"mortars" poems
1.
He lights another mortar
and the dog runs after it
barking and trying to bite it
he grabs it's back leg as the sky lights up
since he had barely thought to look over
and the words around here don't reach his mind
his ears defective as they are.
He says something with his hands
something foreign to me
but six people watching laugh
and so do I.
2.
His wife sits with her sons
her stomach wide with their third
another boy
she's gotten so used to talking with her hands
that her voice is rusty
and her vocabulary limited
but she's here as much as the rest
sitting and laughing and having a good time.
3.
The owner of the house sits off the side in the nicest lawn chair here
a cup in her hand
we've quit counting how many drinks she's had
but she only drinks a couple days a year
and nobody is giving her any problems
and she seems to be able to be her normal self.
She had been questioning me earlier today
seeing if I was really a good guy
testing whether she'd have to sit at the table with a shotgun
every time I spent any time with her niece.
4.
Her husband is launching his own collection of mortars off
with his brother
while her brother-in-law hands the teens the novelties
I launch off a dozen flowers
and a few spinny things.
She occasionally breaks her fingers away from mine
to launch off a flower, smokebomb or firecracker
and occasionally runs over to poke-chop her uncle
who keeps talking to the fireworks.
She always comes back and we'll wander by her mom and stepdad
(the latter always throws in some sort of comment
so we act careful around him)
and over to her cousins
or toward her aunt and roommate.
Occasionally we'll have to get something from the house
and we sneak three kisses
but we mostly just stay in each others arms
keeping each other warm in the almost warm 4th of July night
our hands both entwined
one of our heads always on the others shoulder
and in all the craziness
all the family drama
everything is perfect and she's smiling so hard her cheeks keep hurting
and she keeps telling me how little sleep she's gonna get
and I tell her I ain't gonna be able to sleep at all
Jul 7, 2013
Jul 7, 2013 at 4:21 AM UTC
I hate the beach
I'm eighty six and I hate the beach
Hate the sand, not a fan of the surf
Face it, I hate the beach
Last time I went there
I had just turned 18 years old
June sixth, Nineteen Hundred Forty Four
God, I hate the beach
I was in the 5th Regiment
Régiment de Maisonneuve
and I've never been to a beach since
I'm from Verdun, Quebec, Canada
Not many beaches around there
Thank the lord for that I say
We'd been training for six months
Operation Overlord it was called
We were coming in on troop carriers
It was to be a beach head landing
I'd never seen a beach before
At least not for real
Never want to see another
We arrived early June 6, 1944
I think I said that already
You must forgive me,
I'm 86 years old and I hate the beach
fourteen thousand Canadian Troops
Bursting out of armoured troop ships
Like, the young, virile, brahma bulls we were
Coming in, all I could hear was the waves
I was in front, well...close to the front
I remember, there were no birds
who ever heard of that?
A beach with no birds
At least not at this beach
I could smell the salt in the air
And I knew I could hear the surf
And my heart, I could **** well hear that
But, no birds, I couldn't hear the birds
Gunfire, nope...cannons and mortars
But birds and guns, not a sound
Weird huh?
I remember running forward
Always forward, past blocks
Wood barricades and barbed wire
And bodies, lots of bodies
I knew that I knew some of them
I just didn't have time to stop
And say goodbye,
I just ran
Emptied my weapon at least once
I only know this, because it was empty
when I hit the beach
God, I hate the beach
You know in the movies
or in those flowery books
where they talk about someone being shot
and how "there was a bloom or
they're chest flowered red where they were hit"
I never saw that, never looked back
Just ran forward, saw the "bloom" in their backs
Don't like red, or flowers or the beach
I don't remember much after that
Could still hear my heart
That's a good thing, I guess
I got tore up good with the wire
but I never got shot
Never, "bloomed" for anyone
A few of my buddies were lost
I toast them every year
Never at the beach though
I hate the beach
Wife and kids used to go
I never did, never will
I remember the 50th anniversary though
Wife and kids went back
Not me,
Went into Montreal to see a ball game
Montreal Expos 10, Houston Astros 5
I remember Will Cordero hitting a homer
It was the sixth inning, I toasted the hit
I thought about that day 50 years before
And went back to watching the game
I hate the beach
My name is Gilles Roquefort
I'm eight six years old
And I can still feel the sand and taste the salt
On a bad day.
