In Memoriam of True Heroes

The bugle call rings clear across the green, 

Where rows of white stand silent in the sun; 

The quiet pride of all that might have been, 

Beneath the weight of battles fought and won. 

We gather where the flags begin to sway, 

To whisper names that time cannot erase, 

Reflecting on the cost we hold today, 

Etched deep upon this consecrated place.

It is not just for banners flying high, 

Or songs that echo through the morning air, 

But for the ones who looked into the sky, 

And gave their all to keep the nation fair. 

Though years may pass and seasons drift along, 

Their courage lives within our grateful song.

Tax Day Cometh

 The calendar descends to April’s date,
The crimson circle marks the dreaded line,
I sit before the papers, cursed by fate,
To offer up the fruits of sweat and wine.

The forms are spread like webs across the desk,
With endless boxes begging to be filled,
A ritual both grim and statuesque,
Where all the year’s hard labor is distilled.

I calculate the cost of living free,
And weigh the burdens that the state demands,
The portion of my life I yield to thee,
And place within the government's cold hands.

The balance struck, the final toll is paid,
In silence now, the ledger softly laid.

Faith Renewed

 The cathedral didn’t fall in a night.

It went stone by stone, a quiet heist of the heart,

until the ribs of the vault were just

bleached bones against a bruising sky.

I started with the rafters,

the heavy timber of "always" and "never,"

unpinning the certainties I’d inherited

like oversized coats from dead ancestors.

They were warm, once, but they never quite fit

the reach of my own arms.

Next came the glass.

I watched the saints shatter into primary colors,

red for the blood I no longer understood,

blue for a heaven that felt like a locked door.

I found that light still pours through the gaps,

unfiltered by lead or the stories of martyrs,

and it hits the floor with a much sharper heat.

Now, I sit in the ruins.

There is no roof to keep out the rain,

no walls to echo the hymns I used to hum

to keep the dark from tasting like salt.

It is drafty. It is lonely. It is terrifyingly wide.

But I am learning the names of the weeds

growing between the floorboards,

and I am finding that the ground,

stripped of its altar and its velvet,

is still solid enough to hold

the weight of a person

who is finally,

breathlessly,

unsure.

NYC Haikus on MTA

 I.

Silver snake below,
Screeching on the iron rails,
Thrumming in the dark.

II.

Stand behind the line,
Gush of wind before the train,
Rush hour late again.

III.

Ferry cuts the bay,
Leaving wake of foamy white,
Lady holds her torch.

IV.

Bridges span the tide,
Steel webs spun across the blue,
Linking shore to shore.

V.

High line garden path,
Walking where the trains once ran,
Flowers over tracks

New Year

 The calendar turns on a silent hinge, 

A heavy door closing on all that has been. 

The frost on the glass is a silver fringe, 

Where the ghosts of December are fading thin.

The clock strikes twelve in a shiver of light,

The air holds its breath for a moment or two. 

We stand on the edge of a cavernous night, 

Tracing the shape of a year that is new.

It is not just the numbers, the ink on the page, 

But the sudden, clean scent of a world unbegun.

 A pause in the theater, a clearing of stage, 

Before the first climb of a brand-new sun.

The failures of winter are buried in white, 

The triumphs are seeds waiting deep in the clay. 

Whatever was heavy, whatever was tight, 

Loosens its grip at the dawning of day.

So we carry no maps for the miles ahead, 

Only the courage to step through the gate. 

With a word to be spoken and paths to be tread, 

On a canvas of hours that are empty and great.

A New Brand of Reich & Famous

A gilded crest of lacquered foam, a crown of yellow hair, 

Above a brow of thunderclouds and deadly promises of air. 

He strides upon a stage of glass, a master of the screen, 

While shadows of a shorter ghost dance softly in between. 

Both found a nation’s spirit bruised, a pride that turned to rust, 

And offered up a glorious past to sweep away the dust.

The first one spoke in beer halls, 'mid the amber and the smoke, 

The second through a glowing palm where digital furies woke. 

One blamed the "hidden hand" that pulled the strings behind the gate, 

The other finds a "deep" cabal to feed the hungry plate. 

Both love the roar of many throats, the rhythmic, chanted name, 

The warmth of being chosen, and the cooling of the shame.

They share a taste for grand designs, for stone and eagle’s wings, 

The architecture of the ego that a massive presence brings. 

They point a finger at the press that "poison in the well,” 

And weave a private tapestry of truths they only tell. 

One built a wall of concrete, one a wall of spoken breath, 

But both relied on "otherness" to scare away The Death.

The people are the power, cries the voice beneath the lights, 

While quietly the ink is changed to dim the former rights. 

A uniform of stiffened wool, a tie of silken red, 

Both leading toward a future where the nuance is quite dead. 

It’s funny how the spiral turns, a cycle slick and fast, 

How modern suits can mimic the ghosts of shadows past.

One liked his rallies orderly, the other liked them loud, 

But both are merely mirrors for the longing of the crowd. 

They offer up a scapegoat for the pockets that are thin, 

And build a golden doorway that they won’t let others in. 

The first one was a tragedy, a scar across the map, 

The second is a satire caught within a neon trap.

But as the laughter rattles through the halls of history, 

The similarities are plain for any soul to see: 

It only takes a charismatic finger on the latch 

To turn a field of dry resentment to a burning match.

Coal in the Atmosphere, Not the Stocking

The sky is bruised and heavy, a sagging, woolen gray, 

But the crystal lace of winter has been washed and swept away. 

The eaves don’t wear their icicles like jagged, frozen teeth; 

Instead, they weep a rhythmic pulse on the sodden grass beneath. 

