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Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
Why should I care?

Just like being gay, they choose to be homeless.
Do they ever consider the problems of not being normal?
I wonder as I pass the debris of Occupy Seattle.
Besides the cold and hunger…
Besides being wet and frozen…

They have the problem of what to do with their jar of ***.
Passing by I saw five lined up atop the red brick retaining wall, and I wondered.
When you *** into a jar, your hands get splashed, the bottle is *****.
So how do you keep clean and fresh?
And how much weight can you carry every day anyway?
       And where can you go to get rest?
Even finding a place to sit and rest is a problem.
No one wants them around.

Did they think about these things before they decided to become homeless?


But why should I care?

Be normal. It can’t be that hard to apply for a job without a computer.
To clean up and get to the interview.
I’m sure they could afford a cell phone to get their messages.

And if they have a phone, then they can call or ask for help from all their family and friends.
Everyone has friends and family who will help.
Everyone normal.

So why should I care?

It’s their own fault, if only they hadn’t. If only they weren’t
Then they wouldn’t need my help
And I could keep it all
My work, my taxes
My reward for following society’s rules.
For being normal

Why should I care?

If only they hadn’t gotten sick
Then they wouldn’t have lost their jobs and their benefits.
If only they hadn’t been abused
Physically, sexually, mentally
Then they wouldn’t be damaged.
If only they hadn’t relieved their pain
Then they wouldn’t be addicted to drugs, *** and alcohol.

If only they hadn’t, if only they weren’t,
then they would be perfect, like me.

I would never waste my resources
By eating too much,
drinking too much,
spending too much
I would never quarrel with my family and friends
And use up my all my social credit, my goodwill by needing help
You will never have to worry about me.

So why should I care?
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Holding onto reality with both hands
His social life in a cup of coffee as he waits
Swamped sinking lifeboats
No longer accepting applications
For jobs that have sailed away

Buried alive, a napkin waiting its turn
To be plucked out and used
Then thrown out
Lucky if recycled and repurposed
To a younger man’s vision

Torn apart, his skills repackaged, Frankensteined for each resume
The boring job of cutting checks means he was
A bookkeeper, an accountant, detail oriented,
Friendly to external and internal users or customer service driven
Or any combination of above.

Leaving his car at home, he walks,
Afraid of running out of money for gas and repairs
Wondering what pieces he will put together today
Reducing his years of experience to a tweet
Comprehensible to the child in charge of his future.
Hear it live at https://youtu.be/OMkCakfO4B0
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Celebrate the Moments
Celebrate Life!

Add alcohol, a bike, a truck and a gun
Then Celebrate Death!

Give it a party…
Cry your tears,
Mourn the deaths and go home

Then wait…

Wait for the moment you pick up the phone to tell him about that funny thing his sister said
The moment before you remember

Wait for the moment you try to buy that Christmas present, the one you’re sure she’ll love.
The moment before you remember

Wait for the moment you cry…
…for the wife he never married
The wedding she never had
The children never born

Wait for the moments you never celebrate
Her award for being the best
His retirement party for a job well done
Their kids’ graduation celebrations

Go home, and wait…
Wait for the moment you meet again
The moment before you pray they’ll say
“I remember”
Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
In Iraq teenagers are being killed over a hairdo
Protecting God from Satan

In Uganda, men and women are being ***** and killed for being gay.
Protecting God from human love and diversity

In Turkey children are burned alive
Protecting God from a book called Satanic Verses

In America abortion doctors are killed
Protecting God from those who **** babies

But no one targets the Department of War
No one protects God from the killers

Haircuts, Books and Love
The nuts rattle against the pan until, over heated,
they explode

But only against the weak
Never against those who promote war
or those who communicate by torture

How do you know you are God?
By the ache in your heart and the love you have
for the good, the bad and the nutty
3/10/2012
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Food that kills
Food that heals
Produce emotions that we feel

Food that kills
Food that heals
Producers making reels
Exposing the profit with their zeal
Of Bakers of Death cooking ill-health
In boxes like ****
We trade with our wealth

Foods that ****
Making us ill
Presenting its bill
As health care will
when over the hill

Food that kills
Food that heals
Choices made
Our future laid
In debts that will be paid
When we are in our grave
Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
If only...
        If only they hadn't gotten sick
                and lost their jobs and their benefits
        If only they hadn't been abused as child
                they wouldn't have landed in juvey and been a criminal
        If only they were strong enough to never reach for relief from life's problems
                never drink
                    or drug
                        or have *** with strangers

    If only they were perfect, like me.
    And didn't waste their resources on dinners and drinks and casinos, like me.
    If only the never quarreled with their family over things past or get fired, like me.
    They wouldn't have any problems, just like me
    So why should I be told to care?
Companion to 5 Jars
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
We proposed for Witches Abroad on Broadway, a costume.
As a lure to students, orange and black candy.
Dancing at the prom, cell phones caught the ghouls.
This stretch of road was full of cool cats.
Unlucky ones were left on the side as skeletons.
We swept them clear with our broomsticks.

