STRIVE TO STAY ALIVE

I want to cry for my lost dreams. 

That house made of stone and glass 

with all wood inside the fame 

and fortune I never gained, 

the way my heart has been maimed 

my life tamed and bought at the corner store. 

Dreams estranged 

caught up in the buzz of busy bees

 living day to day in a maze 

on a pension fund 

Money I earned, not charity 

driving safe in the slow zone. 

No airs or golden chalices, 

standardized morphing of reality 

leave me to blaze on a hot day 

with no underwear. 

I fear for the living dead. 

Live in my head 
Less than half my dreams 

never come to fruition

because I’m not Annie Malone, 

neither is he 

change your tone 

don't use your phone 

while we're having this conversation 

I want to be a milliner

Tired of infighting, 

heart a siren, beats with desire 

Set the sky on fire, bring souls out of mire 

Stir the fires of love

Ignore the jive of each haze, 

the latest craze

Always some new malaise 

Live like lost

In a moon phase

Do my best to stay alive and thrive

Times Brutality & Fatality

Tonight I'm yours for a moment in time

Our entire lives until this moment 

in time a paradigm

Bones cold, 

struggle to survive wintertime,

Search for infinity 

Search for the high line

Winter ends, its spring again

Heart chimes sounds time

 Sounds of time can pass one by 

Airwaves, lives all on prime time

Make the most of tonight 

Tonight I’m yours for a moment

Tonight I’m yours for a second in time

Do what you want to me

You’re mine for a second in time tonight,

You can do what you do to me tonight

I’m yours for a second

I’m your onetime abyss

A lifetime of obsesses

Every which way confesses

I’m here to be your friend

Try to say I’m your enemy 

Because I don’t agree to see the way you do

Say I’m not your friend

I see all you do and say

Semper our reality, set an appointee

To serve your time instead of you

Our lives in filigree

You chase the dragon tree

Entered the lion’s den

Smoke your opium today

Like back in the day 

Convince everyone except me 

That your words are the Holy see,

You don’t fool me

I see right through you

I got the master key to your soul

Live our lives in a paradigm

Tonight I give myself freely

Tonight I’m yours for a moment in time

COVID 19, CORONAVIRUS

This virus is really getting to me

Wonder if we’ll ever be free

This virus is killing off so much of humanity 

More of the poor, not the bourgeoisie

This virus is insanity

This virus will not be contained

built a worldwide pain bloodstained 

this virus will not be controlled, 

it’s unconstrained and unexplained

this virus rains down on humanity

This virus invades people’s lungs

The wealthy and famous get virus screenings

The poor die in their beds

succumbing to this virus

Go uncounted in the dead 

This virus forces us to isolate

When we can socialize, there’s no date

We live on a global checkmate

Virus created floodgate

We’re on a mandated quarantine

This virus has us on curfew

Except the moneyed few

Creates a state of anxiety

Virus is rampant in society

Keep 6 feet away is what they say

All we can do is pray

This virus makes us wash our hands till raw

This is something we never had to do before

This virus is invading my life

Because of this, I can’t see my wife

Siren’s wail fills us with strife

This virus doesn’t stop

Like waiting for the other shoe to drop

Running out of supplies, unable to shop

This virus has us scared to be infected 

No one wants to be the next one selected

This virus makes me wonder

How we came to this blunder

Our lives put asunder

This virus overtook the entire world

All our lives, together unfurled

Live in a crazy netherworld

ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, HONEY

I am Jewish, I am Woman,

I am Muslim, I am Buddhist

Call me names, call me whore,

pussy, kike, sand-nigger, 

call me what you like,

Psyche – I recall Third Reich

Name-calling, hate all about the money, honey

Don’t want to believe in sunny money

It’s bloody Sunday with money

Turn people against one another

Smarter people see – better believe

Keep us with our stupid little asses 

Dealing with petty shit

All about the money – money –

Rich don’t pay taxes

You and I support them 
With our puny little money

It’s all about the money honey

No reprieve, better believe

Rich not aggrieved, we pay more than they do

