"missouri" poems
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added
my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
132k
Last week, among friends black and white,
among some discussion of protests in Ferguson
and the related looting of stores, I invoked
the word. It was an admission, in a round
of confessions, of something about myself
that I didn't like: that I had perceived Michael Brown
in that way based on his possible participation
in a strong-armed robbery.
When Travon Martin was in the news,
I was inflamed like many others who wanted
George Zimmerman in jail for ******
The outcome of that trial was an injustice,
I was utterly certain. Why does this case
in Missouri feel different? More importantly,
Who is inside me that still wants to rise
in defiance of 48 years of learning how
to be a better person, a person without prejudices,
stereotyping, labeling of others, hurtful language?
Where is the hippie girl now? How does she live
with this other person? Am I Sterling, Gibson,
a hater and spewer of viciousness, a lover
of separation and separateness, that I should
invite damage to my own relationships
with those I love and cherish and respect?
What is a **** but a bully, and what is a bully
but someone who pushes words around like
weapons, spits them out indiscriminately,
so that they land on the already bruised heart
and set it on fire.
Whose heart, besides mine, now sits in smoke
and ash, with that word like a brand
still sore and permanent, having been spoken
aloud?
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
An Oklahoma politician
wants to outlaw hoodies
in the hood
It's true, it must be
I read it in Fox News :)
I'd sooner be in Missouri or Cleveland
or New York City where you don't have to
wear a hoody or raise your hands to get shot
There are other things more pressing
than hoodies in the hood
that don't need ironing
like hoods in suits
and the elephant in the room
that needs shooting.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 10:11 AM 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
Write these words on empty stomach
unasked, I spilled my guts.
You said, "My life's a joke
and every choice a punchline."
You just wrote my prologue and the afterword
is dangling off my lips, now;
on the tips of tongues.
Steel night skies thrum and echo
when the bells are struck.
Goose Creek pays tribute to the wide Missouri.
I can't offer much--
clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Fling some words at empty wall space
from corners, room warms up
My reddened face obscured
behind two frost-fogged lenses
Guess I penned the punchline. Now my line-worn face
is crinkled up and frozen didn't get the joke
Tried to make a map out of the
words we spoke.
These streams pay tribute to a sea of memories
Now you don't say much
"Good luck," and "Stay in touch."
Clenched hands and mouth clamped shut.
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
Luna Tickle eats only pickles and ***** up all the brine
When her brother tells their mother she begins to whine:
“Yes I did it! And left no tidbit
Is that such a crime? My brother smells and raises hell
And leaves the loo full of slime.”
Now their mother dear began to fear her children were obstructions
Never listening, since their christening, and wished for their abduction
So she planned a slaughter and called her daughter
Outside to the woodshed, then chopped her neck in two
She put Luna’s head in her brother’s bed and said,
“Now, they’ll be no more Boo-Hoos”
Now you know of Luna and her tragic ending
But there’s more to this rhyme that’s pending
For the Tickle name is quite insane
And was never worth defending
But that’s just what her brother did
When Mrs. Tickle met Judge Knuckle
And almost flipped her lid
Screaming:
“I never liked that kid from the day she began to suckle!
Why she couldn’t be more like me, or her lovely sister Tess”
Twas all Mrs. Tickle could confess that day to Judge and jury
Until brother **** chimed-in and confessed his sin
And did so in such a fury, it was heard throughout and within
The entire state of Missouri:
“I am Richard Tickle and do confess I am not fickle
In fact I am quite pugnacious
If you do not see the circumstances like me
I’ll be forced to be disputatious”
Interjects Judge Knuckle:
“Boy, I’ll have you buckled this instance to electric chair
If you’re not scared I’ll be splitting hairs
In a place where the sun does not shine
So if you care, you’d best beware
Or your Gherkin will be in a brine”
Now Tess screamed out and her mother did shout
In perfect unison:
**** is my love and none the likes of any other hooligan”
At this there was a scuffle
Each dame was muffed and ruffled
They could not contain
All their angst and their pain
And it led to the ugliest tussle
For each thought ****
Was devoted to she
And apparently, this could not be
As we know of the trouble with Luna
So the jury was not out
Or even in doubt
Of these sinister makings and troubles
It was the sickest of affairs
Mass-producing glaring stares
From everyone within the court
Missouri Gazette’s headlines that day
Told of how they did slay
And burn the Tickle chalet
Leaving it in incestuous rubble
The lesson today to this horrific ballet
Is don’t live your life in a bubble
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 6:39 PM UTC
America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum
Poet/Actor
You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?
Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?
Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?
Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.
