Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
How we start is only part of what we eventually do.

Physically that's easy to see. Being human, adamkind,
we see weak starts often in life.
Colts or pups born a week too soon can be loved to lives as pampered pets,
Siring toys for the enjoyment of those who can afford to fuel them,
For generations, with never a single care,
Past that initial trauma and subsequent subjugation to the will of man.

I don't tell horse stories, dog stories or war stories, if I can keep from it.

But when you want to demonstrate the purest of payback,
revenge getting the bad guy in the end,
having a horse be the hero makes behaving like an animal
more noble to the mind of vengeful man.
It's not true, revenge being noble.
That's a very old lie.

Law is to prevent error by disallowing failure. Law.

Relative to the rest of God's creatures, we, adamkind, seem dependent, weak and vulnerable next to bears being weak
a way-less long time
Than we.
We come into this world weak as a baby anything and we stay that way longer
Than any living creature.

I am an American, by birth.
I was not born to a political party or a family with political roots,
"I ain't no Senator's son."
Still,
I was reared drinking mythic cherry wine
sprung from George's failure to lie
Regarding his woodman's knack with a hatchet.

Sitting on the fence rail Abe split,
town fathers where I lived
were said to have decided the most harmonious of towns
have only gainfully employed darker folks,
while white
trash was allowed to loll around because they was
some employer's kin by marriage.

It all seemed pretty normal, as a child.
The loller-arounders let kids listen when they told
Their friends, who could not read, what the newspapers said.

One block from my house there was a vet's and hobo's flop-house clad in corrugated tin, rusted-round the nail-holes all the way to the ground and the rust had spread, so at sunset,...
I only recall the single story shed having one door.
There were always old white men sittin' on the southside of the shed. At sunset, those old men's whispy white hair

appeared as white flowing mare's tale clouds under
a scab-red wall held up by old men with sunset shining faces...

It was a big shed, a low barn, a bunkhouse,
eight or ten 4-foot tin-sheets long on the north and south
Windowless walls.
The one door was on the south side.
Once I saw an old man selling red paper buddy poppies.
He was missing both legs about half-way up his thighs.
The poppy seller rode a square board that had what I think were
Roller-skates, the key-kind, with metal wheels about a 1/2 inch wide.
Nailed to it's bottom. He had handles made from a carpenter's saw
Without it's blade. He pushed himself with those handles.

That looked fun, to a four-year old.
It looks different now-a-days. Knowing
Those red poppies symbolized
The after math automatics of the war to end war.

Who knows the poppy-sellers son? He would be old.
Does he know how his father lost his legs, but lived?
Does he bear the curse of the curse that lost his father's legs?
Does he honor his father's cause or weep at the thought?

Enough is enough.
My family tree branched in America, but only one great grand-parent,
Three generations back from me, was rooted in this land.
My gran'ma's ma, a Choctaw squaw,
That rhymed fine,
But it's not true. My grandma did not know her parents. She was born an orphan,
And her father and mother were likely strangers.

1910 in southwest Arkansas or southeast Oklahoma or northeast Texas or northwest Louisiana
And the color of her skin is all that proved my American heritage.

My grandma was born poor as poor can be,
she never told me how she survived

To survive a 1925 or so car wreck
in eastern Arizona's white mountains.
I never asked what my grandmother knew,
nor how she came to know.

This is my point.
After you and I have gone into forever more,
Our great grand children may wonder
what we did or did not, since we
Are no longer around to give our account.

These days we can leave our story to our great grand children.
Our own children
And our grand children follow us on facebook back to before they were born.
Shall they judge us idlers wielding idle words for laughs,
or  think us knowers of all we found while seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven
In the place Jesus says it is. You know where Jesus said the Kingdom of our kind lies?

The double minded man is unstable in all his ways,
hence Eve and her broader bandwidth corpus colostrum
Come back later, there is a breath system upgrade evolving.

Such changes to the courage of the mind rolls out more slowly
to the root ideas, labouring to find sustenance,
it is a struggle being a radical idea,
we agree, but we have our part,
as do the flowers
and the spore.
Leaven the whole lump, like it or lump it.

The now we live in grew from far deeper roots than
the roots claimed by the
Self-identified nation through it's cartoons/representations of national desires to rally 'round the flag as if it were the fire,
those desires to herd beneath any shelter from the storm,
Your country, your incorporated allegiance
to the inventor and creator and counter of the money under
the protection of the sword and crown representative
of the flame that burns,
The namers of patriot, the rankeers of ideas
who, by their existence,
naturally, over rule you.
Such powers are granted by the individual, not the mob.
You get that?

The desires of the nation over rule the desires of the individuals who
Com-prize the nation.
Whose side are you on, dear reader?

Is the idea we believed believable?
Ex Nihilo, I don't think so because
I can't imagine how now could be
Accidental-ly.

When my hero wore spurs as he went from the jail office to
Miss Kitty's place, (Gunsmoke on A.M. radio)

What did Miss Kitty do?
I had no clue.
In my hero's world people never
Did the wrong thing
While Marshal Dillon was in Dodge.

