John Burroughs

 

Unwinding

in the meantime this
is a lean time, a mean time
as well as an in-between time

a sometimes sublime time
a the-beat-goes-on time and please
not another rhyme time

while Facebook sighs that
wise Linda Pastan has eluded time
left behind Ethics and dogs
as temporal threads unravel
like Penelope’s dire tapestry

as it has to be

this is a blind time
an often unkind time
a strip-mined and behind time

so take care
and be kind for the future
is mined and there is no rewind

____________

U.S. Beat Poet Laureate 2022-2023
Ohio Beat Poet Laureate 2019-2021
Founding Editor, Crisis Chronicles Press

I Am Not Ready to Die by John Burroughs

I Am Not Ready to Die

yet.

I am not ready to go gently
into Dylan’s “good” night
while wannabe Blackwater
thugs crush kinfolk for cash in Portland
and maybe soon Cleveland.

I am not ready to die
before there is justice
for Sandra Bland
and Breonna Taylor.

I am not ready to let go
while white would-be masters
and their whelps
so wary of wearing masks
seem rapt with delight
at the thought of regurgitating
yesterday’s noose in their fight
against Black lives mattering.

Oh the splattering!

I am not ready to rest on my laurels
worthless as they may be
while there is work to do
and while not a word
the President says is true
is true.

Believe me.

I am not ready to watch
my loved onesbe ground
down into the Cleveland blacktop
by blackguards and blackshirts
issuedforth fromWashington
by the liar, cheat and
black heart in chief
who believes the police force
that killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice
the same Cleveland police force
that shot 137 bullets into unarmed
Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams
might need a little extra firepower
to carry out their black work.

I am not ready to die, friends
unless it is by your side in the fight
for fairness, for right
and for equal justice.

Going Mobile by John Burroughs

a title as redundant as I sometimes feel

Often I feel I
overthink
most everything I do or say –
other times I feel I don’t
think enough
or am thoughtless –
sometimes I feel I’m doing
or not doing
both simultaneously.

It’s enough to render me immobile
like the main man in John
Barth’s The End of the Road.

That’s when by sheer force of will,
whether it’s a waste
of energy
and time
or not,
I make myself remain mobile –
at least in
this three ring
gerbil wheel circus –
because I feel
if I’m not
doing something
I might as well
stop.