Different Year Same Baggage

This winter, the New Year has become a trollop of time.
An indecent excuse for the changing of the year.
It violates our thoughts with despair and declension,
This calamity of illness, a contentious infection.
The brave face, a stout heart, none can turn it away,
It is earned, bought with the coin of ignorance.
Its festered soul nurtured by social pestilence.
The nations great shamans are lacking a cure,
Burying their heads in tribal hoodoo voodoo.
All opportunity to soar above dyscrasia, squandered,
Wasted on petty dogma and personal convictions.
The world waits, groaning at humankind’s confusion,
City on the Hill eagles have fallen from the skies,
There is no one left to teach them how to fly.
A year just begun, its inheritance, last year’s baggage.

2023, Donald C Harbour

The least of us

Tonight, a cold north wind
finds a tormented soul,
encrusted in cast-off old rags,
discarded fabric, forgotten cotton,
feet clad with worn out leather,
a motionless form lays crumpled,
held in a cardboard shroud,
the scraps of existence, no joy,
a forgotten shadow of life,
of what was, of what could be,
the wonder of city night lights,
perform kaleidoscope dances,
they mask the most precious,
humanity’s sack cloth clothed,
life should not suffer so,
life abundant should provide,
the lesser are the mightiest,
the strength of the spirit,
existing to remind us of,
in a heartbeat, are you, am I.

©2014, Donald Harbour

Enchantress

in the verdant deep woods,
the tome of time waits
an ancient silent sentinel,
expressing life in each leaf
in every dewdrop falling
from breeze blown boughs,
the scent of time is bound
to woodland earth creatures,
to the forest fertile loam
giving reason for mighty oaks,
dogwood, sassafras, spindly pines,
here there is quietude in life,
a circle of creation, dying,
birthing, returning, the rhythm
of the eternal seasonal clock,
as it has always been and will be,
Mother Nature does not care,
she is creation’s mistress,
her oil, gas and her coal,
are mankind’s succubus.

©2014, Donald Harbour

The golden years

The dust of dusk is gathering,
an orange tinged crimson,
its detritus closes the hour.

The past procrastinates, lying,
deceiving the learned, the wise.
burying its muzzle in your forgotten.

There is no beginning in its end,
only the moment, another dawn,
the brass ring, another ride.

This flaccid imitation of hope,
of spiritual calamity, devouring
humanity with closed mouth clamoring.

Just when you figure life out,
a small rat of truth arrives, hungry
gnawing at the seams of your past.

You know you cannot win, ever,
the only trophy on your shelf
a granite slab and six feet of earth.

©2014, Donald Harbour

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©2014, Donald Harbour

Feeling a little kinky today. Could  not find a muse except the spam box on my email.

The Battle of Germ Alley

A tiny flu germ found me the other day,
As through the air it floated on its way.
I didn’t ask it with me to abide,
But with in hours it was at home inside.
Now I’m not rude nor am I a bore,
Though it out stayed its welcome as my throat became sore.
It seems it was a germ geologist by trade,
And being rocky ground my throat is where it stayed.
I coughed and sputtered in an effort to move it out,
It invited headache and fever to help with the bout.
They decided to start a new country, a germ colony,
Their unexploited kingdom they voted to be me.
In panic I ran to my bottled army awaiting on the shelf,
To put an end to this upstart kingdom with in myself.
I sent out Sir Aspirin – he charged through my heart,
They rusted his armor before he got a good start.
Then puny stomach showed up in the feud,
So into the fight came a potion I brewed.
“Ah ha,” cheered the germs as my brigade came to sight,
“Fresh meat, our settlement really feasts tonight.”
Down went my soldiers without even a dent,
On those unwelcome strangers, no blood could they vent.
In desperation, lest I be consumed by the germ tide,
Penicillin and teramiacin were invited inside.
They flanked my gullet, their charges were fast,
Over the foe they soon trampled in triumph at last.
Now where a colony in shiny mucus once lay,
My body has awakened to a far brighter day.
No words were spoken for the germs that were smote,
You see, the doctor on his bill the germ’s epitaph he wrote.

©1986, Donald Harbour