They like it like that

Make things perfect, we need another war, 

One more Vietnam – Trump’s a perfect mentor

not smart but listens-even though he doesn’t understand more

Trump listens, says what he’s told to say

Do things the money way

Before we all disappear, become who we no longer are,

like Handmaidens in Atwood’s novel

Or Station Eleven in Mandel's world,

Then it will be too late

It will be who we are – when freedom’s gone

It’s all about the money 

Money creates military

No sense being a pacifist since WWII

Recall how that got us here

Didn’t win us any points there either if you recall

Hate Jews more ‘n Blacks now

Jews on the Death Tax, It’s a fact

Take it up the ass

People at the bottom

Have nothing to show, 

Nowhere to go

Things done the money way

It’s heyday for the rich folk

People worked to the bone before they croak

The world we all know up in smoke

No taxes for multi-billionaire corporations 

Middle-class disintegration

A shakedown of global proportions

Desperation and confusion 

Our relation to better-off folk

It’s all about the money, honey

Prejudice has real results

Intensified by lack of trickle-down, 

Nothing left to lose

Live in Shantytown, USA

All about the military created by money, honey

Government Globally – controlled by Money, Honey

This is the world today, Honey

It’s all about the Money, Honey

Let Us Be Free

Waiting on a revelation about the coming revolution
It’s a slow go, no one wants to know we’re just a bunch of good little soldiers
Doing what we’re told to
I’ve made no resolution to begin a revolution
I want to see people treated fair
I turn to me say see me free to be fair to me
Set me free outside myself
Set me free let me be me
 “my bad” will set me free
deny the naysayers, haters and dis abusers
See me
An angel cast from heaven
originally
and because of my big mouth, sentenced to hell on earth
fallen from grace a casualty for being me
Set me free from this insanity, this rat eat rat culture
We waifs wander the street like
abused common yard rats we want to be set free.
Even rats are drawn to starlight and love to feel the earth beneath their feet
instead of the hard city pavement where we are caged together
dining on musical words helps me while away my days
whilst I sit here and await my fate in the next genocide, an autolytic sourpuss
pray, permit me to continue
in a prison, I sit awaiting sentence
my pitiful existence pale compared to thee
cast me from your kingdom
wandering, searching far from home
am a product of your fear and cast-off genius combined
disowned and disavowed
Wings stolen while I awakened from a nightmare to discover
I lived a life not mine
Worrying didn’t help
Accepting unfair demands didn’t help either but what if you don’t have a choice
easy for you to say let it go and let it be
Let it go and let me free, let it go and set me free
On wings, I flew once with you as an angel, now cast from your grace
Laugh as you look down upon me pleading to be set free
And you say, girl, you had it the way you wanted to be
And you asked to be set free
I set you free and now you wanna come back to me.
Pity about those set free who wanna come back to me
Being me who’s no longer me is no fun
even when you think you wanna be free
Once you rode on wings you could spread
but you prayed me to let you be free
Now you beg to come home and
it’s too late to let you back in my grace
Let it all go, daughter, let it all go so you return to be
an angel spreading her wings –
wings fashioned from dreams - wings with kaleidoscope colors

Purple Haze (Updated Version)

I live my life in a purple haze  

Not just a faze, a way of life in the 60s, 

purple haze was an LSD craze 

asleep in my heart's gaze 

Lost in my mind's maze

Spouse Blissfully unaware, doesn’t care 

Can’t get a social security raise

Keep wondering about ways 

To enjoy the sun’s rays

To get out of this malaise

Can’t get ahead, just move sideways

I’m only human, feel so blasé after so many days

unexcited with exceptions to every rule I face

Lost in a different kind of haze not knowing where I am in this phase of my life, not trifle

Rephrase the question which is the answer to why I live this way, 

I’m only human, so screw you too

You flex your money while

I flex humanity. only a few own all the money

I agree, must be the end of days

Why else would it be this way?

