"medals" poems
Ah! Another hero
Washed with bleach
Like the Son,
Who is only holy
When rinsed of his
Melanin.
I wear a white coat
That browns in sunlight -
It appears the moon and I
Will be good friends.
How deep must I scrub
To rid my pores of
The southeast Asian sun;
To wash my hair of Pacific salt?
(Even my mother painted herself
With a European brush).
How can I know myself
When denied the magma
In my blood?
It's of no fault of mine
That I've been stripped
Down to resemble a
Colonial caricature -
I've been taught
The victories
And learned
Medals are smelt
In white gold,
But mostly
I've been told
That mixtures separate
And I am mostly
Creme with a dash of coffee.
A shame!
Us beige babies must be
Assigned colors
As if palettes were for paintings
Not people -
My family tree has
Cane fields and apple orchards,
So don't act like
You're surprised
When I mention
White isn't the only
Color of my skin.
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 9:37 PM UTC
i don’t know how someone as small as me
with bones that break at the sight of heat lightning
and heart strings that thread apart at the sound of his voice
could make anyone feel like the sun shines brighter
through kaleidoscope eyes—
you’re okay if it brings out the freckles on your face,
and you feel good, you feel alive
you say i showed you how to love in a new way,
that i taught you to be so much more okay with your tummy,
“it’s been very freeing and life is a lot better, thank you,”
but i feel like i can’t say you’re welcome
because i am a messy cliché of imperfect scraps and hypocrisy
loosely sewn together with
“you are strong you are strong you are strong,”
but i feel so weak i feel so weak i feel so weak
and i am not steady hands, they shake like
wet dogs after kiddy pool baths,
i am flower seeds that forgot how to bloom,
trapped below the surface of a garden that feels like quicksand
and i’m sorry but you don’t see all the mistakes i make,
all the words i’ve preached that look back at me
and laugh when they see
what i feel, what i think, who i am behind closed doors,
i’m sorry.
you keep hanging medals around my neck, and
they’re so heavy, and i don’t know
what to say besides i love you
when you speak words of adoration,
but please do not praise me, i am not good.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 2:12 AM UTC
cheap liquor to ya head ya drain the substance from the bottle
With them Vicky secrets on ya body’s lookin like model
With your mind going numb its gettin so easy to swallow
all them medals on the wall were gold plated and hollow
Daddy lil princess raised inside an ivory tower
Prince charming showed up and he amazed you with his power
You gave him all your treasures he was gone within the hour
Now the sweet lies that he told got your mouth tasting sour
You singing Mirrior mirror on the wall
Who's the most tainted of them all
Your lipsticks smeared and mascara's faded
Any price to feel love baby girl you know you paid it
I met you one night and I tried to ease ya pain
But you won't touch my black skin in fear it leaves a stain
On that pretty Prada dress thats hanging off ya frame
Crown of amethyst polluting your brain
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 8:15 PM UTC
The moths followed the little square
Like he was a flame
The little square wrote a book about his despair
And the moths made a proclaim
The little square didn't like us
So he told the moths to find us, "the mess"
He told them to do it without fuss
'Cause without us his garden would be flawless
The moths came out to his garden
They found me and my kind
And pulled us out with a gun
Treating us like we aren't apart of mankind
We were put on trial by them
And thrown into fire
We were shoved into a room by 'em
And gassed because it was "prior"
Occasionally the moths were bored
So they played hangman with us
This was a game that they adored
All we could do was stare at the hanging carcass
They were our friends and family
They were the only medals we had left
We were too broken to be angry
So we ignored the theft
When the moths got rid of us
They went for the most damaged weeds
That often made us anxious
Because of it some did misdeeds
Some couldn't deal with the pain and fear
So those weeds jumped to the birds
On the floor they left a smear
The smears thought jumping would send them homewards
Though we saw death so many times a day
We were still able to eat and treat people with hate
It was because from our god we have gone astray
Maybe because we were all under weight
In our stomachs prowled lions
Our hunger was so severe
If we found stray scraps we would go for the ****
If you went for the food you were a volunteer
One time we ran out of food
So we complained even more
The moths got tired of our complaining mood
So we ran to a new camp door
We were often moved
We went from camp to camp
Of course we all disapproved
On the house that was based by our stamp
On each of our wrist
Was and inky black stamp
It was on the moths checklist
It was our name in each concentration camp
When we were saved from hell
We were all broken weeds
We couldn't even sleep well
But the ones that saved us answered our needs
The ones that saved us helped end the war
And some were normal citizens
Everyday we are grateful for their loving core
Even if we had great differences
Though the Holocaust made us different
And the memories haunt us
It was kind of a movement
Because now people won't walk into war without a fuss
Sep 20, 2018
Sep 20, 2018 at 8:40 AM UTC
One prevented suicide
Two prevented suicides
Three prevented suicides
Four prevented suicides
This list will go on.
