Two four-letter verbs have the world at war,
The polarization of love and hate.
All humanity must demand rapport.

Hate. A foul emotion innate in evil’s corps,
Rapacious mortals await fiery fates.
Two four-letter verbs have the world at war.

Love. Fealty. Ardency. Cherished ardor.
Such emotions to heal……the earth awaits.
All humanity must demand rapport.

Hate guides the mind to evil’s wretched core.
The color of hate is black……light abates.
Two four-letter verbs have the world at war.

The color of love……the rainbow’s decor.
Sunlight, the earth’s disinfectant state.
All humanity must demand rapport.

Truth was esteemed in bygone days of yore.
Fiend despotics our laws drub and ablate.
Yes, two four-letter verbs have a world at war.
All humanity must demand rapport.

The scream of the banshee peals through the dark,
Alerting senses, startling quiet moments
Before the dawn. Dreams fractured, imbedded
In cerebral caverns, with retrieval
Impossible on command. Aggressive
Urges surge through neurons, frazzled and dazed.

Eliminate the banshee. Screaming devil!
The iron fist tightens. An irruptive blow
Inflicts sincere retribution for deeds
Perpetually reduplicative.
Minutes later, more reminders of life
Beckon. Consciousness reclaimed from the rim.

My favorite possession possesses me.
With a fervent obsession she holds the key
To my flurried schedule. It’s at her command!
She cares not what the rest of the world demands.
The seconds of her day are rhythmic and slow
Passed with the breeze that gently cools and bestows
An aura of peace to her obscure presence.
Thus for my ardent service and reverence
I am granted amusement and grand antics,
And faint purrs, soft calming and therapeutic.

Inspiration

I was moved by my cat, Gracie Lou, to write this poem.
She has been long gone now, but my world has been
possessed by Callie, a grand feline lady who rules what
we thought was our domain. She has trained us well.

The sunshine is back in my soul!
For I have heard your voice
The depth……the resonance,
Rivals the songs of life and nature.

I feed on your tales.
My mind’s eyes reeling
With adventurous scenes…….
Real……..but for me only dreams.

I hear the rolling summer thunder.
The threat of storms…..the promise of rain
Rain that mimics my heart strings
As…………possibly, a cello moans.

I curl up like a kitten in your strong loving arms.
The quiet broken only by the thunder.
Your breath on my neck, assurances of hope……
Your lips on my lips, a promise of love.

Possibilitarians chivy Life!
Graduates storm the doors of hallowed halls,
Each novel soul braced for plenty and strife.

The young, restless, virile…….lust, love…….run rife!
Nuptials in earnest, endure or fall.
Possibilitarians chivy Life!

Politics and parenting, most pro-life.
Teenagers economics bankroll the mall.
Each novel soul braced for plenty and strife.

Empty nest syndrome, a sign of mid-life.
New opportunities, new ports of call.
Possibilitarians chivy Life!

Seniors, Medicare, a toot from the fife.
IRA’s, 401K’s stall the squall
Each novel soul braced for plenty and strife.

Green or Golden, bracing each phase of Life,
Embrace opportunities, spurn all pall,
For, Possibilitarians chivy Life,
Each novel soul braced for plenty and strife.

Inspiration
I bought a pair of socks at the spa with a tag from the artist who designed the socks. She said she considered herself as a POSSIBILITARIAN! And that word hit me square in the forehead! That’s Me! I’m a POSSIBILITARIAN! And what a grand life it is!

Eulogy for Truth; death by depraved wile.
Sleaze media’s duplicitous deceit.
Americans mourn travesty so vile.

“Fake” news regales falsities to beguile.
Reliant souls read inked pages, lies excrete.
Eulogy for Truth; death by depraved wile.

Personal politics, opines defile
Axioms of Truth, unbiased, discrete.
Americans mourn travesty so vile.

Stars, politicians, targets to revile.
True or not, are derailed by just one tweet.
Eulogy for Truth; death by depraved wile.

Hate wears a marred mask, cloaked in cyber files.
Behind cubed booths, false faces feign conceit.
Americans mourn travesty so vile.

Journalists careers wrote the facts, erstwhile.
Trust, Truth must now replace back street bleat.
For the Eulogy of Truth, a death by depraved wile,
Americans mourn travesty so vile!

INSPIRATION
Eulogy of Truth, is a topic on the minds of many Americans. “Fake” news
is something we never thought we would ever face in America. We have
always trusted the media to follow the rules of journalism……just the facts,
no personal opinions. Oddly enough, in my Roget’s Thesaurus, the
definition of journalist is “(a) person who writes about factual events for a
living”. It is beyond me that a significant percentage of the media has
elected to ditch “factual” and replace it with “fake”! My Mom, a politician,
would never have stood for this national travesty, and neither should we!
This poem was published in Best Poets of 2018.

You danced the waltz with queens and kings,
The minuet with dames and earls.
But now you dance the jig and sing
The blues with whiny swine in pearls.

Loud, jivey tongues with silver spoons
Warbled words with flowery long stems.
But forked tongues sing dulcet tunes,
Banal words from the Devil’s hymn.

You danced the minuet in glitzy jewels
Such finery from toe to hair.
But clothes make not the man, the fool,
Won’t cover the shame that you bare.

The dance is charming, so divine
With champagne and pate’ you’re wooed.
But an old adage lost with time,
“Always dance with the one who brought you!”

Dance, dance while the music goes on.
New partner, the Devil’s cut in.
He’s leading now.  But it won’t last long,
As they say, “All good things must come to and end.”

