"washingtons" poems
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the George Washingtons
of my generation.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the Thomas Jeffersons
and the
Benjamin Franklins who
aren't afraid to dream of
words that haven't been
created
and things that have
yet to be
designed.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the
Revolutionaries who
have yet to be
born.
For the Paul Reveres
who have yet
to take their midnight
rides
one if by land,
two if by sea.
one if by land,
two if by sea.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the
modern day
Lewis and Clarks who
explored a land beyond
exploration's eye.
For the Sacagawea guides that
guide from a shining sea
to a sea of gold.
For the immigrants who
traversed waters of salty tears
made solely of their own fears.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the slaves held captive
not by their captors,
but by their own fears,
hopes,
desires
and dreams.
Afraid to pursue a land
just slightly beyond their own
R e a c h.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the conductors of the railroad
that was unseen.
The one that ran not on
coal and steam,
but the one that
ran on
Dreams.
I wanta write a poem for the ages,
for the Teddy Roosevelt
conservationists
and the Stravinsky
concert pianists
and the Maya Angelou
performers,
and the,
people.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the soldiers battling
for a cause they didn't
even start.
For the lives that gave their
lives for a cause,
because they believed in
The cause.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the Daddy who's still
looking for work,
For the Mommy who has
given up
Hope.
For the widow and
her orphan,
For the soup kitchens
that can't
stay open long enough.
For the failing
Economy.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the mustached
man in Germany
rising to a power
ever Grand.
For the nations willing to
ignore it if they can.
For the day that everything
changed.
December 7th, 1941
will forever live
in infamy.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
For the unconquered Jews who
fought back.
For Anne Frank and her
family.
I wanta write a poem for the ages
For the modern day
Martin Luther King
Jr.'s.
For the ones
who
Aren't afraid to challenge a
System designed to
fight against them.
For the
modern day
Claudette Colvins.
The ones who
aren't afraid to sit down
to make a stand.
I wanta write poem for the ages
For the modern day
Buzz Aldrins
who are
altogether underrated
Just
because they came in
Second.
I wanta write a poem for the ages.
A poem that speaks louder
than words
and goes beyond
generations.
So I wrote a poem for the ages.
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 2:06 AM UTC
In place of calm, read stirring ocean,
Scylla and Charybdis,
between a rock and a hard place.
In place of comfort, read your body,
transient, missing, on a plane somewhere
in a car somewhere on a boat somewhere
without your phone somewhere
somewhere somewhere somewhere
that is not my apartment or my arms
but somewhere where you smile.
Somewhere where your eyes
finally focus.
In place of sleep, read blood between the floorboards
and moving boxes scattered,
read burst capillaries and a savings jar
full of Washingtons and no idea
what I’m saving for.
In place of stasis, read
one fast move or I’m gone.
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
I know what it feels like
To be isolated
stranded on an island
in a sea of meaningful conversation
so remote you need binoculars
to find people holding hands
thats not us today
not you second mom
not me failing educator
but us
jovial and talkative
skipping down mainstreet
stopping in pocket parks
to plan our towns future
i want to take you somewhere
that place that we used to go
well not together
that breakfast place
's been around for a half century
well
its not there any more
its a bar now
look ill buy you a shiner
and you just sit there
look pretty
and write on this dollar
and thats what she wrote
"b [star] [heart]"
with the shapes there instead
just over washingtons face
and i made for it a frame
just in the corners
and the new bartender
stapled it right in plain view
above the ***** section
down at the end
where the old men talk about
the ways that it hasnt
or never will
work out for them
you embody their silent shrine now
you are reigning over the space
where they come to be lonely
but talkative though
the place where they come
to find people with whom to hold hands
to skip down main street
to stop in pocket parks
and talk about the way
things need to be changed
and how [we] can change them
Apr 7, 2013
Apr 7, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC
Gall, dad
If I had my way with money
I would make something out of it
A house of credit cards
Write my poems on all that paper with no true value
I mean
You trade your thoughts for George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns
Well
I keep mine
To help make more
People
Like the ones on our currency, but currently
I don't think you understand where I'm coming from
And as I sit here
Tapping away with my thumbs on an electronic device that you thought made up for my childhood
I wonder
What did you trade for me?
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 3:40 PM UTC
This might be the Real
Transmission Mechanism
The niggerly water
lubricating a Trickle
Down
Greens in Rich hand
gets miserly saved
Yet earned on Poor back
miraculously makes it Rain
Washingtons fall
a few Jacksons scorch
land in lap
Even a Benjamin
swallows Trick Dollar
to **** a positive cash
flow
Bills stick on teats
just enough to buy
a comfort Doritos
bag a Brand name
snack for her little boy
So he'll grow up knowing
What value-added Marketing
taste like.