Oct 31, 2012
Oct 31, 2012 at 7:06 PM UTC
Unzip,
new skin quick
neutralised Freudian slips
A spy game
so slick
well placed mortars sinking battleships
new suit
cover skin ill-suited to do business with life
find a life that suits your business
before you cover your life with a business suit.
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 1:23 AM UTC
by
rgpage
I never cried in viet nam,
I just seemed to take it in.
The missing limbs and twisted flesh
friends one day and gone the next.
Was I too young to understand?
And need someone to take my hand?
No mother there to hold my hand
no father there to teach me ways.
To lead me through the day by days.
Just left alone, and alone I stayed
Instead I found my bottle friend
to stay my tears and hide my fears.
Back then “charley” felt they owned the night.
With blusterous thud the mortars hit,
Of saying hi it was “charley’s” way
then to be my friend by day.
From no where came the dragon ship,
and tipping his left wing
as a polite executioner saluting his victim just before unleashing hell.
W/ firery tongue lapping up the earth while mini-guns
roared, eagerly devouring all living things,
leaving “charley” w/ no where to run.
All clear, a small visit w/ my bottle friend
and back to sleep in the alcohol deep.
I was no John Wayne, I didn’t fight the war
a target yes for “charley’s” sights
when the sun gave way to night.
But no, I didn’t fight.
I never cried glossary:
Charley=VC=viet cong=enemy: by day he acted like any of the population, some were even employed around the various bases. But at sundown he would turn…
Dragonship=C-47=2 or 3 several barreled mini-guns mounted on left side of the plane capable of firing a few 1000 rounds per minute each w/ a phosphorous round placed at every 6th round a tracer. At night this made it look like a steady stream of fire coming from the plane, hence the name “dragon ship” or “puff the magic dragon.” To aim the pilot had to dip his left wing and fly in a counter clock wise fashion. Very effective weapon…
Written for a special friend A.S.
Apr 26, 2013
Apr 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
You partied hard when you could
Gold mini skirt and heels
But underneath the glamour
Were guts and nerves of steel
Home was fun and jolly japes
A lively social whirl
But work was war zones, scary scrapes
For our brave reporter girl
You found yourself in Libya
Met the mad dog's stare
He liked you, it was a feather in your cap
You made your name out there
Sri Lanka's where you lost an eye
To shrapnel flying in the dark
They thought you were a Tamil Tiger
Hiding in the grass
Back home someone told you off for smoking
Quick came your reply
Don't concern yourself, I promise you
That's not how I'll die
In Chechnya you made it out
Escaping with your life
As mortars fell you legged it
Eight days over mountain snow and ice
East Timor was your finest hour
Fifteen hundred people protected by too few
You refused to leave, they were saved
That was down to you
Luck ran out in Syria
You feared another massacre, tried to warn the world
So the shells once more homed in on you
And killed our brave reporter girl
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 6:26 PM UTC
Playgrounds that double as bomb shelters.
Words of hate painted on a missile.
Freedom and peace doesn't exist when your neighbor wants to **** you...
Happiness and sadness, survival feels like madness.
The bus stop burns as you go to work and pass it.
Schools turned into a pool of blood, piled **** and rubble.
Whoever calls this the Holy Land is full of ******** and troubled.
The tears and the pain make us numb.
Begging for that bullet in the head, so it would be over and done.
There is nowhere to run, even though we are scared
Can this ever end? If we all only cared.
Freedom or fear.
FIGHT.
Fight for your life,
Hope that the children fight for all human rights.
A future without war, without bodies or burned shores.
Asking to give their lives, for a world without horror, guns and mortars.
A land without borders, prisons, our hate and our horrors.
For Love,
Eternal and forever, each day can be born.
Pray for Jerusalem,
So we can all go home.
Sep 12, 2012
Sep 12, 2012 at 1:34 AM UTC
We need to find a new space of revolution,
Beyond this place of pollution.
Democracy’s dying - the chambers of brick and bone can no longer hone the power effectively,
And besides, the mortars crumbling.
Grumbles echo between screens until the rumbles bubble then burst and tumble onto the streets,
but cries are few and weak.
The masses are meek.
‘To question the system is extreme’ media teams scream while they profit from the chaos and hide behind headlines.
