Category: Poetry

A graying sky comes pressing on
It's twilight at noon day
Air's heavy since the early dawn
Seems a storm is on it's way.

A distant rumble passes by
The horses snort and stomp
A sudden flash lights up the sky
My outside work must stop.

In the barn a drum beat starts
Quick tapping on tin roof
A yearling kid now jumps and darts
Beats dirt under her hoof.

The tapping turns into a roar
Explosions shake the walls
Howling winds pound on the door
The roof makes water falls.

A thirsty earth gapes wide the mouth
To drink and then to drain
While all around from north to south
We celebrate the rain.

How is it that they cannot walk,
When slower speed is wanted,
Can play all day and jump and climb,
On into night undaunted. 

Bounding to and fro with mirth,
While chasing wind and rain,
Grubbing, digging, wrestling too,
Impervious to pain.

But task them with some simple thing,
Then comes a sudden crash,
Aching backs and swollen tongues,
With joint-pain and a rash.

Bathroom breaks that take an hour,
Drinks that last all day,
Just anything to slow the pace, 
Because it isn't play.

There is a kind of tired,
That resting can't assuage,
Not caused by sweat and labor,
Nor a product of great age.

Oft it creeps in slowly,
Caused by labors of the mind,
When truths compete as valid,
But no resolution find.

They grind against each other,
Then life adds in some grit,
Of reason, hope and longing,
That block and warp the fit;

Which erstwhile might be forming,
Were the process left alone,
To smooth the roughened edges,
Like a knife against the hone.

And form a polished surface,
Where the two can both reside,
Supporting one another, 
Standing stronger side by side.

But friction over zealous calls,
For effort hard and long,
To overcome the sticking points,
A glue that's thick and strong.

Competing hopes and hardened facts,
Pull and push and block,
Each in it's own direction,
'Till it stops, an unwound clock.

With such grit to clog the gears,
The truths are ground to dust,
And leave back no remainder, 
In which to hope or trust.

My patented and perfect cure
Is worth it's weight in gold
Composed of extracts much more pure
Than ever have been sold.

The larva from a tse-tse fly
In tincture with exotic salt
Applied just right to tired eye
Will heal a ghastly fault. 

Pure essence of a tiger's blood 
To strengthen timid hearts 
And extract of a cobra's bile 
Rebuild your weaker parts.

Fix your ills in just one dose 
Or ten, or maybe more 
A dose a day for just six weeks 
Will heal an ulcered sore. 

Taken for six hundred days 
While drifting out at sea 
Will Harmonize your Feng and Shui 
And balance inner Chi 

It's mixed and formed and shaped just so 
Near crystal power packs 
With charging magnets down below 
On active ion stacks. 

Our hydro-hyperpathic bath
Distils the precious dew
While eastern shamans watch the pot
That holds our magic brew.

But give no heed to chemists claims
There's nothing in the mix
My product is much too refined
For clumsy science tricks. 

Doctor's too may call it fake
Say claims are way off track 
But then they'll say 'bout anything
To keep you coming back