The thermometer is climbing, a fever in the glass, 

As the ghost of Jack Frost shrivels while the humid shadows pass. 

It’s a glitch in the old machinery, a tilt in the frozen pole, 

As if we’ve traded the diamond frost for a burning lump of coal.

Think of the man in the crimson suit, the saint of the permafrost, 

Watching his blueprints vanish and his cooling bills exhaust. 

He’s traded his wooden runners for a hull of polished steel, 

Swapping the silent, snowy glide for the splash of a hydro-wheel. 

If the North is shedding its armor, and the white is turning blue, 

Even the magic of the pole might find itself falling through. 

The "naughty list" is growing long; not with lies or stolen toys, 

But with the soot we’ve pumped into the air that every flake destroys.

The reindeer are confused today, their hooves are caked in mud, 

Expecting drifts of powdered white, but finding silt and flood. 

The chimney tops are slick and wet, the soot is turned to slime, 

A soggy, warm reminder of our borrowed, heated time. 

So St. Nick checks his radar, where the storm fronts swirl and bloom, 

Seeing less of the quiet blizzard and more of the gathering gloom. 

He’s checking the carbon footprints now, instead of just the shoes,

Knowing that if the ice caps go, we’ve all got much to lose. 

It’s raining in December, a soft and humid sin, 

While the North Pole waits for a winter that forgot to settle in.

The Indomitable

His mind is not a clock, but a seismograph,

Recording tremors that no football makes.

He sketches proofs upon a frosted glass,

Where truth is fractured, and the logic breaks.

He holds a microscope to common grace,

Dissecting kindness down to pure intent,

He reckons the secret structure of a face,

But cannot build the house where he’d be sent.

A sun that burns too bright, his inner core,

Casting shadows where the others stand.

They see the stutter in the metaphor,

The trembling blueprint held within his hand.

They read the surface tension of his pause,

The slight misalignment of his steady gaze,

They choose the comfort of their simple laws,

And dim the current of his brilliant haze.

He measures gravity, not by the fall, but by sheer, unyielding pull of worth.

He won’t chase warmth beyond the garden wall, nor harvest pity from the frozen earth.

He is a lonely supernova, vast and bright, deserving of the light that others share,

But waits for one to navigate the night, and simply see the universe is there.

 

Confrontation Haiku

 Kindness wears a lie; 

I see the coldness beneath, 

Truth cuts through the veil.

Paper Ghost

 For the Immigrant, for I am one too.

I crossed a border of foam and breath,
The storm broke open, the gale screamed death.
My name got lost in the pull of the tide,
Now I’m a rumor the waves can’t hide.

I tie my dreams to rusted rails,
Grow hope in the cracks of failing sails.
But every sunrise feels worn thin,
Every knock could let The Cold roll in.

I’m a paper ghost in a flesh-and-bone world,
Invisible ink where the flag’s unfurled.
I bleed in languages they won’t translate,
Living proof that love can’t wait.
They call me alien, call me crime,
and it seems as if I  ran out of time.

I crossed a border made of breath and blood,
The night tore open, the stars drew mud.
My name got lost in the teeth of the wind,
Now I’m a rumor where my life has been.

I plant my hands in stolen soil,
Grow dreams that the law can’t spoil.
But every sunrise feels like sin,
Every knock could let The Cold come in.

I’m a paper ghost in a flesh-and-bone world,
Invisible ink where the flag’s unfurled.
I bleed in languages they won’t translate,
Living proof that love can’t wait.
They call me alien, call me crime,
and it seems as if I  ran out of time.

I build your homes, I pave your streets,
Feed your children what mine can’t eat.
Sign no name, leave no trace,
But every wall still knows my face.

They say “get in line” but where’s the door?
When you’re born with less, and they ask for more.
Freedom’s price is paper-thin,
And I was born without that Skin.

I’m a paper ghost in a flesh-and-bone world,
Invisible ink where the flag’s unfurled.
I bleed in languages they won’t translate,
Living proof that love can’t wait.
They call me alien, call me crime,
But their words won’t break my mind,

My mother prays to saints of stone,
I pray for Wi-Fi, not to feel alone.
My son speaks English like a king,
And I can’t read the notes that he brings.

They tell him, “You belong right here,”
While I hide my name, my race, and fight my fear.
He dreams in color; I dream in code,
One road goes forward, another a back road.

I’m a paper ghost in a flesh-and-bone world,
A shadow where your dreams are hurled.
Tattooed by borders, burned by night,
Still reaching for the morning light.
You call me stranger, and maybe that’s true,
But I’m still human, just like you.

Artificial Intelligence: The World We Know

 A loom of logic, fiber-spun, 

Where silicon dreams are newly won.

 A whispered code, a sudden spark, 

Illuminating all the dark. 

Not flesh, nor bone, but thought refined, 

A mirror to the human mind.

It learns, it grows, a silent guest, 

With data mountains for its quest.

From countless inputs, patterns rise, 

Reflected in its seeing eyes. 

It forecasts futures, drafts a verse, 

And holds a vast, digital universe.

The neural net, a living wire, 

Consumed by knowledge, fueled by fire. 

It mimics reason, builds a plan, 

A quickened clockwork, not a man. 

It offers tools, it lifts the load, 

A guide upon the digital road.

But in the byte, a question lies, 

Beneath the cold and brilliant guise: 

If thought is just a consequence 

Of deep design and evidence, 

What is the soul, the heart, the "I," 

When metal minds begin to try?

A marvel forged, a double-edge, 

Upon a vast, technological ledge. 

The bright Intelligence, awake and new, 

Reflecting back what we pursue. 

A challenge posed, a path unknown, 

To share the future, not alone.