Wartime Washington

Today the maples are in flames,
The breeze so cool,
I need body armor.
The world is at war,
No truce, no quarter.

The words of an old song
Go through my brain.
How did I get here?
Whose life is this anyway?

Fuck it.
It doesn’t matter.
Today the maples are in flames.
And I have body armor.

GMG

Sky Blue

At 7 am
The sun was barely up.
Three hours later,
The shadows were still long on Rock Creek.
The sky shined a perfect blue,
With a brilliance so true
It juxtaposed
The trees –
Greens, reds, browns and golds
Already a bit of a cacophony –
Showing off the earth’s odd colors.

The artist who painted this picture,
However uncaring of life within the frame,
Set the stage with great beauty.
What more can we reasonably ask
Of any deity.

GMG

A man’s usefulness
depends upon living up to
his ideals
in so far as he can.

A great democracy
has got to be progressive or
it will soon cease
to be great or a democracy.


Teddy Roosevelt

All the exotic ingredients of alchemy – all the metals and minerals and compounds – are in truth one, and that singularity is neither more nor less than the person of the alchemist himself. If the base metal is in need of purification then so, even more so, is he. Out of the corruption and confusion he must find a oneness in which nature and divinity are reconciled. Out of the unstillness of his own impurity must come the transforming power to achieve redemption.

Alan Wall, The School Of Night

October Season

Most trees still have their leaves,
Except for those on the boulevard,
Sickly from the fumes,
The sort the local electric company
Likes to “trim.”

Green leaves too,
With just fringes here and there,
Turning.

On quiet side streets,
Birds were singing
As if still in spring.

Confused about the season?

The squirrels running into the road,
Mouths stuffed with acorns.
They know.

GMG

Water

Sunlight gleaming off the water,
Water where water should be.
A squirrel lies dead on the bridge,
That it gave its life crossing.
A bit of a strange place to die,
Suspended over the water.

Caterpillar

I see the caterpillar on the parkway
Too late.
I swerve.
Think I missed it.
I don’t look back.

Two poems from a bike ride, GMG.

...conducting alchemical experiments...searching for the brightest thing, for something so luminous, even though it was hidden away at the heart of matter, that, should it ever get to be uncovered, it would have made...the sun blink.

Alan Wall, The School of Night