popped. Nothing even smoked. The fire up top on the Mr. W sign went out by itself.

    Katherine said she was rather disappointed by such a tepid divine intervention. There should have been a bigger show, happenings more impressive.  It sprinkled dribbles of rain only a minute or two.

    She waited for about ten minutes, went back inside the stand, cleaned things up, and waited for the cars to start pulling in. The lot had been empty with the lightning hit. I thought that was divine intervention enough.

     Soon Katherine was again smiling and selling. 

— 

Paste into your browser the following website addresses to either view Chuck Taylor’s photographs or to learn more about Slough Press:

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/Chuck+Taylor/all

http://www.redbubble.com/people/geezerpoet/art?page=4

http://sloughpressbooks.googlepages.com/home

http://www.rheagart.bravehost.com/SloughPressBooks.htm

About choosing a friend

A friend is a balm for the soul. A true friend is always present when things are going wrong. When choosing a friend, a person should, first of all, be educated and worthy of the chosen friend. If you want to be friends with a good person because of your bad behavior, you will naturally be rejected by your chosen one. Start your first friendship with yourself. That is, you are your own friend. First of all, sharpen the mind, purify the psyche, follow the rules of etiquette and discipline. Then it’s time to choose your friend. You choose a friend based on your personality. That is, your friend’s soul should be pure, and he should also follow the rules of etiquette and discipline.

When Light Becomes a Slave of Hopelessness

exasperation from a gloomy stream

came and swallowed my little tears

when i was trying to reminisce the memories

of my love buried in a distant land 

beneath the house that produces hope.

my love is a very atypical love

treasured in the heart of tears

that lived on the plate of agony.

what would be your light to dream

if the person you agreed to share

your smiles with had built a hatred’s farm?

i was served a food in a burial shroud,

i was given a water to drink inside a casket,

i was asked to eat loneliness for many days

which my neurons would never remember.

so hope has become a distant land

that i can never perfume its nosegay,

& i know, thousands of kilometres are

atween my entire being and hope—

as all i eat is a cooked or boiled hopelessness.