Blond Hair With Auburn Roots

Life, in the cruelty of morning light,
Is a strand of copper blond hair
With auburn roots, asleep on a pillow.

Are you waiting for the snail mail
To bring you the implant
That will explode in your head?

Or will you dedicate your life
To multiplication of garbage that oozed
Into ancestral rivers, lakes and skies?
Will you let blood bubble on the Tigris
Or become a collector of limbs in Grozny,
While I inaugurate a thousand Darfurs?
Will we terrorize freedom in freedom's name?

Goliath, let us fortify, let us amend,
Or one day David will pelt us with a catapult,
Blood will copiously flow
From our forehead into our eyes,
We will be blinded, unless we already are.

Deep cleansing milk has to be sold by the gallon,
And, of course, Listerine.

Laguna Street

A back dated copy of US News
Stained by roasted garlic flavored
Extra virgin olive oil,
The neighbors have moved away,
In this silence, I miss their children's noise
I resent the refrigerator rumbling so.

On Laguna Street the cars come and go,
Geese squawk by
On their way to Ellis Lake,
Branches are pencil drawings against a gray sky,
Works of art that never sold.

Autumn leaves seasoned by winter rain
Are sequestered in the patio,
A pair of bicycles with flat tires
Is chained to a tree trunk.

We live outdoors in almond groves,
Row after row in camping huts,
And plan to walk through tulip meadows,
Mind numb with color,
Counting tulips to go to sleep.

Is there a lesson in this to learn?
Write me a five hundred-word story,
Call it ' The clouds will go,
there will be sun'.