Tag Archives: Poetry

Baby teeth and bullets

I’m Calvin’s lonely cousin
the one without a friend
The darkly quiet moody kid
The one who couldn’t blend

I’m the smoker in the stairwell,
skipping school all day
the fall-between-the-crack-type-kid
the one who slips away


I’m the ink inside the headlines
the lead story on the news
The kid the network anchor says
was surely born to lose

I’m the details at eleven
a community in shock
I’m the often-bullied quirky kid
who lived just up the block

I’m a parent’s darkest nightmare
I’m my doctors deep concern
I’m the angst that no one seems to get
the match about to burn
I’m an issue in the social science
circles of the day
I’m the brush it underneath the rug
that never goes away

I see angels circling the sun
feathered wings and halos
golden and hand-spun
Frozen little angels
Circling the sun
bursting into rain drops
cleansing everyone

I’m the isolated Incel
The bullet in the gun
The angry white American
Who’s blaming everyone
I’m the cryptic manifesto
The video online
The AR-15 lover-boy
Who grew-up Columbine

I’m the one who gave up caring
I’m the anger and the rage
I’m the finger on the trigger
I’m the tiger in the cage

I’m the suicide by cop
On the stairway in my school
I’m the little boy with crooked teeth
That others ridiculed

I see angels circling the sun
feathered wings and halos
golden and hand-spun
Frozen little angels
Circling the sun
bursting into rain drops
cleansing everyone

Seeped in seventies

Darkly sarcastic

and sardonically wry

We hum and we dance

to American Pie

Rolling thunder over head

Kool-Aid, Keds, and Wonder Bread

Vietnam served us the blues

Cronkite was the nightly news

Worry traveled through the air

And stuck to faces everywhere

They shipped us to the VanHoff School

We learned about the golden rule

Over finger paints and duck-duck goose

and thermoses of apple juice

Mrs. V in her floral dress

sang “raise your hands”

and “clean your mess”

and

“before the day is done

try to touch the sun”

Jungle-gyms and trampolines

Wacky Packs

Mad Magazine

Baseball hats

and Spider bikes

Dad’s Gannset beer

Mom’s Lucky Strikes

Kick Ball, Fishing, Doorbell ditch

Watching reruns of Bewitched

Nixon, Agnew, and John Dean

Shaving cream on Halloween

Through whiffle ball

and kick the can

Johnny Carson

and Ed McMahon

Watergate was all around

in our sight

and in our sound

on the news

and in the paper

the Viet Cong

and foiled caper

It lurked and hovered

overhead

Pages written

and words were said

it wormed its way

into our head

that innocence

was finally dead

it’s all we heard

and all we read

in undercurrents

a subtext grew

a dye was cast

for me and you

we dipped our bread

into the stew

Enjoyed the dark side

of our view

and you were me

and I was you

The Ending Will Be . . .

It won’t be by fire

it won’t be by ice

not a slow-creeping glacier

or atomic device

The sun won’t implode

on apocalypse day

There won’t be four horsemen

riding our way

The Messiah won’t show

with a list in his hand

And no, heaven won’t have

one helluva band

And there won’t be any

fences to mend

or dastardly sins

we’re forced to defend

And the angel of death

will have no wings at all

she’ll be a viral and nasty

spiky red ball

aided by

an immoral fool,

who always felt

he was too cool for school

And the angel of death

will give him a task

“push lie after lie”

and don’t wear a mask”

Together they spread

Death far and wide

taking all of America

on a perilous ride

So, no

it won’t be by fire

and it won’t be by ice

not a slow creeping glacier

nr atomic device

our ending will be

too small to see

A man of no importance

A man of no importance

leans against the city’s sounds

telling every passerby

to lay their worry down

Every day at one o’clock

appears this weary warner

a bible in his bony hand

on the same street corner

A cautionary caller,

Throwing words into the wind

He warns us of our avarice

our decadence and sin

“A double-dose of Jesus Christ”

That’s what he says we need

“The grace of god the glory

Will free us from our greed!”

Most don’t even look up

Or glance in his direction

Ignoring his crusade against

The devil’s insurrection

Steadfastly undeterred

“There are souls in need of saving!”

Raining grace upon us

with his ranting and his raving

And every day at 5 o’clock

Amidst the non-compliance

He bows his head quite suddenly

Retreating into silence

And in this act of piety

Is when he’s noticed most of all

The man of no importance

Becomes important after all

Shadow beings

We are shadow beings

Mute witnesses to the pain

Dormant and unborn

Existing just outside your veins

A broken recollection

Forever misaligned

A crackling poor connection

from the corner of your mind

We’re the tiny primal platelets

That dance inside your blood

The prickly hairs

that stand up straight

The sound inside the thud

We’re the truer self

that you deny

trapped beneath your skin

your dark and dirty

devilish self

dripping wet with sin

We’re lighter than an eye lash

less visible than God

We’re the sexy ghosts that

dirty dance

upon your soul’s facade

And when your dead and buried

Decomposing in the dirt

We burrow through your belly

And steal the buttons from your shirt

The witch and the farm girl part deux

The symphonic scream of cicadas
hot wind whispers over the wheat
when out of the sky
in the blink of an eye
a witch, with a broom for seat

