Don't

  “We live in fear and therefore we do not live.” –Buddha

                    1

By the bo tree storms swell, mix fire with ice.
We don’t know

Weather. When the young took over weather,
Men turned to people.

First rain of napalm, no children ran free
Of scars and grief.

  2

Don’t change your name if you don’t want to die.
Stop.

History starts when you are born, brother
John claimed.

Try to feel time inside you suicide.
Live elsewhere.

Did not John claim he would die for his art,
Stay in L.A.,

Where canyons were filled again with the saved
Who never risk death?

(28 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander