Reason’s Gift

February 26, 2021

From thought and love and rhyme
To frontiers of space and time

From a mosque in Timbuktu
To the Dome of Xanadu

From protecting son and daughter
To industrialized slaughter

From a monkey standing tall
To the beast that wants it all

By Richard W. Bray

rumble dumble day

February 19, 2021

Rumble dumble day
Go outside and play
The sun is shining bright
Bask in your delight

Wimble wamble wee
Investigate a tree
Run around till dark
Explore your local park

Dimble damble door
Open up your pores
Listen to the world
It sings to boys and girls

By Richard W. Bray

don’t put your angry on me

February 13, 2021

Life isn’t fair
Everyone agrees
Don’t put your angry on me

Sorry bout your temper
And your bonnet full of bees
Don’t put your angry on me

Take a deep breath
And have a cup of tea
Don’t put your angry on me

Journey to the park
And climb the biggest tree
Don’t put your angry on me

Watch a funny movie
And laugh until you pee
Don’t put your angry on me

Rage is a prison
Set your spirit free
Don’t put your angry on me

by Richard W. Bray

Bullies

January 15, 2021

Bullies are angry
Bullies are mean
They gotta put you down
To empty their spleen

Bullies wanna conquer
Bullies divide
Spreading round the hurt
Cuz they’re broken inside

Bullies disarrange things
Bullies hurt your health
Every single bully feels
Sad for themself

by Richard W. Bray

Granite to Grass

December 17, 2020

‘Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with Daisies lie—

Emily Dickinson, If I Should Die

Darker nights than ever
Hearts of shattered glass
Hefting laden caskets
Setting granite in the grass

They will come for all the bodies
Then they’ll come and take our homes
The machine keeps right on turning
And grinding up the bones

When disaster makes you richer
What could ever make you whole?
Is it just the love of Mammon?
Or the absence of a soul?

They will come for all the bodies
Then they’ll come and take our homes
The machine keeps right on turning
And grinding up the bones

by Richard W. Bray

with you

November 14, 2020


a movie in the afternoon
   with you
a walk, a talk, a Gershwin tune
   with you

in a cabin in the hills
   with you
in a field of daffodils
   with you

snuggle on the coldest night
   with you
feeling safe and holding tight
   with you

everything is warm and true
   with you
in a universe of two
   with you

by Richard W. Bray

How’d you know the song in my heart?

October 11, 2020

How’d you make the world
Collapse and disappear?
How’d you make your voice
The only thing I hear?

How’d you take my troubles
And tear them all apart?
How’d you know the song
In my heart?

How’d you know the song
In my heart?

How’d you patch me up
And nurse me back to health?
How’d you create a world
Where time was someplace else?

How’d you erase the past
And make a whole new start?
How’d you know the song
In my heart?

How’d you know the song
In my heart?

by Richard W. Bray

booby-trapped

October 7, 2020

broken lives
and broken hearts and
foolish empty pledges

I’m rugged and I’m ragged
and sharp around
the edges

Don’t get too close
I’m booby-trapped
Broke from eating
Too much crap
There’s so much shit
When I explode
It’s gonna be
The motherload

all the lies
you swallow, they
never get digested

every segment
of your soul
will become infested

Don’t get too close
I’m booby-trapped
Broke from eating
Too much crap
There’s so much shit
When I explode
It’s gonna be
The motherload

by Richard W. Bray

love madness

September 15, 2020

all day long
I think of you
subsisting on
your residue

too good to be true
too good to be true
too good to be true

warmth and style
and royal blue
all wrapped up
inside of you

too good to be true
too good to be true
too good to be true

your hair, your smile
your ballyhoo
I would pay
to be your shoe

too good to be true
too good to be true
too good to be true

sophistication
through and through
you’ll never play
the ingénue

too good to be true
too good to be true
too good to be true

I live for love
I never knew
the psycho ward
is overdue

too good to be true
too good to be true
too good to be true

by Richard W. Bray

Lunch Among the Ruins

September 11, 2020

O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
   Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Robert Browning, Love Among the Ruins

In a land once ruled by thieves
We walk beneath the trees
Among the fallen leaves

Paths once paved with gravel
Too overgrown for travel
Reveal a world unraveled

Betrayal winks and nods
An empire built of fraud
Amused indifferent gods

Right before their eyes
A world of endless lies
Erupts in bloody skies

A picnic on the glen
With a special friend
Another season ends

by Richard W. Bray