Take a plane get off in the next state, 

Turn on the TV and see the same shit

My soul ablaze, am I a hypocrite?

Humanity says it’s democracy

Free market enterprise, capitalist economy

It’s all lies – otherwise, we’d all be the same size,

And all that jazz

Disenfranchised, the poor get less than ever before

I flex humanity, the world is ending 

Hate to be pessimistic – 

hard to possess a future that’s slipping away

In overflowing seas, rivers ceasing to be 

Becoming more than we are meant to be

STRIVE TO STAY ALIVE

STRIVE TO STAY ALIVE

I want to cry for my lost dreams. 

That house made of stone and glass 

with all wood inside the fame 

and fortune I never gained, 

the way my heart has been maimed 

my life tamed and bought at the corner store. 

Dreams estranged 

caught up in the buzz of busy bees

 living day to day in a maze 

on a pension fund 

Money I earned not charity 

driving safe in the slow zone. 

No airs or golden chalices, 

standardized morphing of reality 

Leave me to blaze on a hot day 

Sweat with no underwear. 

I fear for the living dead. 

Live life in my head 

less than half my dreams 

never come to fruition

because I’m not Annie Malone, 

neither is he 

change your tone please, 

Don't use your phone 

while we're having this conversation. 

I want to be a milliner

Tired of infighting, 

heart a siren, beats with desire 

Set the sky on fire, bring souls out of mire, 

stir the fires of love

Ignore the jive of each haze, 

the latest craze

Always some new malaise 

Live like lost

In a moon phase

Do my best to stay alive and thrive

Live in Poetic Entrancement

I’m not a rapper or a rhymer 

I refuse to be defined except as poet

I’m a social climber, not on a timer

I’m an old timer, been through a lot

Since born

I’m a writer, half-assed extrovert, an undercover introvert

I write all day till my hands hurt

Use a keyboard and mouse to type

Send out memos to me and everyone else, 

Letters, reminders, 

So busy I go crazy

Live in a bluesday concert of my making

Try to avoid being hurt is like trying to avoid living

I indulge in frozen fruit parfait I make

Grab it!   Life’s for the taking do our best to make it matter. Proclaim! … Lives Matter!

I cry for lost dreams. Houses made of stone and glass, all wood inside the fame and fortune never gained, the way my heart has been maimed, my life tamed and bought at the corner store. Dreams estranged ~ caught up in the buzz of busy bees living day to day in a maze on a pension fund money I earned, not charity, driving safe in the slow zone. No airs or golden chalices standardized morphing of reality leave me to blaze on a hot day with no underwear. I fear living dead. Live in my head less than half of it never comes to be because I am alone, lost in a phone yet I want to be like Annie Malone and be me. I want to be her, still I see, neither is he. 

Change your tone; don't use your phone while we're having this conversation. 

I want to be Annie Malone – the first Black woman in the US to take the world by storm.

Found her accidentally on the net while searching for my old colleague Annie Malone. 

Blown away in awe, – Annie Malone was ahead of her time, born August 9, 1869 – A chime went off in my head to read… 

American businesswoman, inventor, and philanthropist, Annie Malone came from a simple life. Annie manufactured products revolutionizing hair care for Black women. That’s my goal – be a hero, a superwoman, spokeswoman, for groups who appreciate a different kind of Annie Malone, a noblewoman, a strong secure woman, a give society-her due woman instead of suffering anxiety, 

Gavin’s notoriety or mine. How much sobriety do you need to see the vitality? Like royalty live by misconception that insanity is the rule of the day. People say they want different, yet prefer compliancy, ignore morality impiously siding with majority, fear authority. Standing in a minority is gaining seniority. Gives me hope that one day we’ll be a supermajority and redevelop the meaning of authority. The Cherokees are the original owners yet were thrown away for currency. 

Finally accept this is life and I’d rather do this then push up daisies

Keep all kinds of lists because the To Do’s persist

in running my existence while I attempt to stay cool ~be a shamanist

Get more abstractionist as I age, when I was younger, psychiatrists said I was too literal

Couldn’t see me being lyrical

I preach everyone’s crazy only some us don’t recognize how crazy we have become to survive.

