CLUMSY LAMENT

I wish I could spin a silky sonnet

That might mitigate the wrath of a murderous multitude

Intent on stoning the stained-glass windows

That grant sorry souls dappled soft light in their solitude.

At its rock-hard heart there are no fissures of forgiveness

In idolatry masking all memories of immateriality.

Its disciples paint by numbers enthroned as currency,

And live by the barbarian benchmarks of bestiality.

Leaders claim to see so much in the nil of nothing

That they can discuss its implications all day long;

And yet they’re blind even to the most obvious truth,

So even the idiotic inept are never ever wrong.

ASTRAL AMPHIBIANS

I can hear the frogs tonight in their mirth,

Croaking as if there was a better day

Awaiting us in sunrise’s rebirth,

Chirping in electricity’s dull grey.

Each reddit recalls evenings of my prime

And I think of summer nights just like now

When we took each day as a step in time,

Devoid of divisions about the how.

The sky was so black then and yet pinpricked

With bright messages from light years away –

Solitary stars that all seemed handpicked

To guard the milky ways of yesterday.

Under that canopy we could believe;

Tonight there’s only ground on which we grieve.