That's the only medals i need, but i don't ask for that type of fame
Just the thought of saving someone
Is enough for me.
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 8:11 PM UTC
Extra Extra ...Read all about it!!!..The time for the righteous ***** is dead...You claim Your stature of limitations..But all you got is knowledge...Let me reconstruct the past...That the ones you preaching to don't see...Slavery...to share croppers.. to steal mill workers...Cotton pick en...to bootleg ‘en...to crack rock..slag ‘en...They got Aids from monkeys..So lets give it to all the monkeys..They know to much lets bury the smart ones under all the dummies...Rise up you righteous *** Shabazz..With more medals then Marcus Garvey...but this dispositions is thicker than the stash on Steve Harvey. Cuz the kids they love the Wiz...and all the green he smoke...Forget the yellow brick road...its these white bricks they see as Gold...But you so righteous with black power on Your bumper sticker...And so sweet that your water start to be thicker...then blood...with a hood that attack your own progression..You Been righteous for so long..with hope you feel depression..that you accuse your brother of mental retardation...urban gentrification...when he still live in the same house he did the year before...but you been moved to the east side on the top floor..You righteous *** ***** you been pronounced dead...back when them bombs hit over Bagdad...they waved the white flag..but you just made it easy...cuz you still so righteous...you done Got Fat, Turned Gay...and rallying for pride marches...Cuz you don’t know what else to do...your time is over..Them black cats use to be panthers, now you dress them up...and placed us all in a new minority...just to keep your righteous priority...Are You still looking East, or have you finally excepted the West..
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 1:02 PM UTC
So many colorful shards,
so many scattered books,
my Father left behind.
He connected the dots
with me, in space and time,
listening to the wind
when it was raining.
Absent and so close,
he used to say:
“Listen to what’s on the ground.
See what lifts us at night
when the birds go silent.”
He gave me more unrest,
he was the left hand
forced to write
with the right.
He believed in me
when the system
sent me away,
dismissed me.
He had hope
without medals,
standing steadfast
in the last row.
Now the body crumbles.
There is a memory
full of holes.
A counting echo—
he remembers,
he doesn’t,
it’s fine,
still hard
but his voice lives…
Time is blending
into a rusted chain
of events.
Tenderness,
resistance
to the falling apart
of departure.
He won’t come back.
He won’t recover.
The body is warm,
life doesn’t want to escape
the shrinking shell.
Sharp words cut helplessness.
Many nights still come
until the final return
to the embryonic state,
to point zero.
I am here,
into this deep night
being the witness to breath,
awake in the dark gentleness.
Jul 9, 2025
Jul 9, 2025 at 8:05 PM UTC
I'm an olympic housewife.
My mantlepiece of medals
is perfectly folded washing
arranged in mahogany drawers
with calm elegance
like swans on a lake.
I’m an elite athlete of the mundane.
My scrapbook of 1st place ribbons
are surfaces that sparkle
a masterpiece of purity
zen arrangement lust
like Ikebana in an empty room.
I’m an extreme sport star of domesticity.
My list of world class honours
gluten free bake-offs
blogging my parenting tips
a domestic online celebrity
like an effortless Demeter.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 11:19 PM UTC
Western Sources
Mist, rain and snowmelt gather
And soak the Montana crests.
A trio of rivulets carves the slopes,
Grow to rivers that braid into a single course
And the Missouri is born at Three Forks.
Shoshone and Hidatsu rest from the hunt,
Kneel and cup their hands
To raise life giving liquid to their lips
While horses bow beside them
Bellies filled with the refreshing waters.
The river flows north dividing the tall grasslands,
Plunges over the cataracts at Great Falls,
Churns on the rocks below
And drives inexorably toward the sea.
Mandan and Sioux
Soft flute sounds drift from the Mandan village
Intertwining with the riffling music of the river.
By its banks a coarse French trapper roasts a rabbit
To share with his Shoshone child-bride.