The bourgeoisie sit comfortably as their bunkers are fortified,
Happy to capitalise on destruction and dramatise death.
Their crimes are discreet,
And steeped in deceit,
Yet they remain unburdened by the bodies that pile at their feet.
Why bother searching for answers when science is censored and senses are dulled?
They want us senseless,
Immune and desensitised to the countless lies and ecocide.
“Not our species, not our problem”
But it’s both and more.
Our streets,
Our future,
Our planet.
When will the lesson sink in?
When pollution is skin deep and soil bares only the spoils of war?
The climate crisis takes no prisoners, favours neither rich nor poor.
Your wealth can’t save you.
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 5:25 PM UTC
The Flak hits the wings and body of the plane
506th Easy Company
Of the 101st Airborne
The leg bag
Tore right off
They jumped lower than they should have been
Tracer bullets burning holes through the parachute
Tracers spraying around in the air
Firing in every direction
Paul "Buck" Rogers
Lands in a tree
Some worked their way down
Through a farm area
To a hedge row
Easy Company captured and destroyed
The guns at Brecourt Manor
Saving countless lives on Utah Beach
They helped to liberate the Dutch
Angels from the sky
The black and white footage is amazing
The gratitude and love the people show
To the men is wonderful
Finally free after four years
Of Occupation by the Germans
Battling from village to village
Along "Hell's Highway,"
Easy Company crossed Holland to the Rhine River
Nine men of Easy Company
Lost their lives
Battling in Holland
By the End of the Holland campaign,
Easy Company had been on the frontline
For more than 70 days
On Dec. 16, 1944
****** launched his offensive into the Ardennes
The Battle of the Bulge would become
The largest engagement
In the history
Of the U.S. Army
600,000 soldiers would fight in the battle
Easy Company was told to hold the perimeter of Bastogne
Surrounded by Germans
Branches knocked off of trees
Holes in the ground
Artillery attack
88s, mortars, rockets
They jumped into foxholes
He could see all the shells hitting from the foxhole
The wounded got relief from battle
Maybe a ticket home
If they died they were at peace
At Berchtesgaden
They uncovered artwork
In Zell Am Zee, Austria
Easy Company helped secure
The surrender of 25,000 German troops
On November 30, 1945
The 101st Airborne Division
Was inactivated
Day after Day
They fought together
Fought for each other
Knowing some would not return
This veteran said,
"I cherish the memories
Of a question my grandson asked me the other day.
'Grandpa, Were you a hero in the war?'
Grandpa said no
But I served in a company of heroes."
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 1:52 PM UTC
Somewhere,
drones are dropping mortars on top of sleeping men. All the while the trusted corrupt are telling their truths to people grabbing what's left. Snow storms and summer droughts are no longer an event. While the world is changing in ways we already predicted, we choose to focus on why we're not the bad guys in this story. All of this, reinforced by the woke who are telling me nothing really matters anymore.
But right here,
I'm sitting alone on a winter night. I look across the street to watch a scruffy tabby knock over a dusty jar left on someone's window sill. Glass shatters across the lawn held tight by a blanket of untouched snow. I watch the shards cast miniature shadows, glistening as the porch light turns on. It was only for a moment, though, before I continue my attempt at writing about the beautiful things in life. Attempting - because these days it's difficult; because it matters. It matters to me oh so much.
Feb 13, 2023
Feb 13, 2023 at 1:32 AM UTC
.. Awake oh world..awake 2015.. This is not a dream, a public announcement!!An endorsement of fiery destruction will reign upon earthly cities. A crossing of no pity. For twas predicted long ago...
Thy lands will be cleansed as snow. Howl and moan/ for trees will be scorched a twist! Thy eye sockets wilt be ripped and headache wilt be a molehill for thou!!!
Banks wilst crumble, babies shalt mumble as in Noah's day!!!what's wrong? No loving songs, to the devil you'll make a parade!!!!
Thou clown of display, skies will grey and stars shalt be fiercesome and almighty as thy green greedied dollar!!!
Here's thy collar, oh don't forget thy new world chip, for all younger days and innocence you'll wish thou couldst return!!!! Return to thy own dust oh man!!!for its lives thou took, now thy life to be given!!! No feast of thanksgiving! Can't thou read the scribes writing?