Our guns were not as brutal as broomsticks.
Bristles hid the ******* end, as if in costume,
No flesh, just skeleton.
Like bags of orange and black candy,
They were left, full of calico cat.
Our familiars, our friends, dinner for a ghoul.

They pulled at the ghoul,
In the hands of a witch, danger came by broomstick,
When ghouls snacked on cat,
In their orange and black fur costume,
Tasting sweet, like candy.
They beat them up and down, but they find another skeleton.

Them ghouls come faster, giving birth to others, another skeleton.
Vocalizing desire for black and white, red and yellow make orange, a ghoul,
Howls for student flavored candy.
A witch lays out one, then another with her broomstick,
Removing the face mask and costume.
Them that can, holler their outrage in cat.

Your *** was revealed in orange and black on a calico cat.
Females cooled themselves of ***, unwilling mates to a skeleton.
Once alive, copulating loudly, now in a death costume.
Walking upright, a neighborhood was destroyed by a ghoul.
Neighbors watched, a witch patrolled on a broomstick.
Your students were seen as human candy.

One wife beater had a juicy rind, sweet and soured candy.
At the dance, hors d’oeuvres were made of cat.
Shot forward, it can create a hole, can a broomstick.
Where stomachs used to be, a skeleton,
Death conquers all, no more ghoul.
One, now many properly attired for the Danse Macabre in costume.

I found an orange, as broomsticks cleaned Broadway of cat candy.
In my student costume and human face mask, my path is crossed by a cat.
It disappeared as if it never was, visible only to Death, a skeleton made by ghoul.
A Halloween Sestina
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Confining. Tight
Tears altering
Emotions
Facing frustration
Face tight
Anger forcing anguish
Demanding release
Screaming in silence
Until reason reigns
Calm in the face
Of torture
Waiting to ask why
They care about copyright
But cannot care about me
2/7/15. Was having trouble getting mail to my friend in solitary
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Nature’s beauty
Nature’s bounty
Man proposes
Man disposes
And soon it’s washed away

To light a lamp
To run a plant
All what man would
Nature ever changing

Nature’s beauty
Nature’s bounty
Story sacred
Fundamental
When two hearts want to share

To link their lives
To show they care
One way man would
Nature never changing

Nature’s beauty
Nature’s bounty
Land’s colliding
Shaking, breaking
Floods take lives, growth survives

Bringing our future
Seasons turn time
Choose what man would
Nature creates change
Carla Blaschka Dec 2016
Lucy quickly bit the dust / an electric shock to her ****
Her life was nasty, brutish and short / squeamish lovers of mice retort
But those in homes with mice who fume / must insist upon her doom
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
This is a performance piece. It should be said with energy, it can be happy or tragic, but you need to sell it. Let the audience make up their own stories to go with the comment.

[Point at someone in crowd]
“You, I thought you were my friend.”

[Pause]

[Find someone to focus on each time]
“and you, did you think I wouldn’t know?”

[Exasperation]
“You knew me,
I was right there.
Waiting.”

[Pause]

[Matter of fact]
“You could have done it different.
You chose to do it that way.”

[Pause]

[Smile sweetly, gently]
“I wanted to marry you.
Surely you could guess the reason.”

[Pause]

[Passionately]
“I loved you,
and that’s it?
That box?
[sarcastically] Thanks.”

[Finish]
“No, really, thanks!”
Written down 6/18/2013 on the back of an ATM receipt from Clearwater Casino. Performed at the Seattle Poetry Slam open mic held at Rebar.  Cecily Schuler was the host for Daemond Arrindell. Cecily gave me a ‘wow’. I was last up before feature Graham Issac, Richard Hugo House’s open mic host. Bruce V. Braken was there, and kissed my hand. In the olden days (BCP - Before Carla's Poem), poets had to dig into their own hearts to share their feelings and experiences with others. I, efficiency expert that I am, made the audience pull their experiences and feelings out of their own hearts.
Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
No. 1
Bend curl straighten soothe a restless metalsmith's willpower
tortures restless atoms into new shapes
A metalsmith decides the boundaries and limits
Their willpower rules another's world

No. 2
Red accents in air, in hair, floating with a stroke of a pen
The trees hair getting a makeover
with the stroke of each season
Changed again with a pen into indelible images of fall
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
You’re here

I can hate you.
Hating that I have no control.
Are you deceiving me
How can I tell?
When you’re not here

You’re here

My frustration grows
At all the things I cannot control,
Cannot know
Who do you see?
When you’re not here

You’re here

I want to slap your face
Until your pain matches mine
Are you lying to me
Keeping secrets?
When you’re not here

You’re here

The only one who comes
The only one who cares
I love you for coming
For being here
With me

You’re here
I wish I was there
Hear it live at https://youtu.be/LUwllzpFkmc
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
I had to put her to sleep
It was the humane thing to do

She no longer enjoyed her food
She could hardly move
She would growl and snap if anyone came near

