For The Orphans

What’s for the losers what’s for those lost out of the spotlight alone in the frost What’s for those orphaned from acceptance and fame who live out their lyrics — in search of a name ***** Baby Steps It’s amazing the things you think you can still do once you’re really too old to do them It’s amazing the excuses you cling to with dear life the facts dead set against them With each new passing day your vision conforms to the fantasy growing inside you Until time runs its course with the hourglass dry and set free — baby steps in the queue ***** Prescience Surrounds Happening — slow remembering — fast Time’s rearview mirror spins life in a flash This minute in real time the past is abridged Those days in between neither one will forgive With every step forward there’s two taken back Where fate trails behind you and poised to attack Until the epiphany of prescience surrounds And frees you from both — in this moment profound ***** Arteries Free An angering hemorrhage of violence old America needing a tourniquet bold A triage in process new choices to make To save what is reasoned and lessen its fate Defending each stitch with sutures retained No bandage is needed when blood is contained Once over the trauma there’s hope in the wind Its arteries free — of the deadliest sin ***** L’ Optique Away from the darkness not into the light A glass when refilled halfway up ‘is what might ...’ What might be half empty what might be half full One thing or the other a parallax — lull ***** A Reminder Tomorrow’s poem ... it dwells among us Like the shadow of a statue Unsculpted in the mist Tomorrow’s poem ... implanted glory That hides in futures past unseen A reminder of what — we’re yet to know (Dreamsleep: June, 2026)