Posts for June 20, 2016 (page 2)

Category
Poem

The Sartrean Experiment

When you realize, that monkeys
living on a rock flying through space,
feel the need to speed in an off hand way.

It must be asked:

“Is this primate in search of a treat or running from the past, in search of a future that doesn’t exist?”

It brings to mind the humble apple;
Is it killing if we can’t hear Gala scream
as she’s plucked from a tree in the garden of Eden?
    
Who defines the difference between an
apple screaming in pain
and a monkey speeding to his doom?


Category
Poem

solstice


solstice

honey gold streaming

gleaming glass

windows infused with light

the house sings a sun song

 


Category
Poem

What a Trip

Luggage begs to be hauled inside
Cares not about tired hands  
Home spreads her arms
Welcomes her family after summer vacay  
Garage space receives them in disgust
Pouts over the ceiling-high Christmas boxes  
Busy bees empty the minivan
Drag in bag after bag, souvenir after souvenir  
Dogs greet their humans
Wiggle their hind ends with frantic tails  
Little sheltie, Zoey sneaks out the door
Avoids being seen by all  
Mom spots the door ajar
Does not spot big sheltie, Rocky  
Dad secures the animals
Brings Mom two Tylenol to the couch  

Adrenaline shoots eyes wide open
Hammers her heart  
She hears hail in July!
Thanks loud, pesky sound for disturbing her  
The newly licensed teen left 45 minutes ago
Drove to Lexington for the first time  
Mom’s chest thunders inside
Feels like a runaway train  
Dad tunes in to her claim
Assures it’s KT, crumpling a chip bag  
Mom squints her eyes
Listens harder  
She breathes in
Exhales fear  
There were no hailstones
only the stoning of a nap      

Mom’s baggage weighs her down
She has carried it and more for 18 years  
Heaviness and joy rest equally on the scale
The scale cares not about tired moms.


Category
Poem

The Dread Orchestra

Silent imaginations, he thought
One would feel the dead in the nothingness
And the nothing in the dead,
Never mind the vibrations
When imagination steps through
The veil of reality, the reaper’s shroud.
Once inside the grimness, he finds
Horsemen dreams are radical nightmares.

There’s a Silver Lining,
Same shade as a skull
And all these Safflower thistles
Can’t plug the bullet holes
Garden of Amaryllis blooms
Soaked in blood
The Spearmint does nothing
To freshen the air
It’s Showtime, sold out performance
Nobody wants to be there.

The dread orchestra crashes
With deafening cymbal clashes
With walls of crunching guitars
And horn blare hammers
Synthesized strings tie up a heart
Hanging it in the arch of a harp
Electronic cues try to beat life
Into a pulse that’s gone flat
Noise that will not cease
Until choirs of silents voices sing
Leave a message.

To tap a green button would stop the noise
But break the floodgates holding back the tears
And what good what it do to confirm what’s known
Because there’s more than one life on the other side
To cue the orchestra again.

Imagined silence had already drug
A soul disparaged by
New thresholds of human evils
To the bottom of these emotional seas
Not one thought forewarning
The darkest lesson of reality
In the ultimate weight
Of a loved one’s hopeless hoping
Creating nightmare noise


Steve Cummings
Category
Poem

There’s no such thing as a good racist

Folk song in G

We send a few billion to Israel
That net grants for New York couples in illegal settlements
They send their extra cash back to their congressmen
And we get to die on nine eleven

But there’s no such thing as a good racist
That Star of David don’t fly upsidedown
Why wait
Assimilate
You just don’t need to be Hebrew any more

There’s a young woman all dressed in black leather
She is free and can work and vote
There’s never been a woman like this in history
But she wouldn’t marry a white guy
“if you paid me”

But there’s no such thing as a good racist
That Rebel flag don’t fly upsidedown
Why wait
Assimilate
You just don’t need to be Afro anymore

Now I look back on my own relatives
We killed millions for king and God
When what was left was chased out of England
We came over here and killed some Indians

But there’s no such thing as a good racist
That Union Jack don’t fly upsidedown
Why wait
Assimilate
No tengo se un blancito mas

So if you want to change the world
Lift the downtrodden, feed the poor
Go to Zaire or the Philippines
And you might find the girl of your dreams

“Cause there’s no such thing as a good racist
We don’t need to raise that flag again
Why wait 
Assimilate
We just don’t need to be racists anymore

We just don’t need to be racists anymore


Category
Poem

Grape

Christ
there he is
again  

to try to turn me
into holy

water