Tortured Ideals

Misinterpreted

Mislead

Perverted words

And tortured ideals

But who to trust

When they all disagree

On what’s a must

Some say “More freedom!”

Unless you are gay

Or a woman

Or black

Or brown

Others say

“Get out of the Middle East!”

“It’s not our fight!”

But what about that

Disastrous plane flight

And the towers ablaze

Am I in a dream

Or do we really have two sides

With no in between?

That’s my future your playing with,

By the way

My voice is drowned

In the volatile crowd

I don’t have money for a Super PAC

How are those legal anyway?

The concept is simply whack

I’m too young to vote

But old enough to know

This is a bad direction to go

Why don’t you all shut up

And look around

Before this all-out boxing match

Starts another round

 

Not So Sweet, A Lesson Learned

This poem is a little old, I wrote it 2/14/2012

 

 

His hand was laced with mine

As you slowly passed us by

I saw you double take

As he bent down to nuzzle my face

Revenge was not so sweet as I thought it would be

It was dark and sour

My lowest and most pathetic hour

He held me close

And moved in

Knowing well that you were watching

It was a burn that in the end

Hurt both ways

You may have done the same to me

But that was no excuse

It gnawed me up inside

Like a deadly hearticide

And all those tears I once had cried

Came back to choke and drown

But he doesn’t know

And I’m not using him

I just wanted you to see

How much better I am without you

Revenge was not so sweet as I thought it would be

 

Love at the Beach

-For JS

Sandy toes and sunburned cheeks

Salty laughs and seaweed hair

Sunset walks and laced fingertips

Love for a week, love at the beach

More for convenience than anything

Just because you can

No strings attached

Merely for fun

For the sake of touching someone

Those rolls in the sand

Not exactly lust

But something close

Just because we can

Freedom to tease and kiss

Knowing love at the beach

Is the sort that lasts a week

The silent sneak off the balcony

And the giggles muffled not too well

Sea oat hide-and-go seek

And midnight sandcastles

Love at the beach

The purest you’ll find

No “If only”s

Or ‘But wait”s

At the closing goodbye

You’re suddenly shy

But then you grin

You kiss and shake hands

No sad parting

Just a halved cockle shell

“Twas nice and I wish you well

You walk away with one last kiss

Knowing that love at the beach

Will expire after a week

Smiling Picture

Smiling picture look away

My heart can’t stand to see you today

You look so happy, so picturesque

A painful reminder that someday

We all enter eternal rest

Smiling picture look away

Stop mocking life with your display

Frozen still to quietly tease

Stop being there, just go away please

I don’t want to see

I refuse to reminisce

A person I will always miss

It is too soon

To fondly remember

To smile for the good

I only see cold, gray pallor

Death personified

I only taste the salt of tears we all have cried

Smiling picture disappear

You represent just what I fear

Being gone, just like that

Like I was never there at all

When in the shadow of my mortality

I find it hard to keep my gall

Smiling picture look away

My heart is too fragile to see you today

A Season of Contradictions

Summer in the South is both friend and foe alike

The sun kisses our skin and turns us bronze

It boils the air

And clings to us

The trees and bushes grow tangled

Gnats eat all that is moving alive

Flowers paint the ditches rainbow

And the roses bloom their hearts out

Stupid Heart of Mine

Oh heart of mine you leave me but a vine

On which to swing and softly sing

A hopeful dream that my love is what I deem

It’s harsh and rough and not enough

To support me, it’s coming apart ever so slowly

Oh stupid heart your falling apart

It’s time to grow up, stop waiting for a dash of luck

Get out of bed or I’ll find some other organ in your stead

I’ll ask my mind though it’ll probably decline

It’s overworked and underpaid but you have got it made

You truly do you stupid thing you have no clue

Oh beating thing don’t get me into another fling

 

Sides

I tried to find the most unbiased article I could for the Trayvon Martin case. Much harder than expected. I searched Trayvon Martin on the Miami Herald‘s and had to go page 34 before I found an article describing more or less the facts of the case, not the racist aspects of it. I wrote this poem more as a response to the reactions of Americans than as a response to the case itself. I don’t know if George Zimmerman is racist or not because I was not there when the shooting happened. This case has changed from one about seeking the truth to one about racial injustices in America. Perhaps this is therapeutic, but we must not forget what this case is really about, the unbiased version of it, and hope that justice is reached, whatever the side.

One side is white

And the other black

In the middle huddles red

Red is what happens

When black and white mix

Red is dreams lost

Red is lives whisked away

Red is the tears of yesterday

You’d think it’d be gray

That mixed stain of colors

Gray is what they should make

Black and White

White and Black

It makes sense

But humanity never has

So the red is still there

A stark reminder of prejudice

The blemish of a failed mass wish

A wall for those

Too something to mix

White and Black

Black and White

Both are colors

But not really

Both do exist

Fact acknowledged or not

Black and White

White and Black

Have much in common

More than they realize

It’s time for them to start

Relying on more than just their eyes