I Don't Care

Do you think it fair to say I may care
When I care enough to say: "I do not care."

I think it depends on how I may say it,
With distance in tone or rebellious gait,

An arching of eyebrows, a smile forged in hell,
Or the weight of the world in the sighs I expel.

I hereby do gather the silence you spare
Is a deafening statement that you do not care.

On His Weakness

A ten line stanza in iambic pentameter following the scheme ABAB and a Miltonian sestet CDEDCE. Styled after the first stanza of Keats' Ode On A Grecian Urn, and guaranteed to fall short.

Warning: Elizabethan tone ahead

...all for the want of Short Rib Ragù.

What magic doth transpire tween mind and pot

That warmly welcometh what once formed cage,

But now is seasoned, salted, shredded, brought

To tenderness thy hand hath come to gauge.

I sense the bay leaf draping sprigs of thyme,

Its fragrance courting parsley laying soft

Upon a bed of blushing carrots and

Rosemary aromatic, wont to waft

Toward my sense olfactory till I’m

Impassioned forth to rise and kiss thine hand.

Punishing Clockmakers, And Other American Pastimes

We're hurting bad, America,
You know we're hurting bad
When a schoolboy brings a project in
That sends us kicking mad.

He just made a clock, this thing that tells
The time with gears and wires,
But we see the clocks that brown hands forge
As objects starting fires.

Doesn't matter what you learn in school,
Let me tell you what makes dumb:
Is when prejudice and fear
Fashion every rule of thumb.

You say guns don't kill, people do,
Yet a schoolboy's doing time.
Need a license now to make a clock?
Now, learning is a crime.

If we really don't like bullies
And the weapons that they draw,
We can't let bullies run our schools
Nor let them press the law.

Broken

What can I say! What can I do!
How can I deserve to stand before you!
I am like my raiment, divided in two:
One that I know, the other knows You.

But I don't know the other.

All of the dirt that covers my heart
Is on my skin now, I'm falling apart,
I smell of the foulness I've wrought with my hand,
I'm broken so fine, I'm one with the sand.

But I long to find the other me,
I'm blind although I can see,
And the words that I write that I may be free
Make me slave to my each fantasy.

Take me now and let me be free.
Help me now that I may find me.

My Palace Isn't Big Enough

A sonnet deploring the apathy and inaction of wealthy neighbors letting hapless refugees seek out asylum far away from home. The use of first person here points to government rather than citizen.

My palace isn't big enough for you
And me, so I suggest you take a ride
Just down the street to where a pot of stew
May see a face that has no place to hide.
My gross insensitivity may seem
Disgusting to the world, but how can one
By any measure realize his dream
With mendicancy blocking out the sun.
I need my oil to generate me power,
And power runs the air conditioning:
You know we need it hour after hour
To cool the passions all this wealth can bring.
So let me breathe and be now on your way,
My gold will weigh me down another day.