What’s for the losers
what’s for those lost
out of the spotlight
alone in the frost
What’s for those orphaned
from acceptance and fame
who live out their lyrics
— in search of a name
*****
Baby Steps
It’s amazing the things
you think you can still do
once you’re really too old to do them
It’s amazing the excuses
you cling to with dear life
the facts dead set against them
With each new passing day
your vision conforms
to the fantasy growing inside you
Until time runs its course
with the hourglass dry
and set free — baby steps in the queue
*****
Prescience Surrounds
Happening — slow
remembering — fast
Time’s rearview mirror
spins life in a flash
This minute in real time
the past is abridged
Those days in between
neither one will forgive
With every step forward
there’s two taken back
Where fate trails behind you
and poised to attack
Until the epiphany
of prescience surrounds
And frees you from both
— in this moment profound
*****
Arteries Free
An angering hemorrhage
of violence old
America needing
a tourniquet bold
A triage in process
new choices to make
To save what is reasoned
and lessen its fate
Defending each stitch
with sutures retained
No bandage is needed
when blood is contained
Once over the trauma
there’s hope in the wind
Its arteries free
— of the deadliest sin
*****
L’ Optique
Away from the
darkness
not into
the light
A glass when
refilled
halfway up
‘is what might …’
What might be
half empty
what might be
half full
One thing
or the other
a parallax
— lull
*****
A Reminder
Tomorrow’s poem …
it dwells among us
Like the shadow
of a statue
Unsculpted
in the mist
Tomorrow’s poem …
implanted glory
That hides in futures
past unseen
A reminder of what
— we’re yet to know
(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)