Once upon a time machine
He fashioned from a box
With nothing more than crayons
And a cache of broken clocks
The little boy went scooting
Down the corridors of time
And it was all so easy
For a young and open mind
But now the boy’s a physicist
And studies all his days
To learn to build a time machine
In complicated ways
And every day it’s clearer
What his facts and figures mean:
That only little boys can build
A real time machine
Japan gave us
Quite the black eye
When they bombed
Pearl Harbor that day
But unlike your
Usual shiner
This one would
Not go away
So we gave them
Back two black eyes
And the fighting
Finally did cease
And now I guess
You could say
We are living
In black-eyed peace
it’s a smokey-sky morning
under a cream soda sun
fires from afar spread
a brown-tinged sadness
smudging the sky
the fence throws
a checkerboard
on the hazel lawn
the pigeons are pink
the smoke brings
with it a certain hush–
as if we’re all waiting
for something to happen
under this cream soda sun
as pure as a child’s tear
as deep as a galaxy’s core
as true as a still morning echo
our omnia vincit amor
stronger than old mighty sampson
lighter than gossamer lace
closer than guardian angels
our souls bear a fiery embrace
Old hippies still believe
In a paradigm shift in
Global consciousness
That will usher in
A new age of grace
And peace on Earth
Old hippies still believe
That goodness triumphs
Over ignorance in time
And all the world will
Attain enlightenment
And become as one
Old hippies still believe
In the Golden Rule
And preserving
Our Mother Earth
I know because
I’m one of them
–Photo of me by my son
For weeks we had camped
In the Land of the Loon;
Now our spirits were damped–
We were leaving too soon.
How we wished we were staying!
Here we felt so in tune
With our playing and laying
‘Neath our own sun and moon.
our little mid-western
town was truly blessed
the day she was born
she was beautiful
inside and out
so beautiful
that the other girls
weren’t even jealous
it was beyond that
she made them feel
proud to be her friend
proud that their kind
had produced such
an exquisite creature
her radiant smile
could reach out
and cure illness
every single person
she had ever met
instantly loved her
ached for her
she was so gorgeous
that shy boys ran
her angelic radiance
enveloped our town
and we thrived
but the day came
when she looked west
west, where her and
her kind belonged
she moved out to L.A.
and somehow
we went on in our
little farming town
but it was never
the same
flittering, fluttering
lighter than dust
she’s flaunting
her marbled
mahogany wings
and even the flowers
are so envious
they stare
on their stalks
at the beauty
she brings
–Photo by me
the constructs of man
the quickest of apes
arise from the ground
in arboresque shapes
betraying perhaps
sad wishes we could
return to the trees
and trade metal
for wood
–Art by me
a goblet full of blushing wine
a ripened pumpkin on the vine
the sunlight glinting off the sands
the patchwork quilt of farming lands
the azul claro overhead
the sky after the sun has fled
lilacs ooze a sweet bouquet–
we see these colors every day
our love of color never ends
we love our earth, we love our friends
michaeljordahl 