[topp]
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 6:11 AM UTC
I crawled into your back pocket quietly and folded myself up small, like the smoke from the cigarettes you always lit but never smoked.
I bumped into your last name everywhere because I may have managed to escape the slum but we all crawl back to where our hearts first beat.
You escaped with a lens in your fist and roads I will never drive down, buried deep in your feet.
I sat on your shoulders and kept quiet. I watched every girl you fell in love with and I felt burns on my hands every time one pushed your hair back out from your eyes.
The girl from Missouri with the long brown hair counted 49 freckles but I knew about the 2 that were kept hidden under your knees and I scolded every girl who thought they loved you like I did.
I sleep with bones who cry out for my touch but sometimes they whisper for a girl whose name is different from my own. Her name tastes like sewage in the back of my throat.
I know love because I curled his hair around my finger. And I know that someday my children with have a head full of it.
But when you taught me love it was filled with new beginnings. But you went too far and I waved you off and sat back in the dust I had come from and told myself I was better off and you were crazy.
You traveled through towns I may never know and shook hands with people I will never see. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if we kept holding hands. Mine got sweaty and your long legs moved too fast. My heart became heavy and held me down. You
Sometimes I sleep across your room on the old blue chair with my back towards you. Sometimes I hear you whisper my name and I know you still feel my hands slipping up your shirt and drawing constellations of how our future should have mapped out between freckles and old acne scars.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 9:37 PM UTC
When I was just a boy
I had this dream of aliens and green things
My mother wasn't home
She had to work so my sisters and I could eat
She hired a babysitter
In her teens
She was mean and
My, My, My Ba- Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba- Babysitter ***** me
She bit me on the ear
She licked me oh so dear
But, she ***** me
And then my mother beat me
And then I grew too big. see?
I lived inside a bubble of my dreams
And then I learned of airplanes
bllsht!, With their war games
That's when I took the only way to see
and that was
My, My, My, Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My, Ba-Babysitter ***** me
She took me to the sea
Left me with broken dreams
'Cause she ***** me
and that's not funny
My babysitter ***** me
And now I've learned to live with broken bones
My babysitter ***** me
I've been the king, I was the pawn, I'm clean
When my big sister teased me
It could have been a daydream
But what I know, life's been mean to me
and I'm tellin' ya
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
She bit me in the ear
She licked me oh so dear
And she ***** me
I told my mommy Dee
About her new employee
That babysitter worked this week for free
She took off to Missouri
Forgot to say goodbye to me
She can live there
I can live with me
but I don't know why
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
My, My, My Ba-Babysitter ***** me
Why oh why oh me
Spank me spank me please
'Cause my babysitter ***** me
ooooooooh she ***** me
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 9:48 AM UTC
The rear axles hold the kick of twenty Missouri *********
It is in the records of the patent office and the ads there is twenty horse power pull here.
The farm boy says hello to you instead of twenty mules-he sings to you instead of ten span of mules.
A bucket of oil and a can of grease is your hay and oats.
Rain proof and fool proof they stable you anywhere in the fields with the stars for a roof.
I carve a team of long ear mules on the steering wheel-it's good-by now to leather reins and the songs of the old mule skinners.
3k
I called to give you a rearrangement of irony and a bucket full of Jews, I tailor made a rebreather because the past connections were used . Indeed, just like a crossview that encouraged stars to collapse, then did a fix up for the X's and O's so every oxymoron followed with a laugh. A pail of shrubs, an ounce of yore, yesterday you were following your very own bated breath. Up until you challenged yourself to a duel, you didn't look so bad for a disastrous mess. Harms' Way could be the place in town where odds go to get even, or it could be the street where Blow-Pops aren't just made, but also handed out to toothless citizens. We the captured, please and thank you, sir and mam until our captors go, like if you imagine The Godfather in The Graduate, describing how the Komodo dragon roasts. We haven't made it thru a single day since they've come in packs of seven, but today we'll have the chance to share some face time with the hours that we are being given.
Misty-eyed, mournful, and very sorry walked in separately from the yard. They drank cold-filtered PBR and joked about all the kids they may have fathered. Has it been four weeks or just four days, since the Ferguson, Missouri Captain resigned his post? I was always taught that for a captain to go out, he or she must go down with their boat.
In time where boredom lays around with dynamite by the loads, tomorrow remind me of the basorexia I've had since we met not long ago.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 2:39 AM UTC
You’re basic,
a lengthy silhouette
miming the human experience.
Staying up late
to blind yourself,
blinking to the sounds of sleepiness
heart beating to Skinny Love.
What ifs,
pre-recorded scenarios
imagining that first hug.
