Wishful Thinking

“Wotan” by Konstantin Vasiliev

I fight as a god
hurling powers
at breastplates
disheveling foes
shaking men
from the rot of
ignoble ideas
quaking doctrines
immoral and
dirty with greed
till they shatter
slip down into
cracks of failed
ethics regaining
a measure of
grace for the
world re-instilling
integrity honesty
values of shared
common decency
plumping the near
shriveled veins
of democracy
gasping its lungs
in extremis

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Patches

 

 

“Yellow and Blue” by Alma Thomas

 

 

mama’s handiwork
never embarrassed
his boyhood
the lads could be cruel
making fun of his
hand-me-downs
pointing and sneering
the schoolyard a crucible
molding his pride
annealing his spine

here he learned
how to fight
held his own against
even the best of them
knowing what they
never needed to know
that his papa
exemplar of dignified man
he wore mama’s fine
lovingly sewn patches too

 

 

From my book Onionskin

The Good Fight

“Boxing Gloves”
Painting by John Robertson
From johnrobertsonsportsart.com

go ahead if you dare
tell me just what to think
take apart my beliefs
get it out of your system
your currycombed scorn

then put up your guard
be prepared to be flayed
by the words I will choose
for my counterattack that
will tear you to rags and
then burn you to blisters

don’t be lulled by
my gentle affinities
I give no quarter
I never start fights
I just finish them

“What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does.” – Bill Moyers