What Use Religion?

One possible function
In the crumbling of states
While transportation and communication
Scatter tribes
Herds of hatred and seperation
Can test and assure allegiance
To one or another religion
While freedom remains
Difficult to express and scary
For the authorities

JM

Off The Top

In the cold, sweat still rolls
Under the warm coat to shoes
Colder yet and sweat will freeze
Rolling in chunks around the eyes
Not falling, stopped in nose and throat
Until a small bird froze, there was safety
This was a warning
Bird said "I did not starve, ate no poison
just left the nest for a drink"
Dead now, no bird sweat, no cheep.
Soon this finish will find me.
Where I fly now cannot frost my feathers
Ahh dreams in bed. A covered head.

JM

Yarn Circle

Sometimes I take a walk
unprepared with where to go
And it's fine
Other times the way is distorted,
made pointless by unpointed wandering
The empty purpose gathers weight
Pecking in rhythm with my steps
Drawing thoughts like excercise,
traffic/building/sky...views
Breathing different air
Then the ultimate destination
Rambling right back here

JM

Accumulation

Today the wind drove
Snow through my screen
Rising on the window
Finding the space between

Today the wind broke
Branches from cold trees
Tossed to the ground
on last year's leaves

Today the snow fell
the long way down
Swirling and slanting into
Corners all over town

JM

Next Day

Waking to music from next door
A lit candle from last night
Wax on the floor and tablecloth
Grey light in the windows
Softening the view of this disarray
Tunes bleed from the wall
Flickering like the candle
Our runny dreams rest on pillows
Uncollected while sleep fades
A party mess undressed by dawn
Dark covers are gone again
The music goes on for a while

JM

Ting-A-Ling

A penny carefully wedged in braids
Shiny and new but tiny
Just a few could know
Repressing laughter until
Her turn at the board
The penny jumped for it
Ding, ting-a-ling, roll
Nobody could not know
Then since Patty Braids
Blushed with shame and rage
It couldn't be brushed off
Mr. Instructor called for the culprit
To even the score
Embarrassing the boy not nearly as much
With a penny on his nose 'til the bell
And it only fell once

JM

Won World

Firmly enmeshed in us at times
Common seems real
We feel and hear the same roar
Jets flying over
Even if every head does not tilt
Experience ricochets
Off focus, dreams and covers
Distance, proximity
Quicker than a rock or sunlight

JM

Forehead Lines

Taking Medicine A Sin?

Half Agree With Split

Blackout Worse At Night

Countdown Begins In Two Days

Hee He JM

Mistaken Sacrifice

Tonight a bomb went off in my head
I thought to wrap around it
Like heroes do a hand grenade
A protection for anyone near
The concussion sustained in only
One brain for now
Blew up
Detonated
The inert case of fear and hate
Carried by all who lift it up
Remains inside and out, receding
Encroaching to fill what crack is left
When something else
Love?
Water?
Blows up perfectly undead
Detonates a reshuffling of energy
Outside my hero lust to affect
The schrapnel of exploded fear
It shatters my mistake

JM

From Here To Here

Way too sad to sit inside
Walking I look away
From headlights, eyes and windows
Kind of tricky, sometimes I miss
To stare at something human
Over my gut I watch my shoes
Step, step, clumping along
I hear the walk go quiet
Wandering into residential
Finally the sadness leaves
I don't try to chase it
Back at home I close my eyes
In a chair by a lamp
Gratitude has room to speak
I hear my simple comfort
And think of making tea

JM

Ghost Call

Ghost Call

A persistent no-answer comes
To the question "are you there"
Or another "can you hear me"
When through the hedge leaves, whispers
Turn into calls, voices bounce off walls
A special cadence of speech collects
The hazy volume wavers
Almost patterns reach out
To a persistent no-answer
An almost functional, actually desperate
Fear of the not yet known
When confusion remains between
The source and who would answer

JM

Allow 4-6

Allow 4-6

I'm a late bloomer
If I bloom at all
Clear at the end of Fall
Maybe busting through snow crust
My flowers are unremarkable
Serving their intended purpose
Flexing which seed they are to promote
The puzzler is my soil
Moving with the weather sometimes
While almost opposite others
I bloom which is enough
Unless patience is too tough today
Then I have to wait

JM

Arrange Meant

Arrange Meant

Memories are fine and useful
A trap where you lose part of the day
Sinking too long into what went on
The years collected on dust around you
All the fine and useful experience
Hanging on a wall or in that car
The look of the kitchen after meals
Especially at leaving or redecorating
The urge is strong to speed along
Listening to the way things were
Making changes heavy to move around
Into more useful and fine memories

JM

Reading/Show

Reading/Show

A woman walked in with covered head
A long heavy black dress
She sat to the left in front of me
Where I could see the silhouette
Of her small chin pointing at the stage
I tried not to stare
In just enough light to put a glow
On her full lips, round cheeks
And her brown eyes twinkling
As each participant, even me,
Got up to bounce light beams
Off ourselves and into the open face
Of the woman with the covered head

JM

Grim By Default

Grim By Default

These artificial means
Are easily as bad
As artificial pleasants
Though they fool more thoroughly
The face reflecting my facade.
To play at being angry
Serious business, that.
To gather those reflections
I must be mad.
When all but sometimes
I can portray glad or contented
Mock expressions

JM

Dead Day 9/11

Dead Day 9/11

Another day got famous
All of them have various claims
This one is shame and fear
With the strongest being hate
Blood lust, killing justified.
We remember the day together
Separated by what it takes to kill
Some pay life, others taxes.
Very many lose mental health
A psychic virus bites into them
Penetrating on each anniversary.
So loud, patriotic and grievous
In enough decades it will die

JM

Times Fly

Times Fly

We have more time than patience
Waiting is an art and a torture
A fly died slowly in my studio apartment
Neither of us had anywhere to go
She finally landed on my shirt
No more flying, she crawled
I killed her quick, impatient from
Two days of missed attempts
Though we were kind of roomates
There for a while, stuck inside

JM

Shuttered

Shuttered

I shut down time
Like a curtain on my window
Closed my view on moving shade
I made a stillness appear
Slowly as my heart bent light
Breathing still, I applied still sight
A race of emotion then
Urges to think in words
The clock returned, I heard
A squeak in the wind
With my chest full and lively
With shade still travelling
I opened up time
Like a curtain on my window

JM

Ill Delusion

Ill Delusion

A moment of clarity tells me
Which self is tragedy
Where the details marking reality
Are collected by certain
And uncertain phases of being
Which self is strong today
Clarity can't take too long
A little bliss and a taste
Of illusion belong with
A self surviving scrutiny
And accurate humility

JM

Audio Mirror

Audio Mirror

They know my name
At the bottom of my breath
In the sound of cooling bricks
Are whispers chattering
Not all repeat myself to me
Not every television bleed
Is a conversation
Some though, enough to hear
Whisper or mumble my name
And I know it's just me
Reflexively I'm thinking "Here I am"

JM