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 Oct 2018
Stephen E Yocum
Power is indeed a corruptive force,
Through all of mankind’s history
This has always been true.
Emperors, Kings, Potentates,
Popes, Presidents and Despots too.

Gathering near the Throne are the
Eager Courtier leeches reaching to
touch the anointed one’s robe.
Declaring their undying loyalty,
In the process selling their souls.
Their rewards, a speck of personal power,
Castles and new riches of gold.

Like their Master, the entitled ones
will lie and cheat, while ignoring
The principals of right and good.
Believing “Decency” is but a
poor man’s word, Never uttered
within the hearing of the Ruler.
Never a considered artifact of
absolute power.

The slaves, serfs, the common people
Matter not, but to serve the Ruler.
The power elite will start needless wars,
or offer up sacrificial lambs, all to distract
the unrest of the common man.
They will suppress human rights,
free speech and defame, banish
or imprison their detractors.

All merely smoke and mirrors to conceal,
Controlling agendas of personal greed.
From ancient times down to today
This cycle repeats. Now we are living
our own Textbooks history of tomorrow.

Kingdoms and Nations have perished
From this kind of poisonous corruption,
Needless to say, it will happen again.
Perhaps it already is.
Unless this write is too obtuse, We all
need to change our history to come.
Stand up and speak out and vote.
 Sep 2018
touka
that
which is breathed,
and blown

well
do not exhale me a soul

exile me
to the cold

impinging
sinking, stinging
pity

no

be brief;
be terse

without a kindness to me

cast me off;
trade the scald
for the scoff

no mercy

leave

go, love
go and love
at the cost of me
destined, empty
linger, singing
like the limping thrush
caught under the cat tongue
of nicotine
numbing
throbbing
thrashing in the blood
 Sep 2018
b for short
I have this feeling you speak the language
whispered only between raindrops,
and every morning
you tune the hum of the sun as
it dims the stars, pushing its way
out of the ocean—into the sky.
I have this feeling you handpick the color
of each October leaf,
and when fall has wandered away,
you proceed to pull the strings which
make the northern lights dance
the way that they do.

I just have this beautiful feeling.
© Bitsy Sanders, January 2018
 Aug 2018
spysgrandson
the green grove a magnet to my eye
on these sun baked plains

I enter the glade to take shade with the cicadas
and vampire mosquitos

then I see it, Eden’s villain, coiled and rattling,
red ready to strike

I raise my staff, I too programmed to survive, do to what millennia
have taught

still we are in this staring standoff—silent save its rattle, deaf
I am to the chorus of insects

neither of us moves for an eternity of seconds, until the snake lunges at my feet

where its fangs find a field mouse, and devour it while I watch, an unwitting witness to expiry other than my own  

I leave the copse, whole, content another creature has, for today, taken my place in the bloodletting
 Aug 2018
Haddy T Jobe
I see a man in you, the man who fought for freedom
I know a man's in you, the man who longed for peace
I met a man in you, I knew he had a dream...
I want that man in you, to come forth and make a change
 Aug 2018
Traveler
High in the forest trees
Summer spirits
   Ride the breeze...
Timeless souls
Beneath they gather
Summer hearts
   Waxing fatter...
Summer romance
Nature's desire
All of her children
   Drawn to the fire...
Something else
Is about to bloom
Underneath
   An Autumn Moon...
Traveler Tim
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