Contemplate that bottle of pills by the sink
that new film that you want to see,
condensation in the lid of the teapot.
You’re candid,
unsure if all scabs heal
trying to remember when you didn't have a writing callus,
when you slept through the night,
when purple was the only colour you didn't use.
Purify infectious matter,
***** green-blue wine glasses overflowing.
Tinfoil vases and orchid flowers,
melting boxes of 64 assorted crayons.
You’re laconic,
often dying to create,
like the verbose and the wordy
sighing simply to translate.
Missouri gift exchanges,
loose blue jeans ******
stacks of classics.
Tales of the Jazz Age wrinkling
to a slow 50s song.
You’re a try hard
dying to knit,
only true fear is disappointment
burning in the lime light.
6000 voluntary hours
linking syllables to daisy chains,
dropping pesos to foreigners,
hands sandwiched inside
the front cover and the first page
of The Count of Monte Cristo.
You’re basic,
down for maintenance,
compressing the weight of the atmosphere.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 11:35 PM UTC
When are citrus the sweetest?
It's when they receive bright light,
Coming from Mary Anne's heart,
To make their sweetness just right.
Florida's groves are waiting,
For visits from Mary Anne.
They need her heart's bright sunshine,
To shine as bright as it can.
When Mary Anne takes visits,
Her, everyone wants to meet,
Because she's kind and caring,
With a loving heart so sweet.
She likes it in Missouri.
That's where her family lives.
A kind and caring howdy,
To people she meets she gives.
Should she go to Florida,
Many things she would visit.
She surely would be noticed,
With her smiles so brightly lit.
Florida wants her visits,
So it will pay her way down.
As the Florida Orange Queen,
Some year her, one, it will crown.
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 10:57 PM UTC
The Isle of Print
What a place it can take you anyplace you can meet anyone I met Sandra Locke when she wrote about
Her relationship then her break up with Clint she told about as a child how she sold pop bottles at a
General store that was one that took me back but even more exciting was where she was at a place
Called Shelbyville Tennessee I know it firsthand one reason it is seventy miles from Nashville and is the
Tennessee walking horse capital and all so my wife was born and raised there until she was six we would
Take trips there quiet often until two trips we carried her parents to the family cemetery on horse
Mountain we have my wife’s brother fighting Leukemia he said thats where he wants to be buried but for
Now God’s mercy is preventing that I met a guy and I’m sure you have met him many times also his
Name is Samuel Clemens he got a little more famous name when he had one of his many jobs as a Mississippi
River boat captain they called him just like when they measured the rivers depth mark twain he was a
News paper editor in Calaveras County he brought a simple frog leaping contest national notoriety for
Ever after known as the Calaveras bull frog jumping contest I bought three acres for retirement
Unfortunately I made like a bull frog and jumped off the property I drove a truck several times into
Hannibal Missouri you got a quick leap in your heart and head as you thought about the great river
Running by and all of the characters Twain created two losses are recorded there of course twain met
A fiery personage that was even greater than him a space traveler with a glory all together wondrous went by
The name of Haley the other less known but my heart slows when I think of her eight years old blond
Blue eyed her father’s and mother’s pride and joy he was a pastor in northern Illinois she lays in her
Sacred rest in Hannibal until that great waking up day as time goes on I get less and less patient if it
Weren’t for so many precious ones in danger I would be tempted to pray come Lord Jesus. Well not done
By any means just going to stop for now plan on going and doing some hard thinking
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 6:27 PM UTC
Gonna take my dial from five-fifty
to a hundred and eight miles an hour
The radio surfer
radio radio
radio surfer
radio radio
radio surfer
radio radio
radio surfer
radio radio
radio surfer
radio radio
radio surfer
radio radio
Gonna move my dial on the radio
Surf it
See what pleasures I can find
Surf it
Look for something on the radio
Surf it
It's always changing all the time
A middle-aged man with a radio
Can feel like a kid sometimes
Bringing back memories of when I was a kid
Staying up late to get more stations
I could listen to baseball from Missouri
Or alien stories from K L Kooky
It made me feel "what a great nation"
An idea improved by innovation
I can move my dial anywhere I want
Go up or down for a different spot
Maybe tune in to a song or two
And then sports or news, or baby you choose
Or a Spanish station that rocks the nation
With the craziest sounds that cause vibrations
Could be variety or a southern country jamboree
AM or FM, to me it's all heaven
Just to be surfin' the stations I'm searchin'
Cruising for blues or a song that is new
Maybe I'll search for religion or something
Or talk to a sports nut who's a news ******
I can go classic or talk of the town
Listen to jazz or the new rap in town
All kinds of rock, RB, rhythm and blues
Maybe the standards, pop, just what is new
Anytime, anywhere, anyway too
That's what I like about radio, you
Radio surfer
surfer surfer
Radio surfer
surfer surfer
Radio surfer
surfer surfer
Radio surfer
surfer surfer
Radio surfer
surfer surfer
Radio surfer now!
