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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Sunday, December 30, 2012

You Are the Song I Can't Get Out My Head



image source

I fell for you when we first met
You followed me to bed
Your gentle voice, the notes I heard
Were playing in my head
So kind
Thereafter on my mind
Your words
In winter are my flame
The years can pass; I won’t forget
The music in your name.


Friday, December 28, 2012

The Zen Miscreant

image source
He was a Zen miscreant
His perspective all wrong
His actions nonsensical
He stuffed ethereal thoughts in burlap bags
and tossed them off bridges
He trapped effervescent hopes in bottlenecked jars
and put them up for the winter
His turgid insolence
stymied the other Monks
created a demented demarcation
that even the most enlightened meditation could not erase
He was a walking koan
He was the sound of one hand clapping.

in which we are asked to compose a poem with a list of 12 random words (in bold)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Keep Dancing



image source

Nothing new in Newtown
Just more murder
Fresher meat for the kill
Fresh new thrill
Pumped full of bullets
Pumped fists
Just more bullshit
Pump up the bass
and keep dancing

Pump up the bass
We’re base
debased
Lives erased
A waste
Expendable
Spendable
Endable
Pump up the bass
and keep dancing
 
Death of innocents
Of innocence
What’s a life worth
in dollars and cents?
 Worthless
Are their lives worth less?
Pump up the bass
and keep dancing

 Pump up the bass
Suburban basements
Guns from casements
Just in case, man
Race 
for the sound bite
NRA say it is my right
Right
Good night and sleep tight
Dubstep over the bodies
Pump up the bass
Keep dancing

Monday, December 24, 2012

Baby Girl



Baby girl,
the black dog is at your heels
I can see it so clearly
The more you run,
the bigger it gets

I know you want to hide
but it will find you
The cur has followed our family down
Generations
Some have heard only its growl in the distance
Others have been devoured whole,
their bones spit on the ground
as a warning

You must face the dark, baby girl
Though your pulse thumps
Thumps thumps
like a rabbit heart
and your muscles are spring loaded
for flight

I try to take your hand
You swat me away, spitting
“Don’t touch me! You’re not helping!”
The rejection stings
Memories flood me like venom

All the times I couldn’t help you
Like when you emerged from the bay 
covered with jellyfish
Their stringy tentacles stinging and burning 
your beautiful skin
You screamed
Your father and I grabbed and flung
those hurtful creatures from you
but you never trusted the water again
and I felt I had betrayed you

Betrayed you
with my defective DNA 
that makes your eyes ache
and your temples throb with the relentless pounding
Pounding  pounding
Your own brain the enemy
You grow tired of fighting your own body
Why can’t it be easy?
It’s always so damn hard

And now I see you going down
for the third time
You push away 
anyone who gets close enough
to try to help you float
You’re angry
You’re scared
I wish I could just hold you
and make the demons go away, baby girl
The pain vanish
with a band aid and a kiss

I have no magic now
This is all I can offer:
I will face the dark with you
Stare down that mad black dog
that’s barking so loudly
you can barely hear yourself think

Baby girl, I can hear you
I’ve always heard 
even your quietest cry
like a siren in the night
And even though I can’t make your tears stop
I can give you my shoulder 
to cry on.

submitted for Poetry Pantry #129 at Poets United
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Open Link Monday