Sacagawea sings softly beside him -
Charboneau's son stirring in her womb.
Sioux warriors on horseback
Stand guard by the shores.
How many travelers have passed?
How many are yet to come?
Beyond the rolling hills
A buffalo stumbles and falls
Pierced by Lakota arrows and spears.
Boats in the Water
At River du Bois where the Missouri
Collides with the Mississippi,
Forty men slip into boats and take to the oars
To interpret Jefferson’s continental dream -
Their keelboat laden with sustenance,
Herbs, weapons and powder.
They carry trinkets to dazzle the natives
And cast bronze medals to give them
Bearing images of their "Father in Washington"
That none had asked to have.
May, 2004
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
Long ago, on my
unpatriotic ways,
with anger patriots
turned ablaze.
They ill-treated me
with words of abuse,
even classes on patriotism
was of no use.
One day patriotic
tonic I drank.
It made all the difference,
to be frank.
Now professor of patriotism
I've become.
To hear my lectures
many patriots come.
And before my patriotism inspires
enemies of North and West
and before my nationalism
they easily bear and digest
and before Chinese
people of the North
have understood my
patriotic lecture's worth
and before their Olympians
represent Nation of mine
and before we get medals
in abundance this time
and before Pakistanis
decide to turn traitors at once,
inspired by my patriotic views
and my eloquence
and before Indians use golden
words for me to describe
and before my name
in history they inscribe
and before people start
giving me much respect
and before my big and
large statues they *****
and before my replicas
and dolls are put on sale
and before I start competing with
likes of Gandhi and Patel
and before this poetry
becomes too patriotic to comprehend
with slogan 'Jai Hind ' this patriotic
poetry must come to an end.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
rosa
beautiful like a rose bud
fields of petals, my medals, yet to bloom
pretty eyes, dark skys, that nurture like a womb
silk soft skin
i can only imagine is velvet to the touch
poised with perseverance
this i admire very much
to know you is a dream
i never want to end
to have you by my side
a broken heart will mend
avoid accusations of desperation
im not trying to propose
its just my sense of admiration
rosa, your as beautiful as a rose
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 8:00 PM UTC
Dear comrade,
Maybe you are achieving medals for your victory
but, actually you are achieving our hearts for your bravery...
Apr 26, 2021
Apr 26, 2021 at 3:34 AM UTC
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green **** hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
4.2k
Poppy walked the streets by day
she cried in the allies at night
she's still a kind and generous lady
who through circumstance had lost the fight
The vacant look in her eyes
dirt on her face that some despise
but if you gave her the time of day
wise words she would always say
People call her a down and out
but that's not what she's about
for from the front she had come
and no more would she hold a gun
She is a forgotten hero
and now she's a zero
she keeps her medals in her pocket
in a tissue next to her false teeth
One of the many now forgotten
one who's life now is rotten
this is Poppy the hero
this is one of the forgotten
By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
© 2011 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 10:47 PM UTC
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
Fu shew-away u blacks
Icehousey, buddie wiser are..my MAN-he he hein kin..
Dan tell me wat fugshuis -Denmark!
SHRI DENMARK!
VUBAKS go
go Alaska, Africa, be free then...den
My Grandfather stood at Antietam
VUBAKS go
These medals, pins, regalia, -so special.
...not general... like you...
SPE i -CIAL
Der idsey con Tan nint-in shew balon to.
VUBAKS go
Everybody knows, civilization was created by Whiskey!
...whiskey...
Der idsey con Tan nint-in shew balon to.
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
VEE SHAR NO WAN DO-O....
I voted for Drumpf
*I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do
I share-nowan-do*
SHRI TRUMPF -D
yeah...yeah
ISA
de-urdsey
Aug 16, 2017
Aug 16, 2017 at 12:57 AM UTC
Dear Mr. Heaney
I wish I'd read your poetry
years ago when I was still impressionable and coy and all that jazz.
Now it resounds in my skull, leaving a tingle in my right hand.
My pen is somewhat snug, but a revolver, no.
Ink and shovels aren't far from each other,
so your point is well-taken. In fact, they're co-workers –
Ink's proved itself just as deadly. It slowly ushers men into the earth,
their soil-seat, while the shovel stages the unending play;
the eternal lattice.
The Nobel hung above your head,
the vast array of pins, medals, papers with your name in billowing scarlet.