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019 at 10:56 AM UTC
Where’s your soul dear actress?
Is it drifting on the paper cranes
made from spent Washingtons?
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
i was never a daisy.
i dislike the term "dainty"
and i'm tainted with dark and broken beauty.
instead of absorbing water i leak it
my knees go weak when my freakish mind is left behind
see my blue iris eyes don't always symbolize
faith and hope
like the iris flowers do
peonies can live through winters and bloom in the spring
but that's not really my thing and
january days can make me wither away under skies of gray
oh those nights oh those nights
i'll slay my own brain one of these
roses have thorns,
thorns have roses
but i wouldn't buy a bouquet of me
for fifty george washingtons
in this garden
held in by a white picket fence
you won't find me,
i promise.
tiger lilies have spots
on fiery orange petals
that grow wildly
not mildly
i was never a daisy.
or an iris rose peony
right now
i'm a tiger lily
because i'm inventing myself again.
but being a princess in neverland
means i never have to change again
so sleep tight, i just might have found me.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 12:31 PM UTC
Sestina From The Home Gardener
These dried-out paint brushes which fell from my lips have been removed
with your departure; they are such minute losses
compared with the light bulb gone from my brain, the sections
of chicken wire from my liver, the precise
silver hammers in my ankles, which delicately banged and pointed
magnetically to you. Love has become unfamiliar
and plenty of time to tend the paint brushes now. Once unfamiliar
with my processes. Once removed
from that sizzling sun, the ego, to burn my poet shadow to the wall, I pointed,
I suppose, only to your own losses,
which made you hate that 200 pound fish called marriage. Precise-
ly, I hate my life, hate its freedom, hate the sections
of fence stripped away, hate the time for endless painting, hate the sections
of my darkened brain that wait for children to snap on the light, the unfamiliar
corridors of my heart with strangers running in them, shouting. The precise
incisions in my hip to extract an image, a dripping pickaxe or palm tree removed,
and each day my paint brushes get softer and cleaner – better tools, and losses
cease to mean loss. Beauty, to each eye, differently pointed.
I admire sign painters and carpenters. I like that black hand pointed
up a drive-way whispering to me, “The Washingtons live in these sections,”
and I explain autobiographically that George Washington is sympathetic to my losses;
His face or name is everywhere. No one is unfamiliar
with the American dollar, and since you’ve been removed
from my life, I can think of nothing else. A precise
replacement for love can’t be found. But art and money are precise-
ly for distraction. The stars popping out of my blood are pointed
nowhere. I have removed
my ankles so that I cannot travel. There are sections
of my brain growing teeth and unfamiliar
hands tie strings through my eyes. But there are losses
of the spirit like vanished bicycle tires and losses
of the body, like the whole bike, every precise
bearing, spoke, gear, even the unfamiliar
handbrakes, vanished. I have pointed
myself in every direction, tried sections
of every map. It’s no use. The real body has been removed.
Removed by the ice tongs. If a puddle remains, what losses
can those sections of glacier be? Perhaps a precise
count of drops will substitute the pointed mountain, far away, unfamiliar?
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 5:47 PM UTC
the man in the fine suit
gave me three hard quarters--those Washingtons were smiling at me, waiting to be swallowed by the machines at Horn and Hardart's Automat, where
there was but one old lady
standing, still as a statue, in front of a machine
her reflection on the glass staring back at her,
a haunting twin, from a different
mother. I could taste those ham sandwiches
waiting, but when that first quarter chinked its way into that dispenser, the old woman and her reflection turned to me, hungry
for something I couldn't taste;
so I gave her my other quarters, and hurried
into the night, chewing my food,
still hungry when done, but far
from her tired eyes, far
Jun 7, 2016
Jun 7, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
Garage-sale-picked for 5 Washingtons
the American Eagle patch was fading
like my eyes every time
I see Hillary Clinton,
Bill Clinton’s wife,
the former first lady,
the liar,
whoever she really is,
hits the debate stage.
The jacket was worth a pretty penny,
but with the market crash,
the seller is lucky i even paid her cash.
Credit is how 58 million billion dollars
of debt came to ruin America’s
perfect JFK looking face
in exchange for a growing
tumor-like deficit.
Maybe I’m too subjective,
a conservative.
I’m mean could Hilary be so bad?
Or Bernie?
Or even Putin?
I just wanted a cheap jacket.
I just wanted something that
was mine and wasn’t ruined,
but the patch was fading,
like my faith in making our
America, country, United States,
better than the past.
Feb 28, 2018
Feb 28, 2018 at 6:19 PM UTC