Pulled from rosy rows
rejection breeds persistence—
weeds not welcome here
pop up as lonely, unloved
sly, resilient pioneers.
Boots crush tender shoots,
hands rip out plants by their roots—
mother-of-millions
so fiercely fecund, unbowed,
endless their will to survive.
Weeds misnamed, misjudged,
grow through cracks in wasted ground—
jilted intruders
yearning simply to be seen,
impatience at the margins.
Lonely wily weeds
await unseen for any
opportunity
out on the periphery
to be, to see, and be seen.
The lonely weed—
a wallflower in the scene
a wallflower in the scene.
I speak English—
not because it is mine,
but because it was burned
into the soft clay of my childhood.
They called it brilliance
when I spoke the master's tongue,
and shame
when I whispered my grandmother’s lullaby.
But language is not just words—
it is blood,
it is soul,
it is memory coded in sound.
Africa,
how can you rise
when you dream in the syllables of strangers?
When your science wears foreign robes,
and your spirit speaks a muted voice?
You cannot build a future
on borrowed breath.
You must write your destiny
in the language that calls your ancestors by name.
Swahili sings in your bones.
Your tongues are ancient rivers—
deep, alive, and holy.
No empire stood tall
on another’s voice.
Teach your children to speak to the stars
in their own vowels.
Let them pray in the rhythm of drums,
count in the cadence of their tribes,
lead with words rooted in earth.
Africa—
your brilliance was never broken.
Only misnamed.
Return.
Speak.
Rise.
Growing Old “Ain’t” For Sissies
Miracle Man
1/28/2025
Advanced age took from me my aspirations,
often health matters top my list of concerns.
I’ve spent time recovering from ablations,
and relive my past expecting no returns.
My remaining years are misnamed as gilded,
While in many cases they resemble rust.
Things I once accomplished I wish I still did,
but it's in God’s hands that I still place my trust.
Sugar was misnamed for she was perpetually unhappy.
If I had a pony, I could cheer up.
She got a pony and was more dour now.
If I had a fire truck, I would smile from sunup to sundown.
We went into debt buying her one.
She was happy for eighteen minutes tops.
If I had a lemon clock, I could die happy.
We got her one.
But it did not work.
Alone and hungry
left leg aches like a broken peg
in the mugginess of its left slipper.
Not a good day for fixing anything
but the sealed and over salted,
the quickly warmed and spooned
that can be mixed into a taste-less medley
with other sundry comestibles.
The pantry,
(a recessed place with shelf-space),
is a dimly lit store for long kept canned products,
a once carelessly gathered and undated harvest,,
a compulsive cartload
that should never have been bought
opened, and cooked
in any company but strictly my own.
In that larder molders a canned fodder;
here anemic asparagus stalks wrapped in tin
are jammed together with diced jalapenos,
or glossily illustrated kidney beans.
Tomato and noodle soups are haphazardly piled
atop of various loosely defined
stewed meat offerings, including canned Spam
naturally.
After the so-called cooking
(more a revealing of a much mushed-up
mixture of misnamed contents),
I sit down with the steaming plate
allowing the metallic aroma to entice
peckish yet suspicious taste buds.
Fed now with the quickly chewed-over
I’m both glad and grateful
that this ten minute feast
can be wolfed down in so much less time.
The medicine man looked into Little Eagle’s eyes.
You were misnamed, he told him.
You have the spirit of a cougar.
You should have been Little Cougar.
Little Eagle instantly understood.
For cougar was his totem, he related to her.
She came to him in his dreams.
She will teach you ferocity, the medicine man told him.
She also helps me navigate psychic realms, Little Eagle said.
Medicine Man was astounded at the child’s insight.
You may possibly have more than one spirit animal, he told him.
Future medicine men often do.
They began to quarrel,
After he heard ‘Squirrel!’
Instead of Stan Scammel
And he called him ‘Rommel’:
“The Not-Strong Enamel”
Who could Hitler blackmail
While it was ‘Same Barrel!’
Then, they stopped The Quarrel,
When he heard ‘Becquerel’
A Laureate with a Laurel …
Quarrels from Nicknaming:
A Purposed Misnaming!