So did you think Miss Kitty's place was anything other
than a culturally acceptable
reference to professional social ******* workers
under a strong, smart female CEO
with top-level links to the local cops?

All these are rhetorical questions, this being
Rhetorical if you are hearing me say this.
That means, don't nod or raise your hand or shout Amen, kin!

I see your answer my answer and
I know my answer, so you know my answer.

Step-back, 1961, USA Snapshot
Unitas, Benny Kid Perett, Mantlenmarris, the Guns of Navarone.

Why I recall those things, I know not.
Why I did not say I do not know, I do not know.

Though, pausing to think,
knowing contains the doing of it within it, you know.
What's to do?

Outlaws were more my heroes than cowboys, and marshals, and such
Especially the ones that had been forced out by law.

I grew up in a 1950's junkyard with no fence, one mile north of route 66
On the Al-Can highway to Las Vegas, 103 miles away.
My Grandpa was a blacksmith's son,
who rode a horse he broke and his pa had shod
From Texas to Arizona in 1917, at the age of 18.

by the time I knew him,
He was fifty, settled down, nearly, from the war.
Momma had to work, so, daytime, Granddaddy raised me.

Horses weren't, wrecked cars were,
the toys of my childhood.

Grandpa built a junkyard from cars left steam blown
on the old stage road, from before
the railroad.
The Abo Highway hain't been Route 66 for some time yet…
Hoping…


Hoping sometime to polish this bit of this book, I left myself re-minders
Hoping memory of mental realms might rewind or unwind sequentially
When trigger
Neighed.
That worked, Roy Autry and Gene Rogers were names Sue Snow's
Mormon Bishop granddaddy called me,
back when I first recall My Grandpa Caleb,
a baptist by confession,
who was,
as I recall a *****-drinkin' jolly drunk.
While Grandma made beds in some motel,
granddaddy built boats and horse trailers
and hot rod 34 Chevies,
and he fixed this one red Indian, I could read the word on the gas tank, I knew the word Indian
and this motor cycle was proud to wear the name. I was 4.

A stout-strong man, no fat near any working muscle system,
he could and would
repair any broken thing,
for anybody. People called him Pop.
Pop and Mr. Levi-next-door at the Loma Vista Motel, shared a listing in the Green Book,
so broke down ******* knew where help could be found
after dark in that town.
There was a warnin'ag'in
let'n sunset there
on darker than grandma's skin.

My Gran'daddy's shop had two gas pumps
that were reset to begin pumping with the turn of a crank.
As soon as I could turn that crank,
I could pump gas.
I could fill up that red Indian
Motorcycle.
But "m'spokes was too short
to kick the starter."
I told my eleven year old uncle
and he told
how he would always remember learning
that saddles have no linkage
to horse brakes.
"Not knowing what you cain't do
kin *** ye kilt."

He grew up in the junk yard, too.
My first outlaw hero.

Likely, I am alive today, because
On the day I discovered I could pump gas as good as any man,
I also discovered that real motorcycles were not built for little boys.
This is an earlier voice which I wrote a series of thought experiments. The book is finished, most parts, some reader feedback as to interest in more, will be high value gifts from you to me, and counted so.
Lawrence Hall Dec 2016
Millennials at Work and War

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us

Now thrown into the existential struggle
Surrendering their youth and taking up life
They muster in the fields and factories
And in their elders’ undeclared, shadowy wars
Uniformed in an unappreciated sense
Of duty and dignity while scorned by those
Who take their ease upon the couches of sloth
And fling cheap mockery at millennials
Who take up tools and work and love of life
Sometimes to die in deserts still unmapped
While generals dismiss their casualties as light
Despised as snowflakes by keyboard commandos
Who never got closer to any war
Than a John Wayne ketchup-****** movie.
Some work long double shifts through university
In a sawmill, shop, or fast foodery
Only to be dismissed as slacker layabouts,
But expected to trust those who condemn them
For not being the greatest generation
As defined by those who never served at all
And while being criticized they will grab
A quick cup of coffee for the night shift
Staffing the hospitals and police patrols
That keep their sneering critics alive and safe
They drive the trucks, they man the ships, they work
They drill for oil, these useless millennials
While idlers lounge long in the coffee shops
And YooToob computered jokes about them
Millennials have no time for coloring books
Or comfort animals or revolution
For they are weary with study and work
The best of them make no demands, but, sure
A little respect, hard-earned, would be nice
If only the scripted singer-songwriters
Would pack up the tired old stereotypes
And see millennials as they truly are
But darkness falls – they must go back to work
On the eleven-seven, the graveyard shift
They do not burn draft cards or Medicare cards
Instead through work they illuminate this world
And build it up with continued sacrifice

