three recent poems

I have been missing for a while trying to resurrect my writing files from a computer crash - followed by a corrupted back-up (thank you for the massive headache, Microsoft). Most of it has been recovered but for a mere 10% of everything written in the past six months... and that's a lot! But 35,000 words can be replaced fairly quick.

Meanwhile, thought I would share some of this before it, too, gets vanished.



Career Choices, Poorly



Marketing rainbows to the blind,
speaking braille to those untouched;
poor career choices that I find
have all been terminal or such
like widows' weeds in pink pillbox
with highlights of splattered red,
some chosen are a lot of bollox
leading ones to an end that's dead.
No hawk nor dove can best the other
when history's resting on the line;
when in doubt just kill the brother -
graves side-by-side work just fine.
But put all the merriment aside,
when push comes to shoving back,
not keeping offensiveness inside
its kinder than trying to keep track
of slights and barbs of crueler bush
whose thorns form crowns so chainy
in whisper house of cards is crushed
and the system gored insanely.
Incumbent it is upon each of thine
to try and make all things new,
using discarded reams of twine
and one incandescent shoe.
Hold one's breath in cause so pure
and wait four revolutions thence -
in deeper mire than days of yore -
remove all blinders and all pretense
and try to see the future unfold
where sleep is seen as wide awake:
an Emperor's set of clothes in gold,
disrobed and chained to sturdy stake
to preen our blessings, crow aloud
of greatness waiting in the offing;
tomorrow's dressed in cut-rate shroud
and cheers when lowered in the coffin.
Satisfied, we bow and slurp the dregs,
pleased to receive even that small boon
while vultures circle, smiling overhead
just waiting for the coming doom;
apocalypse shunned for so many years
has really been visited on us often
though we've not seen with our ears
what's used for our resolve to soften.
Tiptoe 'round the egg-shell state,
speak small politically correct jargon,
spread the love, spread it thick like hate
and poison the loaf to seal the bargain.





To the Next Millennium


All the clarks and penny-pinching bean-counters galored
and everything all your merifeathered friends have in stored
cannot leverage the Jeffersonian estate found wanting fight,
laying in weight, far beyond the mavis beacon'd out-of-sight.
We've been sacagawea'd and sockadolager'd to kingdom come
by altruistic clinted trumps spurning a ride on some johnson;
taking the knee, pledging some filth, harboring grudge benign
while holding high osteened blessings - an apocalyptic design.
Corpus melon doth entail such tripe in gussied cotton pants
for all those staring down at screen for pokemandered chance;
bluementhol, greenwhacker, and the jazeer'd bright red gore,
true colors fade to darkness shades when power is restored
to many who were whitehomeless when barker'd beggars chafed
amongst the pilfered million richness, billions were misplaced.
The sign of three, vertigo calls sharp, whistling into friend
and spotted elk comes hither nigh, boondocks on the wind -
hefners milked so pearly silk, tatters borne jason's best
and truest echoes of wonter woe's as winners can attest.
Bircher's buy, barker's court, a season to train a frolic
but Super Bowl season's starting and baby's choking colic;
strands of garlic juxtapose the campaigner's dirty lot
sued for promises unspoken, chained to lewinsky cot
in bower suite some bridal dreams in fragrant wallow,
choking back the bile of years, pledging faithful follow -
years of birth take wider stroke than fledglings lost to see
we've borrowed on time of precious seed as yet sight unseen
and high-rolled the stakes for martian hills, grotesques
and homesteads on jovian moons, carved in arabesques
to stand prime to future's past, this history that is we
rushing blindly from pillar to post, trying too hard to see.






Beggarslot, Beggarsnot



I went down to the BegLots store to get some WallyWarm®,
forty or fifty kilotons, enough to stop the storm;
saw I a fellow crying, bemoaning his sad fate,
pushing a shopping cart filled with naught but empty crates.
His hair was done in dreadnoughts, stayed back avoiding stench,
as he complained to gussied-up skinny fair-won mench:
"Lo has my lot been given me no taste of milk and honey,
that onus will simply have to wait until I get more money."
His uncle, SweetSugar®, stirred-in bitter at half the cost
would take the lad to task for commodity futures lost -
pork-bellies deep-fat fried, spring wheat GMO'd to death,
yet his voice was less than whimper that lost its breath.
Funny times, these days we live - as some pundits name -
toting 'round our bales of plastic, we maintain the game
and callous froth at mortal mouths in whom we see fault
when in reality the blame falls on no one else's lot.
Selenium eyes shine like fire, radioactive thighs address
all our hidden problems, skeletons we'll naught confess;
beggars weep in silent discourse, internet bugles try
but mufflers like penny-whistles cough the phlegm they ply -
this putrid mess is sinking lower in quicksander's bog
and manmade docents sanctify desolation similar to Smaug;
the rowdy bands parade the streets banging heads with a clatter,
repeating oft' spoke words of peace: does any life really matter?
Can't-be-choosers lick their wounds, pastel bandaids applied,
seeking succor from tainted partners claiming to have tried
against all odds to better the world against all fallow rakes
but mustered not, defiled by truth: we've not got what it takes.
I left the store sans purchases, reviled by well-known disgust
and went back to the choice-a-thon, worship another to distrust;
repetition speaks loud of insanity by expecting diff'rent result…
until the day we've puked too often and say "we've had enough!"

Thanks, Terry. Thanks very much bro.

You're the best, Terry.

Stan Dane wrote:You're the best, Terry.

Bar none.