All writing

Grey menace, they would call him, spit and curse,
and hunt him with their shotguns and their traps.
Spin fairy tales in chilling nighttime verse
while cradling their children in their laps.
They'd sing of hairs on end and yellow eyes,
of spines that froze when paralyzed by fear,
the pelt up on the wall, a treasured prize,
attempting for another one this year.
At times the old one joined them in this song,
assembling the members of his brood.
An ancient alpha's potent singalong,
a howl, just to remind them where he stood.
And then he'd disappear into the fog.
Can't pardon or forgive them for the dog.

Byzantium, your ancient city walls,
above the silent Bosporus at night,
before your many triumphs and your falls,
before the crawl like dying of the light
that Christendom delivered to your gates.
Could they have known, as Priam knew in Troy,
forewarned by those who traffic with the Fates,
man's appetite to subjugate, destroy,
is central to his being, to his creed?
As Zedekia, king of all the Jews --
he surely knew -- still made his kingdom bleed.
Nebuchadnezzar, when he heard the news,
he must have shook his head. Then sacked the city.
Walls seem to want to fall. Ah, more's the pity.

In countervailing common wisdom,
it's what you don't know that can hurt you,
so best stop trying to appease them,
those making ignorance a virtue,
and satisfy your thirst for knowledge.
Do not be proud of knowing little.
No, knowledge doesn't mean a college
that aims to make you safe but brittle.
Try to maintain your sense of wonder.
be neither technophile nor luddite,
and no, the world's not going under
but status quo is not a birthright.
When something's wrong, it is amiss.
Stop thinking ignorance is bliss.

Some forms politely follow function,
perhaps a step or two behind.
Some lay in wait at every junction
to prey on others of their kind.
Still others baffled to discover
that while they follow, rivals hover,
and mirror function step by step
while sparing neither fuss or prep.
But on occasion, there's a factor
that simply makes you say aha,
what you might call je ne sais quoi
if you were labeling an actor,
and those lead function by the nose.
I think I'll have me one of those.

The bitter nature of our devils,
so few that you would label sweet.
Try search inferno's many levels,
a search that wouldn't be complete
without encountering the sinners,
from amateurs and rank beginners
to veterans for whom the smell
is but a feature of their hell.
So rare to smile but quick to grimace,
a scowl that surely will erase
all joy and pleasure from your face,
their snout like nose turned up and simous.
and so, discounting faith or creed,
they are a bitter brood indeed.

When fireflies light up the forest,
the scent of deer musk tempts the doe,
her bleating joining in the chorus.
All manner creature, high and low,
is searching for a kindred spirit
and longing, craving to be near it:
will it succeed, will it be asked
to share its destiny at last?
As summer fades, the rut is over,
the fireflies' pulsating strobe
falls silent all around the globe
and fields will yield to phlox and clover
while rivers thirst for sating rains --
their lustrous afterglow remains.

To kill a mockingbird is easy
if scared compliance is your goal,
Though it might leave you rather queasy,
at least you'll feel you're in control,
and at the last you'll have some quiet.
Don't bother argue or deny it:
you'd rather occupy your throne
without the constant mocking tone
of stubborn, dogged opposition
that's questioning your every move
as though you have a thing to prove,
or merit any competition.
But you're forgetting, as you rule,
that every king still needs his fool.

For those who write to grind their axes:
try use an essay for a form.
A sonnet praising death and taxes
will surely violate the norm.
Resist the urge to drone and lecture.
This may be only a conjecture
but if you lack a comic gift,
a limerick about grift
will surely send your readers screeching,
in search of consonants and vowels.
Your movement's better left for bowels,
so let me join their voice, beseeching:
Enough with it's not me, it's you.
You want to write? Say something new.

Our fervent hopes and utmost of desires,
coins scattered in the fountains of our youth,
to rust, until each finally acquires
patina of decay, no longer smooth.
Turned green with bitter envy and regret,
abandoned, left for worthless with their kind,
forgetmenots one's destined to forget,
and childhood dreams that once were top of mind,
but having long since lost their shiny luster.
Quick, toss those well worn flipflops off your feet --
assemble any courage you can muster,
and wade into that fountain, leave the street
for water that is cold enough to burn.
Now grab yourself some coins, feel hope return.

Does everyone deserve to be forgiven?
However unoriginal our sins
and justified our passion to get even?
Assigned a role when jealousy begins,
or at the least when it is first recorded,
a brother's keeper failing at the task --
the rest of the affair is rather sordid --
when questioned, unrepentant, he would ask
the Lord himself if caring was his duty.
Still walks the Earth, eats breakfast, lunch and dinner,
appreciates the world in all its beauty --
no question who turned out to be the winner.
This parable attempts, but is unable
to mend the pain of Cain, the wrath of Abel.

A strip club: we're as far from seven veils
as time's uneven passage would allow.
Our Salome's though not quite nine inch nails
are keeping Herod's focus on the now,
by threatening his face as her waist ripples,
their crimson polish barely a shade lighter
then these large, mesmerizing mother nipples
mere inches from his tongue; soon he'll invite her
to the champagne room, where, he has been told,
he'll be allowed to suck them, though the guard,
a man absurdly huge, big bellied, bald,
did warn him that he cannot bite too hard.
He's not quite sure, although he's heard it said
that if she likes you, you can ask for head.

The more things stay the same, the more they change.
My issue unresolved, the app still broken,
its chatbot, though, displaying real range:
more empathetic, vastly better spoken --
it made me feel as if it really cared,
in properly accented local lingo.
So what if the TV pretends it aired
a headline claiming baby ate my dingo
and fiction is much plainer than the truth?
This world, meant for the brave, but often timid --
for us, the ones much longer in the tooth,
the ones that never really knew their limit,
it's strange indeed, but with these magic pills,
a fish can learn air breathing through its gills.