A ruthless Midwestern twister
a box full of fury and flow
on a ruby-red mission fixation
with an army of monkeys in tow

A bright-hearted girl from west Kansas
no boyfriends or lovers to call
struck dumb by the words of a wizard
who wasn’t a wizard at all

Fell asleep in a field full of poppies
woke with a head full of fear
approached the green castle with caution
but spoke like the tip of a spear

Tracing the stitch on her pillow
she imagines the blood in her veins
she chases the witch to the willow
till the beat of her heart starts to wane

She wakes to the wind in her navel
the bees fulminate in their hive
the blue mink is donning red sable
the white wolf is barely alive

Dot’s in a battle worth fighting
Dot’s in a fight she must win
With a gaggle of misfits and losers for friends
On a mission to get back to her kin

She skipped on the bricks that were yellow
she fought with the man made of straw
met a cat terrified of his shadow
found the hollow man’s heart in a drawer

She summoned the courage inside her
relied on the love in her heart
instilled faith in the minds of her comrades
and never gave up from the start

Trapped in a dreamscape of terror
with demons of doubt in her bed
overcame the evil that faced her
and woke up with a bump on her head

Dot’s in a battle worth fighting
Dot’s in a fight she must win
With a gaggle of misfits and losers for friends
On a mission to get back to her kin

Ashes to Ashes

When your mind
is melting
in worry’s kettle

And troubled thoughts
have yet to settle

When tears fall backwards
and you’re drowned in sorrow

And your days get buried
by tomorrow

When the pit gets ripped hard
from the plum

And your soul is stretched
tight on a drum

With smiles grinding to the gum
and nervous laughter from everyone

Just Whisper

Ashes-to-Ashes, dust-to-dust
from bang-to-boom and boom-to-bust
Let’s all pray for a blissful end,
Where death’s a belly dancing friend

Tired

TIRED

Tired of lies and daily fact fucking

Tired of America totally sucking

Tired of word salads

and moronic statements

Tired of tweet-storms

with no sign of abatement

Tired of tariffs and your tawdry affair

Tired of the jacket that says I don’t care

Tired of deflection and blaming the press

Tired of you not owning your mess

Tired of Flynn, Manafort and Page

Tired of the kids you stuck in a cage

Tired of the jealous Obama obsession

Tired of your cabinet’s lack of discretion

Tired of distractions

to save your own ass

The FBI, DOJ,

The Kaepernick morass

Tired of the endless egotistical bragging

Pussy grabbing and adulterous shagging

Tired of grandiose self-absorption and vanity

Tired of faux news

and meatheads like Hannity

Tired of your childish defiant arm crossing

Tired of disgraceful paper towel tossing

Tired of you acting like a dictator thug

Tired of the comb-over

on your fat ugly mug

Tired of your petty and child-like spats

Tired of your ignorance of science and stats

Tired of the cronies and the rich getting more

Tired of policies that don’t help the poor

Tired of how you downplayed the pandemic

Tired of denials that racism’s systemic

Tired of your desperate need to self-flatter

Tired that you think so many don’t matter

Tired of those who think you’re a savior

Tired of conspiracies and moronic behavior

TIRED

Everybody sing along to the Troompa Loompa song . . .

pexels-andrea-piacquadio-3831645

Troompa Loompa dipitty-dee

We’ve got an orange presidency

Troompa Loompa

Liar in Chief, a two-bit gangster

A thug and a thief

What do you get when you vote for a schmuck?

A science-denying know-nothing fuck

When the guy at the top

Doesn’t know how to think

The world will always be on the brink

 

Troompa Loompa dipitty-dense

The orange-faced-moron

never makes sense

Troompa Loompa dippy-dang

Be better off with a President Yang

What do you get when you vote for fool?

A monosyllabic orange-faced tool

When the guy at the top

is a know-nothing hack

We never move forward

We always move back

Troompa Loompa dipitty-dump

We’ve got a guy who likes to flag hump

Troompa Loompa dipitty-shit

Aren’t Troompa Loompas tired of it?

What do you get when you vote for a dick?

An immoral moron who makes you feel sick

When anger and fear get spun into hate

We’ll never ever

Make America Great

 

Troompa Loompa dipitty-doo

To get rid of orange, you gotta vote blue

Troompa Loompa dipitty-dye

Trump is worse than a stick in the eye

What do you get when you fall for the ruse?

A burnt-orange menace who parrots Fox news

We’re deep in the weeds

Stuck in the morass

Still republican’s kiss that sorry fat ass.

Troompa Loompa dipitty-dee

We’ve got an orange presidency

Troompa Loompa dipitty day

Can’t wait for November to vote him away