Adapt, Adopt, Adept

​Adapting like the ailanthus
                 into the bloom of societies crack;
seeds dandelioned like Leo dandies
       to bring down the sun into the sidewalk.
Child! Don’t break your mothers back.

Cut the Lazarus lizard some slack as it slips
into the porch wall behind the boxwood;
hush the mind as the locust leaves drop
(protruding thorns like the crown of Christ)
quiet, as the poison ivy makes its potent push

to new adopted homes,
        along the jacked asphalt surface pothole pools
summer rain gleaming with illuminated gasoline
              & ditchweeds growing despite the spills
projecting a liquid lightshow of spoiled chemicals
& now gathered with Gatorade yellow piss bottles
from truckers cross country toils.

Ass hurting to a fault from long hours in the drivers seat
chasing white crosses where steeplejacks climb up with Red Bull
to the evangelical resurgent flower powered churches
from the Jesus freak hippies whose minds were blown
                                on an acid casualty gospel preached
by a minister who lurches to cultivate his mustard seeds.   

Fleeing the wreckage of the big box stores
into a megachurch with MAGA merch ladies praying
spiritual warfare against goats straying to eat the weeds
left on the roadside as if the candy wrappers were a trail of clues.

Synchronicities to be deciphered all the way to the laundromat
where the unwashed masses tumble in a speed cycle
hoping Michael the archangel will intercede as a diplomat.


It is the psychology of the adept to embrace the obstacle
inside a chalk circle they dodge the bullet on the way to the lodge,
pasting life together into a collage, held together by Mod Podge.
Bricoleurs use whatever may be found on the ground
to heal the sick and find the universal panacea
going to the middens land of empty lots
where they gather the pharmacopeia. A cornucopia
amidst refuse where the milkweeds flourish
to feed the tussock moths as much as to nourish
the sublime monarch of transformation.

See the landscape change.

​See the dead fox rot and call it decomposition.

Under the freeway overpass life blooms inside its corpse
           birthing a hundred baby flies.

So we carry on, we carry on
as the vulture takes its feast
where the purslane pokes its succulence
up from the dry bones, a vacancy sign
retains its partial flicker-fucker
and the rusted out grocery cart laments its loneliness


Far away from the corral, but still OK.



​.:. .:. .:.

The  writings presented here will always be free, but you can support my work by passing the essays on to others, and sharing the links to other sites and telling your friends.  I have also set up a Buy Me A Coffee page, which you can find here if you would like to put some money in my rainy day coffee jar. 

☕️☕️☕️ 
​
Thank you to everyone who reads this and helps support the art life by keeping me caffeinated and wired. ​
​