School Of Hard Knocks

A fact of life,
That's hard but true:
Tough times don't last,
But tough people do.

Enduring, they see things
Through to their end,
And deal with whatever
The future may send.

Too busy to stop,
To tired to fear,
The tough people
Simply persevere...

Emmys

Awards are given to actors
Who pretend be others
Dealing with emotional factors
Which appear real, but are fake,
Yet feel dramatic and funny,
Performed on-screen for the sake
Of us, whose lives are desperately
Boring, so, the actors make
Stories, happy, scary, and sad,
And we reward them for the
Drama we, ourselves, never had.

The Run Of The Gray Dream Birds

Dream birds, forward racing,
A blurry group of gray
Motion, endlessly chasing,
Through night and day,
Elusive song fairies and color
Elves, who buzz and play
In a magic the Dream birds
Need in an urgent way.

(By Mark Harm Niemeyer)

 
    

Wisdom From Oz

The more you yearn
For the rainbow's end,
The more you learn
That in order to attain
It, you must sweat, and earn
That pot of gold, while
Your healthy hours remain.

Morning Quasi-Haiku/Senryu

Sleep-jammed thoughts
Loosened by the
First gulp of coffee
- - - - - - - - - -
First time in months
Open the windows to the air
Equinox morning
- - - - - - - - - -
Veteran marriage:
One-way conversations
+ Grunts in response...
It's all O.K.
- - - - - - - - - -
So peaceful, knowing
That I do not know,
And not watching the news...

Mind Games (2)

Debate and dialogue is supposed
To occur between people, a form
Of socializing noise, as opposed
To the quiet converstation inside
My brain, along with the dreams,
And boundless ideas, which hide
From the outside acts and schemes
Of a loud and busy life, my head
Is host to a plethora, a surreal mob
Of thoughts, feelings, joy and dread,
And I can take the most amazing
Journeys, while lying on my bed.  

Veil

Protection from
The way men stare,
She hides what
Is not really there
In the first place --
Doesn't seem fair.

Old Profession

It's a kind of work
I do, comfort play
For the lonely, unloved
Ones, who will pay
For their pleasure,
And, afterwards,
For me to walk away.  

Pre-Flight

A pause before I launch,
And off I go,
To exactly where
I do not know,
I do not care because
My brain is small,
And chemically makes
Me fly, not fall,
Towards the flowers,
My end, my all...

The Only Living Boy In Omaha

He checks the weather report
Repeatedly, the information is
Amazing, no need to resort
To special systems or main
Frame computers, in order
To track the clouds and rain,
To monitor the ever strange
And unpredictable course
Of micro-climatic change,
For the weather will provide
The drama which is mssing,
And nowhere to be found inside
The occluded front of his life,
Alone in his man-cave,
Hiding from his wife...

My Papa's Stolen Youth

There you are with your buddies,
All decked-out in your suits,
A bunch of young Dutch guys,
Unaware of the jack-boots
And German guns which were coming,
To lock you up, and use
Your young strength relentlessly,
And demoralize and abuse
You, until the English set you free.

 

Transitional Moment

The leaves on the Sakura tree
Are still green, but at the same
Time, they are drooping slightly,
Ragged brown on their edges,
The leaves are tired, and quietly
Signal the cold days are coming...

Navy Personnel Assignment System

The Detailer is someone who decides,
Where your next job will be,
And what you will do, when you get there,
He does this arbitrarily,
You tell him where you want to go,
But often, and inevitably,
His cold response is "No"...
And although you may try to negotiate,
The Detailer has already sealed your fate.

Curse Of The Minutemen

Seems like it doesn't matter a lot,
That the right to bear arms, raises
The chances of one's getting shot,
Totally at random, at innocent places,
By quiet-crazy men wearing hateful faces.

Small Agricultural Tragedy

Powerful, healthy, gold and green
Corn stalks, proud, growing tall, under the sun,
Prior to conversion, with chemicals, into
High fructose syrup.

Mind Games

Tail-spinning onto my morning pillow
From a dream so vivid and real,
It takes, like five whole minutes to
Just wake up and think, vice feel...
To calm down and realize who,
And where, I am... Passing minutes reveal
It was blood and chemicals in my head,
An idiot's drama performed on my bed.

Reality Of Politics

A Republican and a Democrat
Found themselves stranded
In a boat ... they couldn't agree on
How to row, and still haven't landed...

Flesh-Eating Ghouls

If the Zombies attack,
Just shoot them in the head,
Or whack them with a
Baseball bat instead,
And send them back
To being quiet-dead.

If the Zombies have lawyers,
Then it will be your fate,
To live with the results
You negotiate.

If the Zombies hear music,
They will want to dance,
Boogie-woogie-woogie
Into an undead trance,
And that's when you escape,
That's your only chance!

Death Of A Journalist

A Syrian man in a red shirt
Guided the Japanese woman
To the place she got hurt
So bad, she died -- her demise
Becoming part of the story
She was there to apprise
And report, but now
It's done, and there she lies,
On the Aleppo pavement,
So far from from Yamanashi,
Sad food for the flies.

Alas, Potomac

Celebrity reporters breathlessly
Promoting dramatics and tension,
Over a weakening tropical depression,
The Republican National Convention,
Ignoring more vital and compelling stories,
Farther away, and too tiring to mention.
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Self-centered Washington
Percolates inside its bubble,
To focus on others, outside,
Is just too much trouble.