Blind thou hath been for over 2000 years, stack thy gold corrupted by moss in thy underground cellar!!!fighter, yeller!
Cop brutality shalt get much worse! Violence will between thou sister and brother! Canst thou not changeth thine own way? Mummified curse indeed! Pigfeed you've become to ones who blow the horns! Watch out/move.....don't get burned!!!!volcanic destruction will match quakes to rattle thy mortars, for climatic borders will be bound by new order charisma!!!!hope!!hope!!the crowd yells to their thorned crown king!!!2015 the year of the blood moon! The year of thine own final sting!!!!
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 8:09 PM UTC
Your voice is like sweet ether
On a ***** kitchen rag
It calms me down
It knocks me out
Knocks me up
I am pregnant with the sound
That 6 strings produce
And the beauty of your words
The fire walkers in you
Your fingers always knew
Know?
Have known?
How to pick the smiles
From my insides
Pluck the kisses from my lips
Draw the nectar
Sweetness?
Sugar?
Out
50 Ways to turn me upside down
50 ways to be knock-the-wind-out-of-me
Put-me-back-on-my-feet
Incredible
In the beginning it was dark
And you said
"Let there be colors
Let me have a guitar"
In the beginning
God colored me
Full of red blood cells
And vitriol
Carefully
Steady hands
Inside the lines
But with shaky hands
There's so many more shades
Blooming
Cascading
Lightning strikes
And this is the last time
I swear it's the last time
I will weather these storms
My daddy said there'd be boys like you
Boys who could make it rain
You know when I'm with you
I lose my mind a little
Who is this kid?
And how is he under my skin?
He's a tattoo I don't remember getting
Maybe I was drunk
Maybe I'm in love
Whatever that is.
Dog hair on duvet covers
Avocado-flavored lollipops
Antique shops
Every song about a different girl
Like 32
24
36
Bursting at the seams till I
Can't take no more
Jackie
Madeline
Taylor
Adrienne
And probably
Certainly
Girls I've never met before
What you do to me doesn't make sense
My intestines turned up at the corners
Pelvic thrusting on the couch
A little bit louder now
A little bit louder now
The mortars are screaming
Down
I'm quickly losing the war with myself
Jericho's walls
Are crumbling
And I'm told we have nothing to fear
But fear itself
Nothing to fear but ourselves
And a boy with glasses
Writing checks that I'm afraid will bounce
Singing softly to me
On the couch
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 9:36 AM UTC
Nha Trang, Vietnam, 1972
Darkened portal. Room of shadows. A haze of ***
Hard vision of *** and combat. Mixed up. Dream.
Young girl smiles outside a Nha Trang bordello.
Smile of innocence in a land of evil. Unreal.
Whose need rejects this process? Transaction of lust.
She removes her ao dai like lifting fog. Naked.
Mortars fall as we writhe. Danger is my business.
Harder and faster like a rocket barrage. Deep.
Kick of a 12 gauge pump. Flesh explosions.
****** ***** out your breath. So does this.
War and ******* Extinction and lust. The same.
****** a moment from the blood and tears.
All is burning. Cling to any possible refuge.
Bound together in this instant of life;
Completing ourselves in this world of death.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 11:11 AM UTC
At dinner, Zach asks
about our nation's history, wars.
I say We're taking on everyone, one at a time.
First Britain, then Britain again: "He was the surly English pluck, and
there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be."
Next Mexico: "Death is indifferent to what hide he tans; life crushes
men like flies."
The War Between the States: "Well done, Mr. Cromartie. Time now
for rest."
Most of Latin America: "Not only humans longed for liberation. All
ecology groaned for it too. The revolution is also one of lakes,
rivers, trees, animals."
Then Southeast Asia: "The slight bump the mortars make as they kiss
the tube goodbye. Then the furious rain, a fist driving home the
message: Boy, you don't belong here."
Now the Middle East: "A land to be admired like all lands. Harsh
mountains and deserts, indigenous plants and people, adapted
ungulates, carnivorous mammals."
Can't forget the Krauts & Nips: "Then I heard the bomber call me in:
Little Friend, Little Friend, I got two engines on fire. Can you see
me, Little Friend?"
Nor the Commies: "You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the
beginning of a new one. I put this book here for you, who once
lived, so that you should visit us no more."
