Smokies

I. ' Look in front of you!" I barked at her sadness from the summit of some Heaven, where coach buses filled to the brim with senior citizens (soon to see a Heaven of their own) passed. She screamed back lost in a dream memory about some love long gone. The world's capital of salamanders & she still seeked fantasy. Some fear true ecstasy. It's too much too fast to breathe.

II.Paved grey roads & incessant yellow lines
part the mountains just for us. We don't think
about those men that laid these down, those patient hurting hands telling the black bears to settle down if only so that they may pave in peace...but both the men and the bears thought they related better to being Grizzly than Black.

III. There's only Heaven & Hell in those thoughts. At that peak, when we were looking into the graceful face of God, eye-level with the clouds,we reached for our cameras...& with one flash, we were satisfied having achieved Heaven, put it in a frame to keep for an eternity.

Hospitality

I fear you people
You screaming people
You unhappy people
Falling right into my lap
Looking to me to solve
The leaky sink, the salty pool,
The burdensome bed bugs,
The boring paintings on the wall,
The housekeepers' mistakes

Looking to me to solve
Your own human suffering
Your wage your woes
The time your boss took from you
To collect enough money
To rent a room
A room with a leaky sink
A room with bed bugs
A room with boring paintings
A room with someone else's mess

Look to me to solve your suffering
But sir, if i knew how to do that, ma'am
I wouldnt be returning home
To an alone bed come shift's end
I wouldn't take home the legal least amount
I wouldn't be looking in to your eyes apologizing
Know the full-hearted by their aching bellies
Nervous indigestion and speak softly please

Going Global

Shove feet firmly into boots
It is a mundane morning
Where you exhale twice
As long as inhaling

Someone wanted you
To wear these boots
Wronged wage laborers
Stuffy CEOs

The educated designer
Resigned to their own
Aesthetics someone wanted
These boots cloned

One million times
For millions of mundane mornings
Inhale Exhale
Twice as long

Go out & forage for your babies
Soon after stepping
Midfoot looking ten feet
Forward just as you should

Waiting in Rooms Designed for Waiting

'Have a seat. He'll be right with you'
Surroundings are sterile Smells clean
Someone coughs Another sneezes
& Just like that: You no longer feel safe

The deal is we are waiting for the man
The man with all the know all the knowledge
He will sew us up, Make us well, again
So, Befriend modern life for one hour

Conservative news network
On the television for your viewing
Your queuing pleasure
The newscaster does not appear serious

So few of us will dislike her
What does she have to say for Palestine?
What does she have to say for herself?
Tune in tune out look around

Pick up a National Geographic
A young man in a polo stares
From across the room So, you stare
Deep into Southern Caves miles away

A woman sitting in the seat to your right
Breathes through a machine So, you imagine
She's breathing through enchanted forests
On the glossy pages, you're in nature

Again, the wooly mammoth is comin back
fossilized but not falsified It's okay
To believe it now Last page
A bank hustling a coincidental credit card

Lured back from the back woods
The shiny plastic card on the glossy page
Marked in caves and forests for
The National Geographic reader in you

The young man in a polo's laughing
The woman breathing through a machine
Is gone And now the doctor will SEE you
From here it betters-your fear's hope