2014

You've been a mean year.
Mudslides, floods, blizzards,
heat waves, earthquakes, tsunamis,
so many gone we loved so much
when you arrived.
Robin Williams left us
one lonely morning when
no-one else was home.
Bill Cosby, the only dad
some of us ever had,
is lost behind a cloud of allegation,
dark fog that rise will never
above the sound of fading laughter.
The year of the One Percent
I just don't get, I wonder so
how many pairs of diamond-crusted pants
I could put on one leg at a time?
Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden,
Michael Brown,
Iraq, Afghanistan.

And still I see
a full moon rise
above the live oaks,
above the collards and the broccoli.

It all means what the stars are singing,
lullabies we can't quite hear.