The original indigenous people say: "In time we'll become prosperous,
or else we'll become martyrs. The force that placed us here cannot
be trusted."
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
The lames and children of the Lesser minds
are stirring, stirring, stirring
with paddles and ladles
with brooms and spoons
with knives and forks and slicers
with sticks and wooden mortars
with lean rods, brambles and twigs
Eagerly they stirred the cauldron
in demented exertions they huffed and puffed
Turn to the right turn to the left
one leg in and one leg out, we all turn around
we're stirring, we're stirring the *** they crowed
I looked into the ***
the *** was empty
I see nothing to stir
Nothing but hot air
nothing but hot air
What possesses lesser minds
into dances with the Gemini moons
The emperor's tailor
on yet another jape
Go on my puppets, stir that hotpot
I can sniff that delicious goulash aroma from 'where'
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 10:20 PM UTC
this place is silence
roaring silence
helicopter blades chopping through
the whine of incoming mortars
silence deafening over the
shuffle of boots kicking gravel
barely holding together the grit
that covers the ground
the grit
that covers the toyota hiluxes
the radios the windows the lights
the beds
the grit that fills our mouths
as we whisper in the dark
rustling silence as we whisper
dark secrets
movements and code names and equipment and
just how long were those explosives buried
this place is blood
a decade's worth of
my brother's blood pouring
through the wadis in the desert in the dark
ten years of my brother's blood
dripping from our fingers
every death a stain on our fingertips
as if we pulled the trigger ourselves
a millennium of blood
dried on these mountains
the geography screaming secrets of its past
begging us to go
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 8:27 PM UTC
my fingers are scarred with the snap
of war's bitter teeth; they have
sunken in and dragged, sunken in
and dragged me out until i have
touched my heart's heels to every
battlefield-- made me a canopy to
encompass every blood-embezzled
decade. i have made myself a
hideous phantasm of Vietnam,
a tattered, frayed mountain-scape of
blue-belled America, a depthless
sea in which my brothers boiled.
i still hear bombs when i walk
sometimes, in the dripping black
of the nighttime sky i see the way the
mortars ripple and burn. but i have
never found another stretched-thin
soldier, with artillery rounds cradled
in their chests like i. i have been stumbling
and crying across the earth's crust,
screaming,
DRAFT ME
FIND ME
DRAFT ME--
finally the draft plucked me up and
brought me to you.
in you i have found the brother i lost
at sea, the lover boy of 19th century,
and the one i held close to my chest in
Vietnam. let me touch my hand to
yours and remember; i know i
will feel all our old words course through me,
all our ****** teeth and
crying eyes and
all the times we touched
brought back to
this moment.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 8:57 PM UTC
Bennus crossing- by me... Awake oh world..awake 2015.. This is not a dream, a public announcement!!
An endorsement of fiery destruction will reign upon earhtly cities. A crossing of no pity. For twas predicted long ago...
Thy lands will be cleansed as snow. Howl and moan/ for trees will be scorched a twist! Thy eye sockets wilt be ripped and headache wilt be a molehill for thou!!!
Banks wilst crumble, babies shalt mumble as in Noah's day!!!what's wrong? No loving songs, to the devil you'll make a parade!!!!
You clown of display, skies will grey and stars shalt be fiercesome and almighty as thy green greedied dollar!!!
Here's thy collar, oh don't forget thy new world chip, for all younger days and innocence you'll wish thou couldst return!!!! Return to thy own dust oh man!!!for its lives thou took, now thy life to be given!!! No feast of thanksgiving! Can't thou read the scribes writing?
Blind thou hath been for over 2000 years, stack thy gold corrupted by moss in thy underground cellar!!!fighter, yeller!
Cop brutality shalt get much worse! Violence will between thou sister and brother! Can thou not changeth thine own way? Mummified curse indeed! Pigfeed you've become to ones who blow the horns! Watch out/move.....don't get burned!!!!volcanic destruction will match quakes to rattle thy mortars, for climatic borders will be bound by new order charisma!!!!hope!!hope!!the crowd yells to their thorned crown king!!!2015 the year of the blood moon! The year of thine own final sting!