What a treat. Like the last cupcake in the back of
the refrigerator that had too much chocolate icing and was only
semi-covered in multi-colored snowflakes. I'd loved to have
personally presented it to you. There'd be my own plaque,
billowing scarlet and all. It'd say, "Mr. Heaney,
, you must own a ***** I hope you'd laugh, and not be offended,
thinking me a distasteful and insensitive lout. It may not be right,
but I can't help but steal the volumes surrounding yours out of
every **** library so
"Seamus Heaney"
may catch the eye of the common passerby
more easily. I think I even went to work on
enhancing a spine with a red sharpie once.
Red hits the eye hard.
That was in the central library downtown.
Don't tell anyone.
Beyond a laugh, what I hope for most is that you get this letter.
Just look at it.
Wonder why someone so far removed in age and culture and place
would ever think of you holding an over-frosted desert as glorious.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 7:50 PM UTC
If I die in a warzone
Box me up and send me home
Put my medals on my chest
Tell my mom I did my best
Tell my dad not to bow
There'll be no tension with me now
Tell my brother to study perfectly
The keys to my bike his permanently
Tell my sis not to be upset
Her brother will not rise from this sunset
Tell my love not to cry
I'm a soldier born to die
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 9:59 PM UTC
There will always be a great division
In this life full of intersections
The separation of the rich from the poor
The distinction from shoes to coiffure
The discrimination of races
The characteristics of faces
The gender inequalities
The life one lives spiritually
One's position in society
One's awards, medals or trophies
But what truly separates us all?
The crucial thing that determines one's fall?
The cause of life's great division
Is having sight but no vision
The ability to see real beauty
Makes men truly wealthy
Using time to make great memories
Learning from all the tragedies
Choosing to be happy at all moments
And to live a life full of contentment
There are the ones who have eyes but cannot see
The ones who can visualize the unseen
The ones who look beyond the horizon
The ones who appreciate all four seasons
The ability to see the same color in different hues
Is something that can never be sufficed
There are the ones who know the value
And there are the ones who know the price
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 1:02 PM UTC
I came of age
as one of the
many young
knights who would
mature and become
Pirates.
Our kingdom
stretched from
the end of
the world along
the cliff
lined Pacific.
To the
low side of
Alma.
The sprawling
wild canyons
of 6th street,
to the railroad
tracks along
the waterfront.
Daring as we were
we drank straight
from the
bottle while
constantly
losing ourselves
beneath the
shadow of the
Owl.
Our friendship
was a brotherhood
and a hand shake
meant a hell
of alot more
than a greeting.
Black eyes and
stab wounds
worn like
medals earned
in battle.
The ******* was
white as bone
and the girls
were still as
fresh as the
Tangerines we
picked from
our neighbors
yards
in the summer.
The young Pirates
of those days took
all this Town
had to
give.
And even when
beaten down and
hungover.
The need to
experience still
fought on for
more.
The Armor
I wore in
those early
days was
youth.
And that armor
with stood
it all.
Youth can and will
endure many
things.
Almost all things.
All things
that
is but
time.
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 7:13 AM UTC
There's always that one girl
with the astonishing smile
and the little sly gap
between her front teeth-
charming because it screams of mischief.
There's always that one girl
with the literature voice
and the Zimbabwe speech
sneaking in through her
points, arguments, metaphors. Identity.
That one, inexplicable, eccentric
girl
who somehow teaches you
how take to take a selfie in the dark
nighttime balcony of an African university.
And somehow by the end of it,
as you are carried away to tomorrow
by the sound of her new sim-card voice,
you wonder why some victories
cannot be gold medals you can take
back home to your parents,
as she bus-drifts away back to that
spirited mother land
that hatched her onto a podium.
Then that new sim-card is discarded.
And some smiles you cannot forget.
Dec 17, 2014
Dec 17, 2014 at 10:21 AM UTC
when he died, his jackets all went
to the grandkids (world-war-two-chic was
en vogue), his medals to his sons, and his
meticulous preparations for any far-off
hurricane, blizzard, fabled connecticut sandstorm,
power outage, overheating engine,
skinned knee
to the big and elegant dumpster.
his wife in her heels-for-every-occasion, in her
quiet knowing
languages and recipes and birdseed
loved him even after she forgot his name
and hers.
they built this house bare-handed
and in the shade of the trees
and spiders and cell-phone towers
it will stand as ever
it always has.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 11:25 PM UTC
The most beautiful thing I've ever read-
was a love poem that I found,
hidden between the dusty cupboards of my mother's room,
filled with things that just
"didn't matter"
anymore.
