New Poem: TEXAS, THEIR TEXAS

 Keep Texan children from thinking

 For themselves to make it easy for

 Parents to not explain sins of the past

 Or teachers too, for that matter

 >

 Deny non affluent women the right of choice

 Restage The Handmaid’s Tale as modern-day Western

 >

 Unemployment checks to feed families during pandemic?

 Utter waste of money and time

 Make them Beat The Clock to avoid starvation 

 >

 Unthinking children grow to subservient adulthood 

 The eyes of a chosen few Texans are upon them

 Making sure they stay peasants

 Waving the state flag

 Hating taxes 

 And whoever else they’re told to hate

 

New poem: TEXAS RAIN AND ITS AFTERMATH

not there to see the playgrounds-turned-lakes

or hear the news stories of drowning

or of people hanging onto tree trunks

but all too aware of some people

who will experience extreme heat

plus days upon end of hard rain 

and they'll continue to say

it's not climate change

or global warming

but the Will of God

and it's never to be questioned

by mere Humans

people pounding right fists

into left hands

yelling DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT SCIENCE

unchanging, unbending

as their certain world

becomes chaotic

New poem: GALVESTON 1966

everything's big when you're small:
the Jack Tar Motor Hotel restaurant
with the window view onto the swimming pool
Stewart Beach where my grandfather
and I took a rented float
out onto the waves
and I swallowed salt water
for the first time
and spit it out fast
the apocalyptic argument
my older brother had
with everyone else in the car
because he was forced to vacation
with the rest of the family
at the age of sixteen
instead of seeing his girlfriend back home
and, on the beach,
my dad pointed to
the pillbox installed
to protect the island
during World War II

all over the outside
of the pillbox
one could see
the words SENIORS 67
and GHS
spray-painted in red and black

New poem: WICHITA FALLS BLUES

 fiftysomething man
 sits far away from the heat and drought
 reads the Twitter post
 from a young Wichita Falls Texas resident
 about how the city is now known
 for drinking recycled "pee water"
 while waiting for rain
 >
 I thought Kevin Costner
 consuming his own body fluids
 in WATERWORLD
 would always be science fiction,
 muses the former Wichita Falls resident
>
 imagining a young man
 going to the Kemp Public Library
 for a few hours of air-conditioned refuge
 passing by the front door sign:
 DON'T BRING YOUR GUNS IN HERE!
>
 it wasn't exactly this way
 when the fiftysomething man lived there
 long long before the abundance of heat
 and the lack of water
 and the tax base shrinking
 and the schools closing
 and the Grand Old Party politicians
 broadcasting and e-mailing
 messages of hate and fear
 plus appeals for campaign cash
 from the relative comfort of Austin
>
 seeding poisonous rain clouds
 that the city of Wichita Falls--
 whether you like it or not--
 can certainly do without
 as citizens wait and pray
 for the real thing to come along

New poem: NO, I DON'T HAVE CHILDREN (and if I did....)

NO, I DON'T HAVE CHILDREN




And I know cats don't count.


And I also know that I don't
live where I once grew up

and don't feel hardwired to

guard my nonexistent children
against the evils of technology,

entertainment and too-independent thinking.



I find it fascinating

that my generation

when they got their chance to run things

have kept drilling young people

in pledging unquestioning obedience

to national and state flags.



Even the just-as-conservative generation

who ran things when I was a youngster

didn't insist on repeating the pledge of allegiance

all the time over the schools' PA systems.

Maybe they respected children more

and weren't so afraid.



And I remember that

the generation that ran things

even before I was old enough

to go to school

managed to integrate

the Electra, TX school system

several years before

neighboring city Wichita Falls did.



No one wants to trust young people anymore.

Yes, they may not want to conform

to your version of a "good Christian."

They may convert to Judaism, Islam, Latter-Day Saints--

or, gasp--Atheism.

They may never share your values

or your politics 100%.

But you shouldn't love them any less.



And you should give them some credit for understanding

by easing up on robotic indocrination.

Trust that they'll remember some of

what you pass along to them.

And don't ever fail to love them no matter what happens.