A Year of Empowerment and Atrocities

It’s been a year of empowerment & atrocities: Guns & hurricanes destroyed countless lives, while Rep. Maxine Waters stood her ground, reclaimed her time. Far more people attended the women’s march than the presidential inauguration. Trumpism took a dump on optimism. Climate change raped Mother Nature while fake news screwed with our minds. Cars once used for joyrides became far more weaponized. Civic warriors battled white supremacists while football players took a knee for social injustices. It was far easier to score opioids than employment. We lost luminaries from Tom Petty to Sam Shepard, David Cassidy to Mary Tyler Moore. #MeToo proved itself more than just a hashtag. While allowing victims voices to be heard, it proclaimed that sexual harassers should keep their hands in their own pants. There was North Korean missile testing, Muslim travel bans, DACA Dreamers hanging in limbo, and a war waged against freedom of the press. And all the while, Mueller keeps digging for the truth…

The Wail of a Living-Breath Manifesto

Waiting for the birth of a new nation nurtured through an umbilicus of enlightenment. A bountiful and beautiful child of a new life ushered into existence by wisdom‘s midwife. Once raised into the light, all the kicking and wailing will be baby beatitude’s way of breaking down barriers of avarice and acrimony. Its tiny hands ransacking time’s coffers, stealing history’s countless treacheries and broken treaties, trading them in for compassion and equality. With the birth of this new united nation, a living-breath manifesto will be created, where every loving word will be written one bright heartbeat at a time.

The Genius of the Lost

Our lives would be so much easier if everything we dropped stayed right where it was when hitting the ground, instead of bouncing off a couch cushion, lamp base, or furniture leg, then spiraling off into some black-holed beyond where matter is no longer enslaved, and we’re left wondering if it’s even possible to reverse time, or coax stray molecules back into the shape of a lost cell phone, keys, or jewelry. Imagine the genius of these items that can escape our grasp; the countless hours of sweat, planning, and thoughtfulness it takes them to break from the chains of pride and ownership in which we bind them as they wriggle free from our grip and skitter off across the hard-worn human surfaces of need, fear, and loneliness, into a far better world. And whenever our possessions do make a sound when hitting the ground—a tinkle, bing, or pop—it is simply their way of saying goodbye.

When You Read This I Hope You Know It’s About You

Cut deep into the body, deliver a flesh wound to memories, let them bleed into the heart. Savor the honeygold of sweet moments, taste the rust of any wrongdoings. Feel memories press against all that contains you—the molecules of mercy & malevolence, twisted helixes of dreams & derangements. The language of somnambulance does not apply now. You can’t cry wolf. You can’t claim you did not know what you were doing. The laws of cause & effect will govern your next steps. Where will you turn when you hear us call your name? Where will you hide when your blood money can no longer buy you a way out?

Rudolph Rant #1

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer is an overbearing, continually swearing, hard-drinking unthinker; a low-class louse of a harasser, a couch-surfing, loud-burping, CNN basher that believes everything Trump says is gospel, and Ted Nugent should turn MAGA into a rock opera. Happy Holidays anyway, one & all…

A Hundred Fictions Deep

Here are the facts as we know them: History is a wildfire from which our ancestors never escaped. Hate is the match that sparked the first flame. Truth and justice have been buried in a grave, a hundred fictions deep. Guns have become the new god. Its bullets, disciples. Every night, that sound you hear is Mother Liberty grinding her teeth in her sleep. When you pick a rose, it is better to offer it as a gift of beauty, rather than something to place on America’s grave.

Possible Cures for a Better Tomorrow

Another day of searching out cures for these troubled days—pills containing the perfect metaphors to beautify us from the inside out. All human suffering reduced to a tickle in the back of the throat, which can be easily eliminated with the swallowing of pride. Wear your heart on your sleeve, both as a fashion statement, and to allow your love to get some fresh air. Play checkers with your freckles, Twister with your lips. Spend some time in the music world twilight zone—somewhere between “Lust for Life” and “There’s a Light That Never Goes Out”. Continually fold and refold your DNA into origamis of better tomorrows.

The 21st-Century Illuminaughty Party of Suicidal American Decency

Once revered celebrities and politicians ousted or resigning over sexual misconduct allegations. A POTUS with the scrotus of a high school bully, and DNA filled with non-FDA approved bigotry and larceny. Wildfires, hurricanes, raging Twitter storms. Women and children abused. Sick and homeless war vets roaming the streets. Guns more prominent than proper grammar in certain homes. Cars and phones getting far smarter than many humans. Death glorified, sexified into an abominable bombinatrix. Welcome to the 21st-century illuminaughty party of suicidal American decency.

Like Listening to Diamonds Being Born

From your very first breath in the world, you became the upbeat on my heartbeat drum. You are saint’s aura and the rock opera of wild winds roaring through midnight canyons. Your hair is the iridescent swirl of spit-curl starry night. Honey sweetness blooms your flower-bud consciousness to living color. Your bouncing-baby boogie surfs radio airwaves with songs so clear and bright it’s like listening to diamonds being born. Yours is the sunstruck voice lighting this city’s prismatic morning skies. At the end of each day, yours is the voice I tune in to when driving these pain-paved highways home.

More Without Moore

Just goes to show, the horse you ride in on can’t always win you an election. Just goes to show, out of deathly weeds can grow fragrant roses. Just goes to show, common decency can prevail over lechery. Just goes to show, the forces of bad don’t always get away with hanging chads. Just goes to show, the babble of the wrong can turn into a bubble of song. Just goes to show, the liquor of intolerance is bitter as sin. Just goes to show, the Selma warriors are marching again. Just goes to show, the good people of Alabama have settled the score. Just goes to show, you can get so much more without Moore.