Strut

With hubris and a pricking swagger
The leader of the free world struts about
While the little people look on,
Innocent bystanders, gawping crowds
Whose freedom has been exchanged for license.

This leader and his kind, exalted cocks,
No better than arrogant poultry,
Straddle the pecking order, smug and fat,
Stare beady-eyed down scowling beaks
Flap their almost flightless wings.

School Rooms

I had risen to the place between dreams.

Down cramped corridors
My feet dragging on the stairs.
I stooped low under ceilings,
And felt distance compress.

And the walls my fingers touched
Were the walls of a school I left fifty years ago.

The Eyeless Storm

Long roads with no turning
Smoke, metal and dust,
And the wind of passing cars…

…heavy weather
… a hurricane
…the eyeless storm.

Apothecary

I make you well
With grinding powders
Oils and solutions
Shredded herbs steeped
Till the water is green
And aromatic

I tilt your lips to the crucible
I bring you past the crisis
Make you whole

Inaugural

[Meeting Minute 2604]

Two members
Inquorate
In conversation
At a corner table

Three or more
Gathered together
A church of a kind
Secular

Seven was the number
And the word was luncheon
And the word was with the servants
Who brought about sustenance
In exchange for coin

Fool’s Gold

The river descending cast water over stones
And the brown-rust lightness of its ripples
Moved against the flow in the sun’s light.

Down in the gravel beds the poor fools panned
Among the grains for the smallest metal,
For precious cargo in the eroded world.