Source of Inspiration for  The Swine Waltz
Pardon my soap box!  I was raised in East Texas by my mother, an elected government official, and my father, a Texas Highway Patrolman.  They taught me to read the newspaper, know what is going on in the world around me, have an opinion, and vote.  Thus, the multimedia world of sensationalism gives me explosive subjects on which to write dramatic opines in poetic form.  Since many of the people in the largest city in Texas (Houston) were affected by the Enron corporate scandal, I was enraged and moved to pen this poem, The Swine’s Waltz, which was originally entitled, “The Enron Waltz”.  
The Swine Waltz was published in The Best Poems and Poets of 2005. 

Symphonic sounds mocked nature’s harmony.
His music conjured skies pristine, unspoiled,
Concordant notes like artist’s brush paint
Pastoral scenes obscured from mortal rape.
Majestic mountains painted purple peaks
Crescendoed as the bow and strings embraced.
On notes, the raven’s wings glissade warm winds,
Ascending envied lofts o’er Teton tips.
G clef and F clef render raven’s wings
Such freedom rarely seen on earthly ground.
Effortlessly broad wings traverse the skies,
These cleansing breezes free the raven’s soul.
Melodic resonance, sweet songs of peace
Suffuse the raven’s grand inherent winds,
Negating sounds of hunger, babes in pain,
Reporting waves of war despoiling lands,
Of souls in search of hope and blissful peace,
Exalt the raven’s hallowed haven high.
Play on, young maestro!  Paint sweet sounds of life.
Expose the raven’s eye for minds to view
A world unknown to unwinged, mortal souls.
Athirst for healing notes of life’s sweet song.
Play on, the sounds of nature’s symphony.

Source of Inspiration for Nature’s Symphony
I was a guest at a gathering of the Houston, Texas Symphony Supporters in 2002.  A cellist with the symphony performed a movement he was inspired to write during a vacation to the Grand Teton Mountains.  His musical interpretation of a raven effortlessly gliding on the summer winds over the Tetons moved me to jot words and thoughts down on a page in my day-timer.  In 2009, I found that page in a file and his music came rushing back inspiring this poem.  Thank you, gifted maestro, whoever, and wherever you are.
Nature’s Symphony was published in Eternal Heartland, Interstate 40, 2010.  The Editor’s Comments:  Your poem’s authenticity comes from its imagery.  With powerful, vivid imagery your poem renders a picturesque scene.  Its controlling image leaves us with strong sensory impressions, placing us within your vision.

Bucolic Way, known only to locals
A treasured route in the famed Forest Trails
Steep rolling hills chase valleys and meadows
Beguiling the eager trekker to seek
Obscure, idyllic lea o’er the next ridge.

Hot Summer winds tickle pale wheaten shafts
Waving to hawks glissading lofty skies
The cattle hunker in circles as clouds
Roil, winds howl, then warm rain showers the earth.

The Fall leaves flaunt flashy, terminus hues
Awaiting chilly, blue norther’s volley
Fussy fat squirrels amass their nutty cash
Bucks seek asylum deep in the thicket.

Bitter Winter winds forecast icy roads
Snow dresses the hills, a chaste cloak of white
And diamonds dance on the frigid waters
The hush crushed by a heckling filly.

Ah, Spring, yes, sweet Spring on Bucolic Way!
Such green!  Clean green!  In shades likely not seen
By the nescient.  Twin fawns leap, for life
On Bucolic Way, a covert sanctum.

Source of Inspiration for Bucolic Way
Bucolic Way is actually CR 3357, a short road connecting my country home to the small town of Winnsboro, Texas, in the heart of the Texas Forest Trails, where I shop the grocery and pharmacy.  I coined this obscure, but beautiful road Bucolic Way because of the topography, rolling hills, fabulous green meadows, thick forests.  Bucolic Way was published in Who’s Who in American Poetry, 2015.

The malevolent winds pummeled my world,
Deafening sounds of fury evoked fear,
Unimagined, incomprehensible.
Great oaks plucked from the earth like dandelions,
Yanked from the gardens of the southern belles.
Cold, dark, muddy waters surged, effacing
Floors, walls; encompassing all matter,
Human and inanimate.  No regard
For life or value.  No hope for the weak.
Climb! Climb!  Sanctuary in the attic.
Katrina wailed as murky waters rose.
My haven, now a bleak muddy coffin.
Shrieking frenzied prayers, grasping at shadows,
Groping frantically——for what?  Miracles?!
The ax!  A blessed instrument of hope!
Climb yet higher!  Ascending through the roof,
Now a solitary island scoured
By a vile, savage sea.  Exhaustion weighed
As a heavy shroud, compelling slumber,
A brief hiatus from reality.
Vigil screeching gulls beckoned consciousness.
Dawn’s soft haze revealed images–faces!
A soldier, a fireman, and a medic
Heroes!  Bearers of hope for the living!
Greeters to a new dawn, a new day — a new life.

Source of Inspiration for Katrina’s Heroes
My husband and I work for the largest catastrophe firm in the nation, contracting to large insurance companies for added personnel during disasters.  Our assignment to work Hurricane Katrina revealed countless stories of horror and devastation.  My job was to monitor “high priority” claims, claims involving death.  After reading the adjuster’s reports in the computer, I was overwhelmed by the terror Katrina inflicted on the people of the southern coast.  These stories led me to write about Katrina’s heroes, the thankless rescuers.  With this poem, I honor those heroes of Katrina’s survivors.  
Katrina’s Heroes was published in Songs of Honour, Noble House London, 2006.  This poem was also published in Centres of Expression, Noble House, London, 2007.