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 10:11 AM UTC
My darling please don't whisper
I don't want to miss a line
But this vet is hard at hearing
Been blown up to many times
Please watch what you put on for us
My flashbacks aren't a good thing
One sound just one round
The memorial of emotions they can bring
I fired for you
See I didn't leave it all with the service
I still carry weight in my shoulders
Yes I made it back, but not the same
Somethings they knew but hadnt told us
I was forced to draw scars
On the skin of men with bravery not unlike my own
taught to fight, ammo with ammo
To stand for their people, fight for their homes
I fired for you
So forgive me if I shiver when you hold me
I'm told comfort always comes before the storm
I've lost so many friends to complacency
When death came knocking at the door
Many times disguised in the body of a young man
He only just learned to tie his shoes
And now he's killing in this waste land
A bullet aimed with intentions, I fired for you
A good soldier doesn't ask questions
Without a pause He follows orders
He does not sleep on beds of pillows
He rests his head on enemy mortars
You remember a man with hazel eyes
This soldiers pupils stained in crimson
I could tell you tales of freedom given
At the price of lives lost if you would listen
I fired for you
So no I'm not the same
As when I left so many months ago
I run from times of commitment
Find familiarity on beds of broken bones
I run from the unfamiliar feeling of my own home
How could this be where I am
Your kiss so close to mine
There was a day, id contemplate
How I could ever reach it in a lifetime
I fired to get back to you
I forgot how to be a lover
while I was out there fighting
A light lit for love long ago
Blew out with battle, its not shining
But I'm trying
To taste the fruits of my sacrifice
To enjoy
Cause I still have a life
I fired so I could come back to you
But the cries of my fallen brothers
Haunt even my day dreams
I find no comfort
In the illumination day brings
Its you that saves me
That gives me an inch of hope
To stow my heart on
In a river of regrets that runs a mile long
I fired for you
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
Legs rusting in cement
re-barb poles of anchoring
but no foundation suffice
for the feelings of neglect in childhood
the bricks arise
the mortars set
but in a misshapen pattern of mangled misanthropy
and charred remains of humanity
a family is for one thing,
comfort in an odd place.
holding to conformity,
telling you who you are, when you are not.
when it all goes awry, the suns still in your eyes,
eyelashes cant curl enough to make you pretty in asides,
poems monologues that you speak don’t take time to preach,
pain and hiding that you try to flee from during human touch or human speech.
I cannot handle myself much less others.
I cannot speak with anyone so I have to speak with you.
Or I have to hold back a heart mired in loving glue.
horses died to allow me to roam, trees die still to make my home.
I still cant fashion pictures true of a family of five with six that are real
alive alive
I jig and strive to dance away my hate for life
it waltz's its way upon my ears and kills my familiarity fear
I want life in its sake
I want death timely
we all want things that just feel right,
feel just fair.
I want Disney land to not hurt when I get to the entrance
because it all turns out right
suburbia is not a Moasist country frilled with soulless black eyes
no sparkles.
all the glitter is very much silver and also the gold of the joys of souls
the way I feel is that if these wrought iron fencing’s could help to divide me any more
I could be one with them. Solitary atom.
They could be my home. They could coincide with differential turnings in my brain and eventually destruct me into molecules that would inherently be of their own. Be singular
but in the current state of matters.
I must depend upon all matter to be the one thing that holds me together
what life is this?
this makes me brittle
makes me short
controls me into any contortion that is to them beautiful
for now
I must be beautiful.
**** that.
To contort and retort, when we only wish to wobble and pulse with Brownian motion. My own happiness should not derive from people; I wish to not be near nor around in any small sequence,
they are merely dead to me.
Non-animate.
this is the platonic family we create.
This is life that we see from dead, dank, and sorrowful eyes.
Pity.
Forced.
Relations.
Consummate. Indelibly.
You people should be ashamed of yourselves for forcing love. By any means.