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 12:28 PM UTC
RED barns and red heifers spot the green
grass circles around Omaha-the farmers
haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese.
Shale hogbacks across the river at Council
Bluffs-and shanties hang by an eyelash to
the hill slants back around Omaha.
A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a ***** face.
Omaha works to get the world a breakfast.
2.2k
you ask me what it's like to be black
and i'll tell you it's a warm soulful fulfilling feeling
like a pair of new Chucks on the hot pavement jumping scotch on a busy summer day
eating cool iced pops and not ever being afraid
and smelling the warm carmel cake cooling on the stove
and the togetherness on a Sunday evening in grandmama's home
but you ask me what it's like to be black
in america
and i'll fall silent of conversation
because as you see history repeats itself
i don't understand why there is still need for explanation
in deep adversaries and hateful unappreciation
here we stand to be questioned by an authoritative negation
and ignorant folk,
why do you ask me such things?
why are you people mad?
why is it about race?
and i'll ask you, why does the caged bird sing?
is he not entitled to his song or his wings?
as green as the earth and as blue as the sky
i will only explain to an ear willing to listen
to a being with a sound heart and a firm mind
because as God as my witness we were created as equal
and for that given right we must die?
i will sit back and in turn ask you why;
i bet you couldn't say
and maybe we will all learn the answer some day
so join me in prayer will you?
join me as i pray:
*to the children of Chicago
who can't go out to play
to the sons and fathers of
Missouri and Florida and New York
who will never again see the light of day
to the mother's pain that may fade
but won't ever go away
to the hateful people and their hateful words and their hateful ways
God won't You heal their pain?*
they're so hard on us, Lord
now we're hard on ourselves
and on our knees we have fallen
needing guidance and help
because it isn't about being privilged
or living for the light we're consumed in
being black in america is no longer about being accepted as black
it's about being accepted as human.
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
“Words are beautiful, but emotion is divine” (patty m)
~these are the divine words of a beautiful soul, patty m~
this Missouri grandmother writes and I am willfully, duty-bound,
to comply for she commissions a poem with every insightful pithy and
ever one of her dear hugs, of which these is no limit and each one a treasure of a gratitude that flows contra-directionally, surpassing given-grace and lawful gravity, for all of her words flow simultaneously north and south, heavenwards, and earth planted, east / west, magnetic poles attracting divinity wherever it can be found
and all I can do is proffer
just one more only love poem, which is the blessing and the curse the lord blessed me with, love is beautiful and it is divinely originated in each of our humble hearts, plucked from trees and fed to us wherever fruit of the fields grows, shaped like sweet and **** berries…not all that is divine, of necessity to be beautiful, words, them too, a mixed blessing, vulnerable and subject by the abuse of human weakness and fragility…but this much I assure myself with confidence,
and you too,
her words, well,
limitless, her every poem is hand woven, unhid, in the fooling
plain earthenware that the potter’s wheel created,
all gifts to each of us;
*But my fragility mandates I speak slow and hesitantly of things beautiful that contain the white glow sparkler light of divinity, for I have attracted and deserved many failures, far greater than the rarer success, so my knowledge yet oft suspect, is mostly merely well imagined but know this:
her skill,
her expertise
her intimate comprehension
within the beautiful and divine expressions of her kind appreciation she deigns to share…words like a mighty, beautiful like a powerful Missouri river, driven by all specie of love…but none more powerful, more divine than that of a loving womanly grandmother*
this, yes, only a love poem to be sure,
for the beautiful,
The Divine Miss (Patty) M.
Jul 24, 2023
Jul 24, 2023 at 5:44 PM UTC
A continent's scout
That once touched Pacific sands,
Has on the Natchez Trace
Taken his life at Grinder's Stand.
Such the news the Chickasaw
Agent bore
Telling President Jefferson
The great scout Meriwether Lewis
Is no more.
Five years prior, you were commissioned
To a quest,
Mr. Jefferson sending you forth
To explore the core of a new nation's
Enigmatic west.
The Mandan's song still warbles
In your ears,
While the mighty Missouri's current
Still rushes through your tears.
And now, on a porch of a tavern
In west Tennessee,
You look back in that direction
That has ever seduced thee--
You cannot seem to shake him--
That black dog of lassitude--
That murderous hell-hound what has
Shadowed you across majestic
American longitudes.
