For Veterans & The Patriotic

Ghost Of America

0321.2025

I’m a red, white, and blue pulse.

I bleed in silence for my home,

carry the weight it won’t shed,

and you turn away as if

my hands were never dirtied in ash.

But I have lived its grief,

and eaten the sin of its striving.

Don’t define me

as war-stitched denim,

a rusting wound,

or the shadow and the dark—

No, I am the doubt and the belief,

the fade and the flowering,

the exile and the homeland,

the cradle and the tomb.

m.c.f.

Election

The Morning After

0121.2025

The sun’s amber wound spills in the southeast,

Its light the indifferent herald of morning.

A dove stirs on my the porch,

But its music sings unheard -

How quietly I wander in

The desert of my grief.

The good have turned their backs,

And man’s hand is heavy with shadow -

It runs me into exile.

Where is the alchemy of wonder now?

What thief stole the purity of my soul?

And where, oh where, is the hand of my friend?

Where is his tether to my wandering heart?

Let my life be an anchor to earth’s roots,

And let my weary heart take flight, and soon,

Upon the wings of the sacred dove

Whose silenced hymn aches to rise again.

And when I am whole,

I will come back to the quiet art of giving love away,

Like a river yielding itself to the sea.

M.C.F.