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 11:33 PM UTC
What Will It Take
By Song Bird
(Verse 1) How many must we refuse and deny
Before you and I realize our shame
How many eyes gotta cry in vain
Before we take away their pain
How many lives must we claim
Before we decide to make a change
So what will it take for us
To put down our arms
And make our stand
Stop bringing harm
To our fellow man
(Chorus) What will it take to make a stand
What will it take to take someone’s hand
What will it take to make our stance
What will it take to take a chance
What will it take to say we have had enough
What will it take to give away our love
What will it take
(Verse 2) Because of the way we disregard
And close our doors and our hearts to others
There are those sleeping on cardboard
On concrete floors, who are our brothers
And our sisters, who can’t afford to eat
Or have the clothing to stay warm
Have no shoes for their feet
And are left tattered and torn
No homes just the streets they roam
So don’t talk change, because talk is cheap
If you and I ain’t gonna make a change
(Chorus repeats 1)
(Verse 3) Because of the way we disregard,
Soldiers bombard poor countries
With mortars, while children starve
Go hungry and get our cold shoulder
As our wars pillage and burn their village
Turn their underprivileged places
Into our coliseums, giving them no relief
Just sad faces that have seen too much carnage
Strife and defeat as we take away their very freedoms
And tarnish their dreams, so don’t talk change
Because talk is cheap, if you and I ain’t gonna make a change
(Chorus repeats 1)
(Verse 4) Because of the way we disregard
Our earth is scarred by our many demands
Left hurt and discarded by our own hands
As we disgorge our resources
Leaving our shores and sky to surely weep
Our rainforests torched, our lands scorched
Our oceans, rivers and seas are forced to bleed
Nowhere for you or me to retreat
So don’t talk change, because talk is cheap
If you and I ain’t gonna make a change
(Chorus repeats 2)
(Outro) Isn’t it time we become the prayer
Show the world that we care
Loving we can spare, loving we can share
So help the ones who are in despair
What will it take for you to be there?
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 4:20 PM UTC
I am 20 1st Avenue
Just as I am also St. Albans Drive
Old Stamford Road
Whitney Avenue
and a little Albermarle
But 20 1st Avenue is where I learned
How to make snow forts, big ones
and pillow forts that filled a living room
It's where I saw that if you plant a little tree
and hang around long enough
that you will have a great big tree
that drops black walnuts
So that you can caution your kids kids
that the walnuts can turn your skin black if you're not careful
It's where I learned what a Woolworths was
and that they sold plastic army men
with mortars, radios and M16s
by the bag for a dollar
nobody wanted the mortar or radio guy
Its where I learned what a honest to God toy store was
and because of that,
who Mr. Potato Head was.
It's where I learned about nuts
still in shells
and how to open them
with a crank nutcracker
or a little hammer
and how to get the meat out
with a lobster pick.
But most of all I learned
what a grandma was
that old people could be great fun
that they knew cool stuff
that they might allow you to do things your parents wouldn't
and that they could keep secrets
then finally
that they weren't forever
but their shadows in your life
were.
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 8:32 AM UTC
as the women grind grain in their mortars
i kneel nearby.
watching them scrub the grain sand smooth
my organs feel too hot
burning hot
so hot and it hurts and
i want to perform harikari
just to let out the heat
just a quick slice across my belly
just to cool off my steaming intestines
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 10:58 AM UTC
Check every treeline,
the enemy lurks there.
Get used to people acting
like you are tainted.
Scan the rooftops when you walk;
examine the bushes.
When entering a public space,
look for an alternative exit.
Notice every face you see;
especially children, you never know.
Self-medicate. Whatever it takes.
Whiskey for breakfast, speed for lunch,
****** for dinner. **** their opinions.
Spend endless hours talking
with clueless shrinks and doctors.
Spin violently when anyone
taps you on the shoulder.
Strain your ears for the sound
of long silent mortars.
Never sit with your back to a door.
Remember Wild Bill.
Keep a weapon nearby when you sleep,
if you do.
Cringe like a beaten dog
at every loud noise.
Worry about everything because
you know the world wants to **** you,
because you know what expendable means.
Repeat all of this and more for 45 years
until your brain feels
like sloppy scrambled eggs.
And, of course,
don't forget to love your country.
~mce
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 1:00 PM UTC
The World looks different at 60 feet,
standing on the Huey skids, gritting my teeth.
Birds coming in fast and smoke rising slow,
drop into the tall grass not knowing which way to go.
Ears trying to hear and eyes not believing,
mortars and ****** men screaming and bleeding.
Yes the World looks different at 60 feet,
now hovering above me where I'd rather be.
It's been years now , the sights and sounds have gone to fade,
still look to the skies when I hear those blades.
Men faced walls of steel in that tall ****** grass,
at 60 feet my Brothers I raise this glass.
Gone but not forgotten.
Feb 3, 2011
Feb 3, 2011 at 12:12 PM UTC