Who would such start claiming:
A hateful Misnomer;
KGB’s Informer
For OGB Omar …
S is for Sugar, once a sweet medicine (it still is, in places)
U do know it was medicine in India in the tenth century -
G God knows why it is so addictive these days (money?)
(As is tobacco, another medicine from the Other Indians Columbus misnamed)
R Refined, white as snow, and like it AVALANCHES of sugar keep on killing
CANDY Crunch is a game that exposes itself and Murderous Sugar
A anyone who wins. game by game, sees the pancreatic explosions
N named SUGAR CRUNCH and SUGAR STARS (awesome; super, delightful)
D Do you recall seeing stars at breakfast when the pre-diabetes hit you?
Y can't we see "refinement" was a put-on job, fake as WHITE sugar, and half pregnant?
I study eyes, eye's only mind sees.
Inside those orbs a little
protogenic me crawls away.
The tiny creature is going back to God,
he remains cohesive in a residual way.
A solar system is watching;
its dying sun is a question mark.
Jupiter and Planet X
are returning to cosmic whale sperm.
Earth has got too big;
that old brass and leather engine
that once made frames for mirrors
is now smoke.
Not at the beginning or the end,
I am doing 'mind' somewhere else.
I am limping along toward a Gas Giant
some have perhaps misnamed.
The heart expects promise
Disappointment awaits the frail
The mind forgets
Born to learn love, quick to forget that others feel the same
Internal battles, unseen desires wishing to be unveiled
The heart expects promise
Childlike envisioning of a possible flame
In another world that prevails
The mind forgets
Unnoticed help, unfixed blame
Friends, friends, friendship run off the rails
The heart expects promise
Unanswered, awaited, sought after, misnamed
No one listens to the dreams of the young
The mind forgets
Who remembers my name
You, her, over there, pale
The heart expects promise
The mind forgets
O BRAIN
R
G
A
N
I
C
Reality how you cover
because you can my lover!
Taking truth and color
your paintings of others!
And sleepers we are all
enjoying false glee
and moumental parties
within the emptiness
of things misnamed!
Between thoughts from
'there' and sights
and sounds of 'here'
the infernal blocker
called organic brain!
And at times i find
it appropriate
to respond to reality
with complete and total
insanity!
Who can blame!?!
:: 07-21-2018 ::
Matters little when life like a lifeless leaf in the wind trembles
Surging forth, seeking serenity, summoning common sense
In quarters cut off from conversation and creative communication mumbles
As couples lost in the mendacity miasma boast and coast in notoriety nonsense.
Matters less when fickle fantasy like a nightmare numbs
Reason imprisoned in a zone unzipped from progress
In circumstances and instances that indifference hums
As couples cooped and hooked on catastrophe create chaos and retrogress.
Matters more when sense and its essence like transformers matrimony transfigure
Sanity, supporting insanity and inanity as egos soar to the fore
In debates fed on acrimony and the prospect of an alimony figure
Lures and miscues clues that hurt the matrimony core on its floor.
Matters little when fuss like spittle fumbles and grumbles
Assuming pantagruelian proportions and portions in misnamed missions
Built on the back of vanity whose futility fumbles and crumbles
When prospects of separation and alienation fuel and fly freak, frenzy frictions.
Inspired by and dedicated to Jan Allison and the amazing moorland bird, the Ptarmigan.
nights... no clouds... moonlit
shadows race over moorland
double silhouettes
~~
deemed monsters... shadows
the ancients misnamed... fauna...
double silhouettes
chariot of outreach,
i do a moderate dance
in the form of a stomp
on your existence
as i gallop into the wide
unknown of your most
feeble pleasure, i recall
a windy dawn in which
you howled my name
when i chose not to respond,
you took it upon yourself to
throw a blizzard party in the sauna
i the decided to dispose the ****
seepage of your misnamed moniker
of a love unconditional
the windchimes catching the aggressive
blows of the deluge defy the reasonable
rudiments of rhythm
as a result, i become silly putty in my own
hands, and i blow out the candles knowing
now what it will take to etch the purity of love
in the eternal emission of time....
Fire rainbow, misnamed.
Circumhorizontal arc
Is an optical
Phenomenon, an
Ice halo formed by plate shaped
Ice crystals in high
Level cirrus clouds.
Circumhorizon arc is
It's other cool name
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/nature-5.php
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