m m doctrine

innocence

assumed for liquid blue eyes

sweet vulnerability of marilyn

monroe doctrine declaring ‘hands off’

and ‘we won’t protest what you do

to others in your territory’

seems neither gullibility

nor guiltlessness

only complicity in uneasy piece

not peace

skin of tranquility

skin of tranquility

fragile barrier between busy-ness

and quietly being in the world

consciously brought about by will

and concentrated emptying

of distractions to focus on what is

like derm, thin envelope only

not shield of iron or woven mail

of copper or steel, but, unlike metal

living membrane that allows passage

exchange of sustenance of soul, senses

texture of the rock i sit on

smell of blue-purple violets huddling

near my left foot, imagined delicate pealing

of the lilies of the valley wafted

by placid breeze and truly heard faint

whimper of newborn cub or kitten

left long alone while mother forages

taste of earth’s renewing cycle of life

and death and enrichment of new life

skin we need to nurture to find

ourselves within the wholeness

of what finally matters over time

author error

years now of blossoming characters

growing in themselves, celebrated

by judges but not the stories

they create by interacting

another rejection, another intimation

that i, their transcriber, am their burier

perhaps by submitting to publishers

i know rather than those who

would believe in what they tell

crusty old vets

 crusty old vets may have their reasons

as we send their youth off to war

not behind their fearless leaders, but shielding those who bid them wallow

in mud and trudge to shoot, sling fire, set off bombs, step on an IED which fragments and mutilates their buddy for all it’s being improvised

human flesh being vulnerable to explosive devices, friend or enemy

and when they return maimed in body

or soul their care is not commensurate

with promised glory, the system

devised, being expensive, is subject to

budget cuts by those same leaders

who stayed behind to devise more

policy of war

willing to believe

we are so willing to believe

that what we experience

is truth

yet even our experience of color

is limited by the wavelengths

we can absorb, knowing that,

in reality, there are many more

at each end of the spectrum

why then do we limit God

only to what we are