I had to put her to sleep
It was the humane thing to do

She no longer cared for herself
Overwhelmed, endless
Pain we couldn’t **** had become her killer

I had to put her to sleep
It was the humane thing to do

Begging for death, her drugged eyes were
Silent, without hope
She barely swallowed water; she cried when touched

I had to put her to sleep
It was the humane thing to do

Mom gave us love and laughter, she
Gifted us with joy
She had been my life, and now I was her death

I had to put her to sleep
It was the humane thing to do
Hear it live at http://youtu.be/jQrwl7koTcc
Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
Rewound
                             [re-‘wow’nd]
Replay

Rewound
                             [re-‘woo’nd]

The mind’s eye a constant projector.
Throwing up memories I would rather forget
How many times does one have to be
*****, rejected and fragged
before the tape fades and breaks
and past events stop projecting my future.

When do I get to see the light?
That pure white light
The light that passes through NO thing.
A blank slate that waits for me
to reinvent and reimage a past

without those memories

The memories that hold my future back
and my present hostage

When will the tape run out
And return to me my life?

When will it return my dreams?
My future?
When will it say “The End?”
3/19/2011
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Do oceans dream?
Do oceans have nightmares?
Do whole populations scream?
Do school children du mer
Bleed out while bodies team
With tumors breaking bare
Do we care?
Companion piece to Speaker for the Earth. Sandy Hook (massacre of school children) Fukushima (nuclear power plant broken in Japan after earthquake, leaking radioactive particles into the ocean)
Carla Blaschka Jun 2016
Blackbirds flit, berries sway
Red with beauty, health, abundance
Many feed the few
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Carmen wrote ****. **** begged to see her stories handwritten, the large C’s full and heavy, sliding underneath the stroke of her pen, the small a’s, gravity creating delightful roundness, rising in a stroke for the r, circling its soft head, coming out again to **** the m, sliding into the e, its cursive tongue in so many words and finally the hard bulge of the n, thrusting skyward, then finishing off with a long stroke, a generous flourish of release. Carmen considered, the barrel of her pen hard between her moving fingers, her response came, teasingly, a spellbinding yes.
Published in RiverLit and in my collection, "In The Soup" Hear it live at http://youtu.be/G_lQOUmd8BI
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Bustling activity,

Frenzied brief energy,

Noisy beepers beeping,

Doctors, nurses, calling,

How are you?


How did your weekend go?

Echoes of friends and beaus.

Friendly voices chatter,

plans for weekend matters.

How are you?


Calm Code Reds cut the air,

urgent, requesting care.

Elevators dinging,

Loved ones heard exclaiming,

How are you?


Not given privacy,

Stripped of their dignity.

Phantom guests, masks they wear,

nurses ask, no one cares,

How are you?
The rhythm works best when read aloud. Hear it live at https://youtu.be/ccfn0vGJ3Cw
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Divisions of the night
Each calculated the same
Staccatoed bursts of sound
At regular intervals
Random quotes stick in my brain
“Where is your favorite place to eat?”
Limp beanbags lobbed at remotes
in futile attempts to change reality.
Fake drama as one
non-sister complains to
another that she will tell
secrets to strangers but not to her family.
But I am no stranger
I follow her life hour after hour
Her fake life in exchange
for mine not lived
except in flickering shadows.
Another weekend wasted watching
lives of the inane and ridiculous
Which is still somehow better than
watching mine
Written 7/25/15. Woven from prompts.
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
What can we do once we are ordinary?


Mother Teresa an ordinary nun, just a woman.

Oscar Romero an ordinary cleric, just a man.

The Beatles an ordinary band, just musicians.

An ordinary office worker changed all of China when he stopped the tanks in Tianamen Square.

An ordinary woman changed the rules about ****** harassment in the American workplace, by accident, just trying to embarrass a Supreme Court nominee.

An ordinary housewife changed the world. In a peaceful way. In a non-violent way. Corazon Aquino toppled the might of the American-backed Marcos regime.


We need moms and dads, teachers and technicians, people who work and people who play.
Pearl divers and trash removers. We need ordinary people doing ordinary things everyday - like being a carpenter - to make our world an extraordinary place.

What can we do once we are ordinary? We can save the world.
Accessory poem to Death or Chocolate. You can hear it live at; http://youtu.be/0Z1tduHMnTY
Carla Blaschka Jul 2015
Fig Pizza melts on my tongue
Dark Chocolate lightening my mood
I could be squashed on the street
Run over by revolution
But I’m not
I could be shot in the abdomen
1…2…3 times for not paying a bus fare
But I’m not

My mood is blue
But my skin is white
I am fed, housed, clothed
Owe debt but cannot be jailed
Don’t have a job but have friends
I am not desperate
Just sad
I am not in isolation
Just a witness to those who are
I am not sick
But see its effects everywhere
I am not rich
But I am, I am
Written 1/24/15. In honor of Oscar Perez Giron fatally shot by police over a bus fare.

— The End —