KEEP DANCING
Around here, it’s come down to this.
Your best defense is a good offense, and yes
Mama wasn’t lying when she said learn how to dance.
Nothing fancy, just anything quick;
a Texas Two Step, Tango or Foxtrot will do,
when a bomb or a handgun sets the mood.
It helps to know how to read the signs of the times.
Knowing when and how to move, this is America after all,
where the enemy is homegrown, maybe even me and you
here, living among us, racist radicals, religious terrorists
and trigger happy cops, everyone a gunslinger in the land
of the free, the wild, wild West, where we’ve not learned much
for all our boasting brilliance.
We’ve gotten pretty good, though, at setting clocks back.
And killing each other off, see, the reasons are many
so just take your pick, there’s something for everyone.
Best be keeping your feet moving like Jerry Lee said,
we got chicken in the barn, really, we got the bull by the horn.
Around here, where the killing never quits.
Bruce Michael Foley about Bruce Michael Foley. I was born across the bridge from Boston, Massachusetts, in Cambridge, as July 4th fireworks exploded over the Charles River, just a stone’s throw from Harvard University. At age two, my family moved to Somerville, Ma.,where I was raised in a rough blue-collar environment, playing many sports. In 1998 I relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada. Here, I work among special needs children and teach martial arts. Poetry began in high school, but took off in a more dedicated way in later years, along with resuming music studies, guitar. My poems are published in various anthologies; including Impressions, Prism, and the Mighty Voices Of Thunder Series, sponsored by the international poetry website, “Allpoetry.” I was a featured poet in Lyrical Somerville February 2015, a Boston based publication, as well as being an “Editor’s Front Page Pick,” for the month of March 2016 on Allpoetry. A defining moment that contributed significantly to further interest in writing was a First Place Award from the International Poetry Fellowship, for my poem, “Among Fields of Cotton.” Presently, I am happy to have the opportunity to explore various forms of poetry with Mr. Bruce Isaacson, Poet Laureate of Clark County Nevada.