It was flooding with thoughts I waved off as-
"foolish"
with fake plastic vows of love,
not unlike those crisp, shiny valentine heart rings,
only given to the most attractive every February.
Stories of parting,
from which shone a glossy sparkle like that of a fake glass diamond,
labeled with black numbers as something worth a thousand.
I've always thought that if you were going to leave someone, you should be aloof and cold.
If you make "warm memories", won't the parting just be that much harder?
That sunset that was described as being unrealistically
ethereal,
I tried to see it myself,
even hooking my feet around the cold metal bars of the balcony,
and pretending that I could fly.
But that sunset was fake too, I discovered.
A synonym of those medals that you eagerly await to get, but in the end,
aren't gold,
or silver,
but just a sheet of mocking plastic,
thousands of identical ones of which have been made,
in a factory choking on smog,
thousands of miles away,
in China.
There was always that villain,
who would try to break the lovers apart.
Sometimes,
the villain was described as, "dark", and "Irresistible".
I was puzzled by that fact,
mulling obsessively over the idea,
Why didn't the protagonist get with the villain in the end?
I was undeniably jealous, of the heroine,
who seemed to draw everyone to her with a warm light,
that I didn't seem to have, no matter how hard I tried.
She was a perfect damsel in distress,
waiting for her partner, who would always,
always,
without fail, come to save her from danger and the unknown.
They were both risking everything for what they loved.
"Stereotypical love poem,"
I scoff,
willing myself to throw that piece of paper away with the trash,
But-
to this day, the most beautiful thing I have read,
is that stereotypical love poem,
now tucked between two bookshelves,
which are full of things, that
"matter"
now.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 8:33 PM UTC
He was only one, that day,
Standing alone to fill and gap the breech.
No one else, but he, stood to face the onslaught,
The terror that charged forward,
Toward where he stood and held his post,
Where someone before had drawn a long line on the ground.
No one there to help, all had fled,
Intimidated by the imposing, closing threat
That was coming near.
All, but he, had run, and the time and the foe drew closer;
Making a last stand was not even on his mind,
Resisting was not a choice,
He would do what he could,
What must be done, until he could do no more.
Death took the defender that day,
But not easily.
He fought until he had no more blood to shed,
With a final gasp, onto a bloodied ground he, at last,
Fell dead.
His enemies, his foes, stood in awe,
At the red-stained, battered corpse,
With sword still in hand.
After much deliberation,
The horde decided to turn and leave.
If this one, lone sentry had courage such as this,
How much more an entire army that probably laid in wait.
Tactical retreat was the best option, and,
With that they turned about,
They left to conquer other lands.
His comrades came; took his body;
Pinned medals across his chest;
Said a few words reserved for heroes, and
Laid him to rest.
They glanced into the distant, disappearing dust and thought,
What cowards they must have been
To have let one lone soldier frighten them such
That they turned away.
There was only one, that day,
Standing alone to fill and gap the breech;
One soldier who stood the watch,
Who did not retreat.
Armies are made of
One soldier at a time.
Mar 17, 2010
Mar 17, 2010 at 1:03 PM UTC
How do I tell thee
as I stand freezing
watching waves on the sea
the wind squeezing
the breath from me.
How do I tell thee
I observe the fisherman
hauling his catch aside
getting all the fish he can
before the flow of the tide.
Well I am telling you
these fisherman young and old
watching the ebb and flow
and absolutely freezing cold.
So the next time we eat fish and chips
and that includes just me
The strength, determination and bravery
of these fisherman, they all deserve medals.
Risking life and limb so we can eat
Respect for the fisherman.
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 1:34 AM UTC
Train spotted on ancient rail tracks
Mucks and grants on submerged pasts
Copper and ***** metal poles point
Upwards in heaven above the panelled tops
Price all the intentional conditioning
A paradise of self sufficiency
A dew of ranting , the metal raiding
Price the substitutional compressions
A timber frame of tunnels
The heightened temperature
Price and tag her beautiful mind
An attachment of glorified plinth
The punch of the chaotic medals
Pride and rearrange her plentiful plight
Show all her cast frame in crimson and greys
Jun 4, 2016
Jun 4, 2016 at 8:57 AM UTC