#23 Baby Leo 1
Tiny baby Leo
Sleeping all the time
Do you even realize
Your cuteness is sublime?
Do you even know
How your tiny fists can squeeze?
If cuteness is a sickness
You're spreading the disease.
#22 Melisandre
If you ever wondered
What would make grown men
Howl with disgust
When watching a show with
Bloody spears piercing skulls,
Eyeballs popping from heads,
Zombies rising from piles of blue corpses,
Dragon-charred bodies of innocents,
Children burned and hanged from castle walls,
Heads on spikes,
Rape, incest, and
incestual rape,
One needs only show
A naked old woman
To illicit
True terror.
#21 Sonnet for Monica Lewinsky
Your youth held not the virtue of the chaste,
Nor beauty rich and rare that men desire.
Attention from the married men you chased,
Poured fuel upon this misbegotten fire.
You laugh, defiant of the whispered scorn
That swirls around each mention of your name.
Your sensuality a mantle born
To ease the pain of such one-sided blame.
And though your face bears not the lines of pain,
You stand upon the stage with new-found mien,
and gather strength to have a voice again,
Your eyes disguise a fear of being seen.
If e'er you wished the shame you have received
Upon a friend or enemy of old,
You must know now your wish was ill-conceived,
For none should face a fate so cruel or cold.
#20 Oliver the cat
I was reminded today
About Oliver the cat
A kitten I had
When I was young.
Oliver was the sweetest soul
Gray tabby, small for his age.
He died young
Gasping for breath in my arms
And that was the closest I have ever been
To death.
Oliver the cat.
#19 The Universe
"I just want to listen to the universe"
She says
Drinking coffee
And wearing sunglasses
On a patio somewhere
In a city like this one.
Such a cliche.
She is. And the universe.
And yet
When she says that
Sometimes
"The Universe" or whatever force
it may be
Listens.
And she gets to do the things she hoped she would do all along.
#18 Live Music
Three friends
Played and sang and rocked out
This weekend alone.
And I hear harmonies that don't exist.
Overtones make me hum along
Vocal lines I long to sing
Contributing chords
I want to play more music
Is the moral of the story
So now I, like always
I need
to sit down
and write.
#17 Lin-Manuel Miranda
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Wrote music, and then a play about a hero
Who never saw himself as a hero
But wrote "like he's running out of time."
I wonder if that's how he writes too.
Two too many syllables synchronizing sonic synthesizers seamlessly.
Insiders long to meet him but wouldn't have
ten years ago. Especially
on the street.
I wonder if he knows his history is being written
as he tells others' stories.
I wonder how his family feels. If he is a hero to them
Or too busy running out of time to notice
That time runs out.
::Synth hit::
#16 Mantra of Materialism
O! How I long to be tidy
To have every cute thing in its place
I long for a wizard to decide he
Should miraculously grant me more space.
O! How I long to be cleaner
With wood floors that would shine like the sun.
And each item of clothing much leaner
For a closet that's never undone.
O! How I wish for no messes
In this life that I built for myself.
But I'm afraid that I simply love dresses,
And what's life, if not filling a shelf?
#15 Snores
You snore
You little foul-breathed furball
Who also bites strangers
And bites me.
You also find away to press
your tiny furball body up against my leg
As I sit on the couch
And I cannot help but pet you.
You snarling beast
Who has my heart.
You snore.
#14 Patio
There's a special warmth in your cheeks
After a walk in the sun
And a long day of work
And a patio dinner at sunset.
The cold air nearly undetectable
Until the walk home
When shivers overtake you.
And even the two blocks home
Seem like miles of frigid tundra,
But you welcome the cold
Because it could be colder.
It could be winter again.
And even this bone-chilling moment
Brings the hope of spring.
And you make it those two blocks,
And you snuggle in a blanket,
And the warmth of the dinner wine flushes your cheeks and nose.
And slowly moves down your arms and legs
Like spring rolling in to melt the last bits of snow
That linger in the darkest corners of bleak parking lots.