The eye in my sky is crying

The eye in my sky is crying

See my fears roll down the street

Tears allayed by stares in space

A cell phone in hand, no dial tone, a blues band commands my adrenal glands

Understand it’s my wedding band, not a new brand of incense,

I take a firm stand on a crash land course stuck in the Meadowlands of York

Passion fruit seeps from my sweat glands

Swerving into oblivion on the freeway, an alien shaman ~ that’s me

An alligator devoured my right hand – Now 2 left feet remain

Beauty is nothing but a backdrop for the blues

We all want beauty, peace, a little food, and empathy

I keep trying and failing to decompartmentalize; an exemplary fit

Lost my wit – cut it out stupid twit see what’s writ do as befits, 

I observe others fare better 

The eye in my sky reflects humanity’s tears,
their fears that life can’t be any better or go anywhere 
except to all one place eventually

Do you want to be easily forgotten, your family here

A score or two more, no one will know you

Damn, give your shell to charity

No formaldehyde either please, I use the excuse I’m Jewish; bury me green, please 

I keep saying son, it will pass you by before we come noon to sun

Is this how you want to spend your last day

My man loves his drugs

Almost as much or more than me

He gets them easily supercalifragilisticexpialidociously,

Tons of prescriptions legally

His drugs do him right

Momentarily maniacal he says he’s feeling’ so tight

I see him in a new light struggling to write

Doctrinally following clinical struggles, a mix of Geodon, Ambien, Lamotrigine, 

To name a few - some are noxious, others only for allergies

Billy Jean’s not his lover, enervated after meds 

no more energy to survive when he’s done, 

Throw some synergy into the fray

Walking up Bombay Broadway 

Brings me back to tears rolling down the street

I refuse to admit defeat, repeat it all again and again

The eye in my sky is crying

[soo-per-kal-uh-fraj-uh-lis-tik-ek-spee-al-i-doh-shuhs]

REVELATION

Waiting on a revelation about the coming revolution 

It’s slow no one wants to know we’re just a bunch of good little soldiers

Doing what we’re told to

I’ve made no resolution to begin a revolution 

I want to see people treated fair

I turn to me, say, see me free to be fair to me

Set me free outside myself

Set me free, let me be me

 “my bad” will set me free 

deny the naysayers, haters and dis abusers

See me

An angel cast from heaven 

originally 

because of my big mouth, I was sentenced to hell on earth 

fallen from grace, a casualty for being me

Set me free from this insanity, this rat eat rat culture

We waifs wander the street
like abused common yard rats we want to be set free. 

Even rats are drawn to starlight and 

love to feel the earth beneath their feet instead of the hard city pavement 

where we are caged together

dining on musical words helps me while away my days 

whilst I sit here and await my fate in the next genocide an autolytic sourpuss

pray, permit me to continue

in a prison, I sit awaiting sentence

my pitiful existence pale compared to thee

cast me from your kingdom

wandering searching far from home

am a product of your fear and castoff genius combined

disowned and disavowed

Wings stolen while I awakened from a nightmare to discover

I lived a life not mine

Worrying doesn't help

Accepting unfair demands doesn't help either but what if you don’t have a choice

easy for you to say let it go and let it be

Let it go and let me free, let it go and set me free

On wings, I flew once with you as an angel now cast from your grace

Laugh as you look down upon me pleading to be set free

And you say girl you had it the way you wanted to be

You ask to be set free

I set you free and now you want to come back to me.

Pity about those set free who want to come back to me

Being me who’s no longer me is no fun even when you think you want to be free

Once you rode on wings you could spread but you prayed me to let you be free 

Now you beg to come home and it’s too late to let you back in my grace

Let it all go daughter, let it all go so you return to be 

an angel spreading her wings – wings fashioned from dreams - 

wings with kaleidoscope colors