Freedom Isn't Free bumper sticker caught my eye.

I thought, that's true, and even though

Military Funerals Are Free,

Death Is Costly to the soldier,

his wife and child, mom and dad, friends and family.

I know the debt we owe to those who brave cross blood red seas, 

leave their body parts in desert sands,

lose their minds from killing innocents

on the way to protect our enclaves, fresh cut lawns,

summer barbecues, big cars and little children.

Thank you is not enough.

But enough is enough.

Our sad little world needs to learn the lesson.

Killing to maintain freedom is never the answer.

It just leads to more killing and less freedom. 

​My stories are contrived from concealed figments of

imaginary pieces of the real estate of my mind

that stalk the subconscious synapses of paradox,

unfold layers of evocative reflections of experience,

journey through poignant particles of brainwaves that

peddle through the thick atmosphere to empty space,

seeking time bomb snippets set to detonate at moment's notice.

Minutes ago, words did not appear on this paper,

now language is squeezed n' transformed

into poetic birth of another doggerel.

If I were a woman, I would breast feed this infant

so that he/she would manifest to completion.

But, I am a man whose innate ability to nurture

lay in the soil over which I toil each spring

as I till, seed, water, weed, reap, sow my paradise.

In stillness, my lucid mind wanders inward,

convolutes, then circumvents reality,

logic disappears, reason reflects observation,

a flicker of perception is ignited,

lyrics pour from philosophical vessel

onto slippery roads I travel, paths once forsaken,

given up for dead, only to rise in the sunshine.

The sky is a cloudless incandescent blue.

The 80-degree temperature is the perfect palatial pallet.

The sultry wind crawls 5mph from the warm gulf waters.

Swan families are floating in file beneath the boat dock.

Married eagles are nesting in needles atop the pine trees,

Playful squirrels are fidgeting up bark of the palm trees.

Poking, peaking, long-beak White Ibis' aerate the lawn.

The rainclouds appear as a puffy silk shelf

from which gray garland cotton balls hang

from the saturated swollen sky

like ribbons of Christmas tree ornaments.

Cracks of thunder crackle with

flashes of lightning streaks that explode,

light up the darkness in flames

like oil and water sizzling in a frying pan.

A spectacle of blue spears

slice the sparkling heavens

illuminate the water-logged particles,

like dancing minstrels parading the engorged highway.

All this,

while my dog pissed and shit.