There is an edge that is gone;
sharp, not in a way that would wound,
but keen, intense, alive at dawn.
Oh, if ever such an edge be found.

The edge was dulled with death,
sudden, swift, hammered upon an anvil.
Years have gone and her breath
still catches in her chest, a shell.

The doctors adjure suffering transformed
to compassion is a cure for the best.
Still…to have that edge of innocence reformed
in a yearning, longing breast.

A white said to a white, “It’s time for blacks and
browns to put this whole racism thing behind them
and move on.” A black said to a brown, “It’s time
to tell the white to get out of denial and dry off.”
The brown said to the black, “Oh, and mention
that denial isn’t a river.” A red said, “Tell him
it’s time to move through the Red Sea.” A yellow
said, “To freedom for you and me. Jesus loves
the little children, all the children of the world,
red and yellow, black, brown and white, they are
precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children
of the world.” The evening’s leader said, “Please
stand, hold hands,” and they all began, “Our Father….”

If the Oval Office occupant were benign,
Probably everything would be just fine.
After all, it is quite entertaining
As long as the nation is sustaining,
But because he is such a malignant narcissist,
Everything seems to be going “psssst.”
The air is escaping the national balloon
And I wish the occupant was
A character in a harmless Looney Tune.
But that is not the case,
And from office, he must be chased,
So we can go back to securing the national balloon
Without fear of being mugged
By a gang that can’t shoot straight,
His New York mafia type goons.

I have a friend who is like
little balls of mercury on a table
And you have to corral them all together.
How are you able
to corral loose mercury on a table?
So I just hold my hands on the sides of the table
and hope to catch the
wild, little balls before they fall off,
because if they fell on the floor,
they might be stepped on and make
that many more
wild, little balls of mercury.
There’s no putting my friend
back in some conventional tube.
My friend is like toothpaste squeezed from the tube.
There’s no going back.
My friend can’t even be scooped.
And so, my friend remains
wild and crazy
and I still hold my hands
at the table’s edge
so my friend doesn’t fall off
and onto his head.

The words, like these, just sit
here flatter than a pancake and
yet, you just might have seen an
IHOP in your mind at the mention
of a pancake or seen one of IHOP’s
TV commercials of pancakes grow-
ing on a dish, grotesquely, like a sea
lamprey lifting itself out of the sea.
See? A lot going on here between these
flat, black words and you and me, not
to mention how really gross that com-
mercial is. And now I’m thinking about
a sponsored site I looked at touting the
most dangerous beaches in the world —
polluted, swarming with poisonous
snakes, hundreds of jellyfish, wild
animals, thieves, robbers and how
I’m really glad to live by the shore
of Lake Michigan and have ad blocker
on my computer so I wouldn’t have to
see all the ads while looking at danger-
ous seas. I’ll stop here because I’m
beginning to think about sun blocker
having written the words ad blocker
and I actually need some sun to tan
my pale, white head which doesn’t look
very good without some color on it but
it’s winter in the upper Midwest so
what is a guy to do and, no, I’m not going
to use a tanning booth which now makes
me think of the occupant of the Oval
Office and his tanning booth and his
orange, owl face to match his orange
hair 
and I really, really didn’t want to go
there.