His image is there, in the polish
Of your piece
With every throb of your head
His moan ebbs at your peace.
During the journey, Clark was always
There to help stay the hound...
Knew how to handle him,
Knew how to keep him bound.
Perhaps that is why you are looking west
This time around.
Not for something new,
That, you have found.
No, you are simply looking yonder for
Someone to **** this **** hound.
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 11:28 PM UTC
I'm baking a cake
For the Land of Enchantment
(It's red velvet
like the plans in my head)
And I'm packing my bags
A year early and
I'm looking at houses
On craigslist
That can only be reached by ATV
And
JESUS H CHRIST
I am done with Missouri!
I am done with this humidity!
I could cut this day
Like margarine
I could cut this day
Like high school chemistry
I could die laughing
At what I'm doing with my life
JESUS H CHRIST
I mean
I'm so ******* sick
Of looking at brick
Buildings and Cards fans all day
And no one ever says hi
No one asks me to dance
JESUS H CHRIST
I'm not a *****
And I don't need flowers
I need cow skulls
I need mountains
I need to see stars
When I look up at night
The ******* stars!
CHRIST
What shines in Missouri
Is streetlights
Stadium lights
Arch lights
**** the Arch.
I am on the next train
To Santa Fe
May 17, 2013
May 17, 2013 at 6:11 PM UTC
I
The road flies past underneath the tires of the car
and there's a hazy blur as the trees fly by
as fast as the regrets flitting across her mind
like so many white lines falling beneath the left wheels
She's never been to Chicago alone before
Yet she's felt alone in so many places
It was time for a new environment and new faces
and to drink greedily from Illinois skies
She plans to drink more air than alcohol for once
To be drunken in lust or contentment at a push
To feel and experience fully without substance
To be intoxicated on some profound emotion
She pulls up to the curb and kills the engine
so that time ceases to exist
Heart pounding, mouth dry, she steps onto the hot pavement
Every movement magnified in a Midwest summer meeting
Her ankles wobble over 3-inch heels with each step
stumbling like so many times before, but different this time
She takes a deep breath of her new-found independence
and takes the first steps into the welcoming light of the sun
II
It's funny how philosophical eyes can interpret the mundane
Every step an existential crisis under the surface
But even so, the days continue to come and go
as sure as the sun, blocked by clouds occasionally, but still there
like figures in the city, obscured by passing buses
You slash tires and try to blow the clouds away
because even big bad wolves run out of breath
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
i am an ashamed american. this
is supposed to be the land of the free.
please. tell me what is free about ferguson,
missouri. is freedom enlisting three
policemen for an armed white protest and
hundreds of riot police for a peaceful
colored one? please. tell me what is free?
why is racism a 21st century problem?
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 9:55 PM UTC
On Christmas Day we wake up
We've no stocking on our bed
We've got a plastic kit box
taking up space there instead
You see, we aren't at home with you
Even though you wish we are
We're celebrating Christmas
Over here in Khandahar
A big Merry Christmas to friends and family
of Cpl. Mike Cannandale of St. Louis, Missouri, USA
We have our turkey dinner too
Stuffing, taters, pumpkin pie
We all sit here telling stories
And it's hard just not to cry
so, we do, because we're not back home
Having Christmas like you all
But, we're over here in Khandahar
Because we all answered the call
Merry Christmas to all friends and family of Liuetenant James Mc Caskill
of Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England
We have a snowman by our tent
He's made of plywood, painted white
Thank god, we made no snowballs up
We'd get splinters in a fight
We go to church and pray for peace
And wish we could go home
But, over here at Christmas time
There's just no where to roam
Merry Christmas to friends and family of
Captiain John Watson, PPCLI, in Greenwood, Nova Scotia, Canada
We made our videos last week
To send you our best wishes
We'd all love to be back with you
Washing up those Christmas dishes
For now, we are one family
Joined in heart, and soul and mind
Having a Christmas meal in Khandahar
The best meal of it's kind
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to friends
and family, of Marine Master Sgt. Tim Wilcox, Plano, Texas, USA
Next year we will be home with you
Having Christmas as we should
Praying for peace, hope and prosperity
And all things that are good
for now though, we are over here
missing you this Christmas Day
We just hope you're thinking of us
As we keep the foe at bay
Merry Christmas to all the friends, family, co-workers and supporters
of all the soldiers in War Zones everywhere, who can't be at home this Christmas
May they all get home safe.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Dec 12, 2012
Dec 12, 2012 at 7:34 PM UTC