Thank you very much to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of 

Ariel Chart for publishing my three poems in the March issue.

Leaping Frogs

Liken them to a series of leaping frogs. 

Those wanting events to be moving swiftly forward

with no backward glance,

jumping along the fast forwarding of events due to

what this new breed wants in this current space of time.

They push forth brashly,

enormous daring at their elbow.

Now they are facing the consequences, 

seeing the exaggerated impact

of their senseless question.

What can I do in service to myself?

They become conscious of the wildness before them 

on this new land’s portion,

as their dreams fall into pieces.

The bigger question is ‘what now?’

Healthy Feet Grounding

The easing of pain,

the shaping of bones.

Time doesn’t saunter, but we can,

and dance to the tune

of our own shine.

We can easily sway,

prancing across dusty ground,

or pacing halls with angst.

If you hopped up and down in the rain quickly enough,

will you not get your feet wet?

Healthy feet can take us every place we wish to go,

defy gravity with light steps,

no plastic on our feet,

one step closer to a triumphant way to travel.

Subtrahends

Inside a neighborhood school,

there’s a criminal mind,

with a catch dog slant,

and a hookah strangle.

The terminus catered

in this photoelectric age

by servants of freezing steel.

Chewing on intentional catnip, sold on streets.

From home,

kindergarten spitballs to teenage backstage hoodlums

with teenage wages.

The make-believe of a social language.

The wild chill of booklore boomerangs,

some wintergreen and some the ungranted bookish.

These cowards win the booby prize,

steal antiseptic notebooks caressed

by the tenderhearted. 

Pull the twine cord.

The tension never windproof.

The smell, the stench

of a magenta gargle,

after the captain of boomtown

spreads his cancer,

no manhood to be found,

no carols to be sung,

no handsprings to entertain.

Empty cartridges canonized.

Those taken away,

the subtrahends,

lie fantastic

at history’s stream,

lie as a caravan of sergeants,

once scared, now only scarred

by what can only be called

another manmade bacterium ID’ed.