Tag: Poetry

• September 2, 2012

  Eviction

  The noisy neighborhood now sleeps.
  No foot disturbs the silent streets.
  The children vanish with their moms or dads
  replaced by picket signs with smiling kids.
  The gardeners groom the lawns each week,
  the sweepers polish the city’s streets.
  The primped up houses beckon newly-weds
  to settle down and start new families.
• July 26, 2012

  Viva La Vita

  Metallic gloss through onyx reflections,
  Avalon allusions through silver trim,
  tradition tempered through familiar face
  evolved with sensitivities to touch.
  The front, the back reacts to each caress,
  the twin nubs spring up with each flickering thumb,
  the eyes capture sights ahead and behind
  fusing fantasy with reality.
  Flashes full of memories and melodies,
  lights shining brightest on the perfect blackness,
  motions followed without a breadth with each pivot
  without the strain uttered through a hiss or a buzz.
  Potential present even at infancy,
  the daughter to parallel the mother’s strength
  if not through force, then through a post-modern style,
  a pixie flowing with titanic power.
  Unwilling to sell herself at a loss,
  she vindicates her hubris by inches,
  not just another toy to play old games
  but a new life experience.
• July 24, 2012

  Good Samaritan

  I’d carry your cross if I had the strength
  but mine’s too heavy already.
  The dime I give you leaves me deprived;
  I need it for my coffee each morning;
  besides, you’ll probably buy wine.
  And giving time would be too expensive.
  Juggling kids with work and school and church
  leaves no time to toss in service to the world.
  All I can do is rush without a glance,
  pretend I don’t hear you beg for a chance,
  and throw a prayer your way as I wash my hands
  that someone else will come be Christ to you.
• July 20, 2012

  Grief of the Aurora Tragedy

  A dozen lives murdered in Aurora;
  the killer waits for justice in a cell;
  the nation declares the real culprit
  not Holmes, a pawn, but ideology.

  Obama’s gun control shot that kid, some say,
  others accuse a Tea Party conspiracy,
  and some even blame the feminists, but
  not Holmes, a pawn to ideology.

  Whatever hint suggesting influence
  becomes the evidence the tragedy
  was orchestrated by the other team,
  not Holmes, a pawn of ideology.

  Meanwhile, the real killer’s forgotten
  along with victims whose names we won’t learn, mere statistics on PowerPoints
  to win debates against people we hate.
• July 19, 2012

  Your Band

  Karaoke covers
  enthrall the coffeehouse hipsters
  melancholy lyrics
  melodrama issues
  generic power chords
  strike the crowd with a fierce ripple
  that precious name of yours
  as trite as the other guitar heroes

  but girls with labret spikes
  and pink mohawks fawn over you
  and deem you gods for songs
  like every other garbage band.
  Need a drummer or a bass?
  I’ll kiss ass too for a piece of theirs.
  My precious poetry can’t
  afford the ego’s luxuries.
• July 17, 2012

  Garbage Sale

  I never wore that Hawaiian shirt
  that one aunt bought me last Christmas,
  but when he reached into his fanny pack
  for the fifty cents,
  I reconsidered the possibilities
  the fruity shirt could offer me.

  Ironic dress to amuse my friends
  accustomed to my fashion sense.
  A veil for my gut at the beach
  until I started on that six-pack.
  If nothing else, a comfy shirt
  to wear on laundry day.

  But revelations come too late–
  our hands exchanged, the shirt is gone.
  I shoo away the other pests,
  drag the leftovers back inside
  and prepare for a shopping spree
  to fill my chest with more treasures.
• July 12, 2012

  Humility

  The religious boast of faith,
  the scientific boast of sense,
  the academic boast of degrees,
  the activist boasts of a conscience,
  the militant boast of honor,
  the strong boasts of their balls,
  the royalty boasts of lineage,
  the saint boasts nothing at all.
• July 10, 2012

  Achievements

  The baby boasts gobbledygook–
  the grade-school kid, maturity–
  the teenager, his sexcapades–
  the college kid, the bongs he hits–
  the working man, the stuff he has–
  the middle aged, his work ethic–
  the elderly, his history–
  gobbledygook, gobbledygook.
• July 5, 2012

  He Naps

  I sprint
  across the house
  to wash
  my face and clothes
  to fold
  some towels and dough
  to scrub
  a dish and wall
  to make
  dinner and calls
  to brush
  my hair and teeth
  to search
  for a job and keys
  to throw
  out trash and cats
  to change
  the channel and pants
  to down
  a pill and a mint
  to breathe
  the next moment
  he wakes.
  I ready milk
  and wait
  for him to sleep
  again.
• July 3, 2012

  Intermission

  Cramp between cushions
  still as a stone
  whispering breaths
  in a crowded room
  heavy with coughs
  a humid sour stench.
  Dark but for the light
  cast on the girl
  playing the man
  dressed as a queen
  lamenting death.
  Authentic tears
  sweeten the verse
  earn our belief
  our love her dream.
  This fantasy’s
  a suitable
  eternity.

  Intermission,
  I remain still
  afraid to move
  beyond the walls
  of fantasy.
  The real world
  has villains too
  not driven by ghosts
  but humanity.
  Witches and ghouls
  imply a god
  to protect us
  but nobody’s good
  outside the stage.
  A tragedy
  lasts but three hours.
  Reality’s
  eternity.