Category Poems
It has its ups and downs
You build me to the highest peak
But then I plummet down
You twirl me through the loop-de-loops
So I can’t catch my breath
And when you freeze us upside down
I’m falling to my death
I never know what’s happening
Until we’re at the end
But when you say it’s over I find
I want to go again
Strong, controlled, all eyes are riveted to him,
He gives your eulogy, an acclamation of your life
As he understands it.
He boasts your beautiful smile,
And of that he speaks the truth.
In that smile is the love of God he says
And like a bolt of lightning I jerk up straight.
Shocked to my very core I am sickened.
‘Liar.’ I yearn to scream, ‘it is not as you say.
Behind that smile was abhorrence, fear and loathing.’
You are dead and now you are at peace
But what of me, the daughter you leave behind.
I am your flesh and blood, the one you were to protect
You allowed him, you knew and did but not stop him.
You forgave his exploitations by your omission
And in denial continued to smile at all around you.
wrought from iron, glass, and concrete.
An old world under shadows drowned,
their conquest nearly complete.
Grotesque forms rise to the skies,
Heavens territory is ceded.
The old from consumption dies,
its ancient spirit depleted.
peeling skin with the broken promise of cooling
as she waits
to be pumped full of salty brine
and then discarded, debris
carried by the waves until she
washes up on some strange, sunbaked shore, a
sea-scratched corpse, the
refuse of murder, or perhaps,
suicide
she bobs up
and down, violently
tossed by the waves, frantically
snatching rapid half-breaths-half-gulps-of-ocean before she’s
plunged ten feet
under, then
propelled back up, an insignificant
buoy caught in a
cyclone’s raging passion. his arms
grasp at her as
forcefully as a prayer expands out against
her chest, calling
for ocean to swallow the
naked groans and shrieks yanked
out into the unforgiving air—
each scream,
a plea that she might
die this moment, escape
the body convulsing and writhing,
possessed
Like a loose string
Out of tune
Out of place
Not welcomed in your vocalized melody
A mistake
My own ears whisper truth
But my eyes deceive me
To watch you
Plucking the chord
So desperately
So desperate
For it to belong
oh much deeper than our own pain
Wisdom and strength they all borrow
washed by waters of life’s own rain
Each of us ponders life’s reason
looking deep within our own soul
We follow each path and season
that vainly we seek to control
The summer breeze a sigh
I met a girl out walking too
And as I passed her by,
I noticed on her t-shirt
In letters of black and red
‘I want to know the details of real love’
And so I stopped and said —
You want to know the details of real love?
Then let me tell you this —
Real love begins with a kiss
A touch
A word
A glance
A dance.
Real love begins with a text
A call
But that’s not all,
It’s reaching out
And falling into
if money like apples could grow on a tree.
Each morning as money would ripen and drop
you’d go to the tree and harvest the crop.
All of that money would come to you free,
providing of course that you owned the tree.
The tree would be yours if you planted the seed
and nurtured and cared for its every need.
You’d be rewarded with bushels of cash,
and cash in this world is surely not trash.
The problems it solves are more than a few,
and money can buy many extras for you.
You’d shop for a car with a bushel of “ones.”
For a house you could spend “ones” by the tons.
Like a king in his castle you’d have command
of all you surveyed all over the land.
While you imagine (what would be the harm?)
instead of one tree, have a money tree farm?
Since each piece of money is denominated,
grow what you want of what’s circulated.
Then harvest your “ones” from a Washington plant,
“tens” from a Hamilton and “fifties” from a Grant.
A Franklin would grow “hundreds” for you.
What more could you want your trees to do?
But money from trees, whatever the gender,
nowhere in this world, could be legal tender.
In the struggle for power or the scramble for pelf,
for success in this world, rely on yourself.
And I fear
That I am yours
As these fingers run through your hair
And I am smitten,
(no, bitten)
And then stricken by the taint
Of your love as it courses through me
With venomous delight.
For this weary soul?
Just to wrap her in love
Before she goes awol?
Tired of all these miseries
She seeks some solace,
Tormented with questions
She’s a hobo, now turned soul-less,
Wandering in the crowds
She searches for one single face,
