The Velvet Dun

They wax poetic of morn.
Morning this and morning that,
a beautiful new day, hark
the meadowlark’s greeting, look
what God hath made, joyous blush
of first rays, carpe diem, etc., etc.
Endless waxing.

Have they never been unnerved
by the impaling dawn, hid
cowering in dread beneath
a yellow blanket’s vain shield?
No, they mount that eye-poking
jab like a godsend bronco for
an eight second ride then stride
bowlegged and bright into
the day that rises before them.

Give me smoky nightfall,
an owl’s melancholy shadow,
the weightless blue moonlight,
reassuring like an old buckskin
mare, sleek and easy, come
home for her evening nuzzle.

Come, let’s leave them to their harsh
cock-a-doodle sunup, orange
and abrupt, and climb aboard
this velvet dun. Let’s lope deep
into the midnight forest
and hide ourselves in the quiet
time, the whispering pine, the
endless, endless, endless rhyme.

What Do You Do With The Old Stuff?

Spring means purge. I cart my detritus to the Goodwill Store
where the less fortunate and price wary dredge
up my castoffs, my no longer must-haves, my rejects.

What I really wish for is a Goodwill for psychic clutter,
a seedy storefront where I could drop off a sack
of unnecessary angst, a pile of relationship dysfunction,
two extra insecurities, and an obsolete traumatic childhood.

But it’s not to be. The needy and the spendthrift don’t covet
my mental mess. Seems they’re already well-stocked,
so unlike my orderly closets, the storage bin of my soul
remains interminably chaotic, its contents undeniably mine.