Scorn not the snowflake who stands watch for us
P Pax Sep 2012
the social imperative is to
get drunk
ok let's
get drunk
and today
there are so many ways

idlers watch
flickering shadows
of color in boxes

impatient inebriates
burn through
leaf or fuel

innamorati
drown each other
in each other

intelligentsia
drink deep
sophist poetry

not enough
never enough

not to feel the burden
of time and space
two in one
inseparable restraint

to touch what is
beyond
all things in one
Great Name

the divine imperative is to
get drunk
amen let's
get drunk
and to die
to the slavery of any way
Lyn Senz Nov 2013
While the dozens of lights
change their colors
and the pigeons
coo and stalk
the courtyard
across the way
is a corner store
where idlers stand
sharing a paper bag
and troubles
then a helicopter
owns the sky
but no one seems to care
but him
then some chatty women
hurriedly pass below
leaving perfume trails
and crew workers
discuss what to do next
while sipping coffee
and an old woman goes about
picking up bits of trash
and the cars rush around
to points unknown
and as the morning sun
beats down upon him
sweating
he overlooks it all
then sighs
cries
and closes his eyes


©2012 Lyn
Two brothers lazy bones were known far and wide
Devoted devils they stuck together on each other’s side
As you can guess on those idle souls life wasn’t kind
Without work they didn’t earn though they didn’t mind.

Still they managed to survive God played here his hand
The duo had a roof over head and some ancestral land
They were happy to just laze out with barely minimal meal
Spend their times at fireside with two staunch idlers’ zeal.

In fact even such rituals as bathing and nature’s call
Found them badly wanting they detested moving at all
They disliked going out of house hardly ever took a ride
Enamored of their laziness in it they preferred to hide.

The two brothers were often coaxed to go for a movie show
Couldn’t dress up never made it their limbs moved so slow
Yet they weren’t bothered for life’s joys remaining undone
Thoroughly enjoyed their laziness it held for them all the fun.

Not one good deed they ever did not once a noble act
Enslaved as they were in idleness tied to its devilish pact
None ever came to the aid of them none they ever did help
In notorious no work they stuck together keeping only to themselves.

Till one day came an ugly turn a fire broke out in their house
When all else left except them even the cellar’s mouse
In their sleep as they sensed the heat the one asked the other

My back is burning what to do please tell me kindly brother.

Though surrounded them the fire the two brothers didn’t budge a bit
Undeterred by the looming peril they kept lying in the searing heat
How do I know the other answered with eyes still not opened wide

*Go back to your sleep if it’s too hot move your back to the other side.
Yenson Aug 2019
lifes in meshes with inherent leashes
liars in messes riveted with stresses in tresses
hearts full of Prosecco and bile from blinded Unesco

Looking for selves on shelves dancing with pansies in panzers
make-believers left-overs waging war in peace and pieces in ******
drenched in lives unknown and wares unearned in mires renowned

Owning miseries internal and pushing external for redress maternal
empty dreamers on steamers loving sad idlers with no water for later
eating stories without histories, crying tears with fears and no worries

Ways of their worlds, no molds for holds only emptiness for pettiness
and they race for pace to face the lace that grace an ace with no traces
citations of vacuosity of the sagacity of the mediocrity in their paucity
Yenson Dec 2019
The unproven reality of ghosts

absent power of nothingness power

regurgitating chews of bellicose vapid foam hosts

the wishful warped soliloquies of shamed ivories with distemper

Faustian ghosted cowards in Quixotic warfare in indentured coasts

vainglorious boast of patched lepers playing rulers in minds addled

charlatans self mockery in full arousal mimicking gods of jam toasts
Born Jul 2015
Words
Words
my ink flows like cash
Keep hatin you gonna get smashed

been around the world flying like Jackson
and they still believe that am a mason

You know haters
just idlers
bakers if nothing but envy
Rajib Ahmed Nov 2016
Our spinning world is in the grips of devils now.
As 'the best lack all conviction',
the sadist, split-tongued devils
have captured
all the good and whatever therein
i can see its red ***** genitals
from below as it tramps over us
stomping and splitting, and mocking us.

And we just go by, with patience.
wait for better days, but too coward
to endeavor for it
We all bent on graduating this
hell fire of deprivation and loss
with good grades.

Our predicament is that we're fragmented
and confused, and merry-go-lucky idlers us all.
We want it better, but don't venture forth.
we wan't a ready platter.

But we've been given dung to eat and kicks at the back to endure
and by the mercy of our great Lord,
we eat and drink and be merry too

The world is in the grips of devils now.

we must reclaim it.
we must hoard up the badasses
and cull them like sick chickens
we have to start this new war
to reclaim whatever that was ours
we humans are to save humanity and our spinning world
the devils are to be shown the hell-fire
where they belong

we must act now, and start at this moment
for the good, and for the working devil.
Lawrence Hall Apr 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       A Footprint on the Road to Santiago

A footprint on the road to Santiago
It has meaning - a footprint, and another
An indent from the ferrule of a stick
Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

Sin-weary and sunburnt, a pilgrim plods
Through weeds and dust and sometimes traffic lights
And idlers mocking from across the road
Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

Where free from sin and pain and blood and scars
He may at last find peace in that Field of Stars
A poem is itself.

— The End —