O.J.  (written during the OJ Simpson trial)

 

Touchdowns into heaven

forever scoring points.

Saving oneself from introspection.

Knowing guilt, pleading  innocence.

 

Two bloodied bodies discovered.

Stabbed in the early morning.

The wife of our hero, the one we made;

persistent still in keeping.

 

Preliminary trials.  Prejudged contrition.

Attorneys playing at screen tests

while a nation watches, mesmerized.

Stars defending stars.

 

Books, interviews, film offers lay await.

Celebrity status lying quite beyone anyone's  rules.

Requisite scripts by the living

Money to be made by murder.

 

The system sustains any idea of remorse.

The  knife of deduction is yet to be found.      

He, unknowingly, unobserved, sheds a tear.

Is it for what was, or for what is yet  to be?

 

Help on 911, anticipated eight times

nontheless, a necessity never acknowledged.

Assistance not received, tho requested

A young mother's life extinguished.

 

The commentary continues. Changed lives

captured  in a  snapshot never to be relived  

but to be continually  dug up by

a  nation numbed by thriving excess.

 

America, where is your future

 if this is your present?

What have you to offer

our children of  tomorrow?

 

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              THE REP

 

Reflections in a strange mirror

      a likeness as that of any other

The eye scrutinizes

      flesh of which you are custodian

Mix-mash strokes

      enameled for use

      rather than for vanity

Capped taste in a routine morning

      shafts of stuble

      appear for daily acknowledgement

Alpha and Omega

      in one clean sweep

Shower spray

      that despite its similarity

      seems boringly different

Lather and dropped soap

      cleanliness without response

      dormant in recognition

      of ungratified desires

Hair laden with heavy water

      branches burdened down by fruit

      kissed and stroked in that yesterday

      far distant past

Patting to dry

      self caresses for much better purposes

Memories of lithe torsos

      wrapped loosely after pleasure

Upward strokes

      an effort of placement and control

      too few appearances

      for the outside world

Clothing routinely arranged

     already worn and mentally discarded

     a morning reviewed

Glancing at guessed time

     a turn of the knob

     leading to an unwanted abyss

Prehistoric memories with centuries of supposed knowledge

 

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        LEAVING

 

The ferry appears,

a small dot on the horizon

seen through the dawn of an eastern sky

focusing towards its destination

as a roaring Cyclops

approaching, singly,

to carry you away.

 

A swift dinghy ride

you mustn't be late to enter

that world of my unreality.

Spent, it immediately encompasses

bearing you into its smoke and fumes

conveying you into that arena in which I

can no longer compete.

 

Settled back now, in the cockpit

morning coffee in hand

listening to the vibrations of the sea

our dinghy, peaceful, rustling

attached to its mother ship

as I am to your world, in which I

find myself a foreigner.

 

 

Used nightly as your sounding board

criticized for my failure

to see reality as you view it

waiting, hopeful,

eternally in anticipation

for that piece which is

breaking away from the whole.

 

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Mother's Day

 

and so we will celebrate

Mother's Day soon

when you, my sons, are asked

to remember me

 

but I know that

you remember me well as you

     shout good-by

     kiss me hello

     smile

     all three

 

you should honor me?

without you

there would be no life.

 

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