Poetry - 1966-1972 - II

Treading lightly on the damp sod,

Tender young feet squish and wiggle

In the mud by the flowerbed.

Dwarfed fingers feel the tips of velvet petals

And giggle at their texture.

Flowers sway sleepily,

Tossing pollen into the children's eyes

And motioning them to their sides.

Night is upon us, they say,

The day's travail has ended.

It is time for wild, unimaginable tales to be told.

Listen closely, and you too shall hear them

If you can live in a child's world for a moment again. 

Bleak future, forewarning past.

How long will your life last, solitary dove?

Senseless ideals, gruesome goals.

Antagonists try to cage you,

But your convictions are too strong.

And may they grow each dawn. 

My fortress implies fear,

The chain-linked fences, the barbed wire,

The alarms, the double locks.

Unpleasant experiences condition me, adapt me,

To my new and better world?

Making me sensitive,

Freezing at every noise.

I'm becoming a rabbit,

Nervously sniffing the air for a premonition.

Optimism is becoming extinct. 

Scrupulous in every sense,

Her pastime was spent tidying, fixing

Thriving toward perfection.

For her, work was play.

How convenient having the two combined.

Furthermore, it was understandable.

Her goals were many and uncertain.

An archeologist or a zoologist,

Which would it be?

She never could decide,

So she taught the masses

Of poverty-stricken people

Better methods to yield more food.

She would have rather been buried, I'm sure,

Void of a coffin,

So that her body might more naturally and more quickly decompose,

And be recycled

For she had willed her nitrogen to the soil.

Brilliantly flames the captured sun as it curses me

From behind its sheet of mail armor.

Its evil demeanor is easy to forget

And soon only its warm rays reach my cheeks

Making my eyes droop lower and lower

Until finally I lie sleeping happily and squirming cozily

Beneath my quilt.