I languish when my lines are lean.
(You poet pals know what I mean.)
The pen you push outright refuses
to trace the touch of tender Muses!

I suffer when my words won’t rhyme.
You’d think I’d carried out a crime,
like Chamberlain, that crass appeaser
or Brutus boldly stabbing Caesar!

I worry when my verse won’t glow,
and poet’s passion will not flow.
John Keats said poems should flow freely,
like streams, sun’s rays or blood, ideally.

It was from above
That I viewed myself
Lying still without a breath
Watching parents and family
In fear

Doctors prodded and probed
And pumped my heart
And pushed air into my lungs
To try to bring me back to
Life

I saw the bright light that many have cited
I Moved to stand
in the warm light of heaven
Seeking answers
Regarding my future days

I looked down again
And saw my wife
Praying with her beads in hand
Asking that I be spared

Once a man of jovial heart,

Now a shadow of his former part,

His eyes devoid of any light,

A love unrequited, a constant blight

He wanders through the gloomy streets,

His heart weighed down by love's defeats,

The wind howls a mournful tune,

As he stumbles through the dark of noon

His mind is haunted by her face,

A beauty he cannot replace,

Her image burns within his soul,

A flame that flickers, never whole

He dreams of her with every breath,

A yearning deep, a love, a death,

There’s a sickness in this country, infecting all around,
There’s a storm in this country above the shaking ground,
All empathy has flown the nest, no longer holds us down
Depression and inflation, with the death of good renown

There’s great cost to this country, a lost humanity
There’s great loss in this country, we drown migrants in the sea
There’s an evil in this world, the evil of advice
Always the wrong sort, meaningless, and we pay a heavy price