Colorado Massacre

Standing tight, tough and tall

Teenager evinced a pretty proud appearance

Trained, taught in drama and the stage

A dozen innocent past midnight

Saw a new – movie, Batman.

The crazy 27 year old entered by

                        A side door

Rifle, submachine gun, pistol

With gas masked bomb first

12 dead, 72 wounded

Horrified, senseless, awful devastation

A bloodbath

A feast of and fury of cries,

Of heroism, of agony

All exercised in seconds

Oh what folly, what foolishness, what tragedy !

The mayor came, the governor spoke

Even the President met the families

Of the deceased for three hours.

Two days later an orator

Delivered his eulogy

In the name of the nation.

For all far and wide affected

In the killer’s apartment are books

And 6000 rounds of ammunition.

Caught and surrendered at the parking

Lot immediately after the incident.

Yes, we have our war,

But who can stop a deranged person?

At the memorial he started his sermon

To a vast and intense audience.

“Who will ever forget the innocent…?”

Later a memorial edifice

The world immersed soon will forget.

                        Or will it?

Mother of Tomorrow

One gem - one total new idea.

Yes the child escapades, adds

On - regurgitates like the

chewing cow - then bathes in his own ego

Only into its own picture

She is original - one of a kind

Not a pressed, sculptured duplicate

But a live bundle of charm and hope

In a world of war, demise, and

Self destruction - a beauty, a gem I said

Let some freedom of thought reign

Good that she is unconscious

Of her own spiritual originality

Soon to blossom into a bundle

With some restraint

Into a princess of woman

In bustling joy rejuvenates all

Her palate sensitive, but anxious for more

In the youth of Womanhood

Of joy, hope, and

Positive survival

The Mother of Tomorrow

Haircut

I have wooly, wavy, woozy silvery hair

Cut just 20% you earn your fare

In bad trim down

Make sure I won’t look like a clown.

With white cover she cuts away,

Her scissors, snip, snip night and day.

In mirror see my hair disappear

Trimmed nicely above each ear.

Finally touched my hair—few curls,

The more she accommodates I would adore.

Finish look seems more like 30% gone,

Hair wetted, scalped, I mirror no fun. 

Next time another barber or good cutter

Better not scalp me” I sadly angry mutter

For well-kept hair on head?

I’d rather make more love in bed.

Holocaust Victim

Robbed of my childhood,

Bundled in smelly rags,

Humiliated to the lowest ebbs of Hell,

Stiffened with fright¾

Cannot distinguish day from night.

Swollen stomach, gnawing sickness,

Sunken, hollow eyes.

The heart beats,

Little hope.

Why survive?  Why stay alive?

Like a beaten, degraded animal

That has felt man’s inhumanity

To man,

Loved ones torn apart,

Castration, damnation.

How can other creatures

Partake in such ghastly features?

Maimed, demonstrably scarred for life

I must survive! I must survive!

The heart beats.

There is little hope.

Boils, blood in the stool,

Bones tender and skinny,

Inflammation, degradation,

Broken shoes too tight.

Famished, underweight

Will it end?

Will we transcend?

Will the will, the soul

Survive the disaster?

As assuredly it must.

We will not die,

We will not rot,

We do believe

We have a God

We painfully shout out loud,

Rehearse and curse.

Where are you, Master of the world?

Whose bleak, black hurricane unfurled?

Mournful, in pain

Return!  Return, our gracious God,

And promise

Never again.

In the Woods

The evergreen, the Ponderosa, the Sequoia

Tower so high—so great,

So high they reach out to lightning fate.

High up, birds hover near the nest;

Far beneath them, peace and quiet gives us rest.

They even hide us from the stars,

From Venus, Jupiter, or Mars.

We tranquil land bound creatures search,

Enveloped in our tree-branch church;

We are so impotent, so puny, frail,

Surrounded by these trees and trail.

We rest on beds of branches and leaves,

As if to hide from bandits or thieves.

Truly memorable this short nature tour,

A momentary gift … a lure,

Then back to life’s reality … so soon,

Under the watch of a friendly moon.

Now daily chores and obligations

Erase the pleasure of man’s primal sensations.

The rustic forest shall wait

Those who search beyond heaven’s gate.

The Veteran

Pity the poor slob

Who waddles like a dragged dog

Head bowed to the pavement

A gray, jagged, worn-out jacked

Unkempt, weather-beaten, a comical caricature

Performing like an uphill skier

Tail waggles no more, in ignorance, nor euphoric happiness

Having shed his human values

Decimated, beaten, succumbed, downtrodden

His haven and home long ago not accommodating

The free spirit broken with disease, lethargy, drugs

Rejected most help, love lost long ago

Now just a replica in the mirror of a puddle

Degradation, stagnation, self-affliction

All encompassed in this hull of a creature

Mumbling, incoherent, yet precariously

Slugging it out like a drunkard finding his uneven course

We know why! We know when!

He was an honored veteran who lost his way

and much more

Return from Undertow

I’m mesmerized; the rush of foamy ocean wave

Stare at the horizon; tip toe so deep, so brave

Dare tread deeper on the rocks and shells

Suddenly to my neck a salty brew now wells

So hard each step now to retrieve

With jaundice eye much disbelief

As buckets wail into my very spine

Must accept a watery decline

Leave me in peace without demand

The burden nature makes me understand

For all my struggles, aches and pains

Most forgetful and fewer gains

I panic, turn to face the undertow

Return to beach thrashing, as best I know

Scramble to shore full of terror and fear

The ocean could have swallowed me and I’d disappear

Surrounded by my friends, a glass of wine

Inevitable lifetime scare just in the nick of time

Complacent, haughty now, knocked off my stool

I should know better, this experimental fool