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Best Poems Written by Steve Grammatico

Below are the all-time best Steve Grammatico poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Raving

From 2010. Narrator is Robert Gibbs, snooty White House Press Secretary.

Lay, O Lord, a curse on press men, rude and churlish, sad, obsessed men 
Who persist to query me on matters they know I must ignore. 
As I parry, neatly jinking, Tapper stares at me, unblinking; 
No doubt he is thinking, thinking Robert Gibbs is short one oar.  
Of them all, him I abhor.  

Yes, the fire is now an ember from a long-ago November  
When every media staff member bowed and scraped outside my door.  
Cocksure, I held my pressers (Helen! Old as earth, God bless her),   
Brushing off reporters—lessers, lessers who were such a bore,  
Including Jake the Tapper, whom the gods named my bête noire.
From the start, we’ve been at war.  

There! He rises, smarmy, sassy; I feel dizzy, bloated, gassy,  
Sickened, now stricken with the urge to swat this gadfly to the floor.  
As I tamp down nauseation, purge my thoughts of his castration, 
Jake the Tapper, this . . . crustacean floats a challenge like a spore, 
And it roots inside my core.  

Shaken now, I face him squarely, caustic tongue in check, just barely:  
“Scribe,” I bark, “or scrivener, hotly your aspersion I deplore.  
Blurted out while I was wrapping, in the middle of recapping,   
So to get your mates to clapping, clapping, because you're plainly sore.
Best be careful, sir,” I warn him; “You are swimming far from shore.”  
Says he louder: “Lie no more.”  

The rabble rise, and all are cheering; I stand my ground, erect and sneering,  
Mulling whether it is possible for order to restore. 
Finally, the room grows still, then someone shouts out, sounding shrill,  
“Robert Gibbs has stained his office and has much to answer for.” 
Here the rest take up the refrain: “Gibbs has much to answer for.  
He must pledge to lie no more.”  

“Leave!,” I roar, my stomach churning. “Briefing’s done, we are adjourning.” 
No one has moved when Jake starts . . . humming with a backup group of four.  
And then they laugh to underscore they will dish me out what-for   
From a slammin’ gangsta score:

Gibbsy doan wants ya fussin’ wid ‘im
Doan wants ya mussin’ wid ‘im
Wants ya to be a playa pushin’ single paya
So shut your faces ya know your places
Stay in the traces and ya’ll score some primo dope
And he’ll let ya stay inside the rope

Jake the Rapper, never droning, keeps intoning, keeps intoning
In the press room I abandoned, oh, a few months heretofore.
Ah, that shattering refrain, I shall hear it in my brain—
Evermore!

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Ode To a Golf Ball

O tiny, dimpled sphere, virginal white,  
Whooshing on your preordain-ed flight:     
What motivates your Lord to curses spew  
When you've done naught but to his swing be true?   

Slice, and down he calls the wrath of God  
On you and those who made you;  
Hook, and here he whines you failed to heed  
His clear intent to fade you.  

You moved, he reasons, at the bottom of the downswing of the shot  
(As if, inanimate jot, you have the power to move, or not).  
“You’re old,” he mutters when a feeble, graceless effort  
Sends you only laughing distance off the tee.  
“Too bold,” he sputters when a misselected iron 
Flies you over green to rest behind a tree.  

Err as physics dictate, and Lo!, you are to blame;
Perform as he expects of you, no credit's due, 
Only commands that you do more of same.  

You are twice cut by lethal hacks that scar your face with "smiles.” 
(“Grimace” is the better word.)  
While the acid words he throws at you,
The vitriol he blows at you,
Drain his duffer's bile.

Injustice is your lot, bedeviled wretch, until you cease 
Behind a bush or in some pond find peace;  
For when you’re lost in water, wood, or shrub, 
The cretin will commence to fault his club.

1/5/2016

Any Poem Contest
Sponsor: Broken Wings

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Downhill Racer

The day was brilliant--Sol spreading diamonds in the sky-- 
When Kathleen and her father faced the slope, 
He with trepidation, she with hope.

They scanned the rise and watched like country rubes
As sliders paused atop the run,
Then hurtled down on sleds and tubes,
Jinking, jerking, shouting, screaming;
It promised so much fun.

“Let’s go,” Dad said, and led the way uphill,
Both eager at the crest to test their skill.
One time, then two, they shot down icy trails
And raced like yachts with open-ocean sails.

And then it happened!
On Father’s third and final try
His sled upended—not down low, but high!
The lookers gasped, their mouths and eyes gaped wide.
Newtonian physics could not be denied,
So Daddy (in slow motion, thus it seemed
To Kathleen, like a nightmare being dreamed)
Oofed softly as he tumbled down the grade
And came to rest a jumble, limbs all splayed.

They left the field soon after, heads held high;
Drove home in silence ‘neath the dark’ning sky;
Ate supper, talked, and do what people do on wintry eves.

Much later in the night as Kathleen slept the sleep of youth,
Dad rose and hobbled to the tub.
And while he soaked he weighed a truth,
The nub:
At 48 it’s all downhill; ‘nough said;
Just don’t complete the journey on your head.

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Gotta Get Down To Go Up

you gotta join in the struggle for the ill-gotten gains
of the movers and the shakers on the streets Wall and Main
we will take what we are due like the Sioux we'll count coup
on the heads of the masters and their double-talkin pastors 
on the bankers and their chumps and the phonies on the stumps
on the bosses in their offas and the supers in the sweats
no more settlin for the scraps at the foot of the table
no more truck-wide income gaps ablin biddies to wear sable
at the time that we have won they will know that they are done
and we'll be sittin pretty like Scarface own the city
and the ones who called us chums they'll be fightin for our crumbs
wonderin how the heck that happened while they're suckin on their thumbs

(chorus)

first restitution
then redistribution
sweet retribution

if we don't stick together like those birds of a feather
we will never take our place on the seat of the throne
where who you want you can punish and the rest throw a bone

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The One Who Survived

Midway
Dauntless bomber
pockmarked sky ... fire rains up
craft spirals down. Mate trapped ... eject
alone

2/7/2016

Contest--The One Who Survived 

Sara Kendrick

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Foreboding -- Song of Demagogia

Introduction

From the city on the river
Where the Sage of Monticello
And the Great Emancipator
Birthed the country, saved the nation,
Sounds a call for civil discord
In the service of ambition
From a man whose God is power,
And his name is Demagogia.

Gathering Storm

To the banner flock his minions:
Come the vengeful, the nostalgists,
Come the dreamers and the zealots,
Come the heedless disaffected;
All these factions so enchanted
By the whimsies of the Leader
Who vows naught but boundless warrant,
All objections notwithstanding.

Marching Orders

Demagogia tells his vassals
That the ones arrayed against him
Are ignoble, quite unworthy,
And must not be given quarter
When the battle is enjoined.
‘’Lay aside all thoughts of honor:
Smear their people, smear their children,
Plough and salt their reputations.’’

Engagement

In the cities, in the hamlets,
Over air waves, on the WorldWide,
Campaigns combat, hot and savage,
Demagogia as the dark horse;
So much riding on the outcome,
Which determines if his vision
Is a dream cut short by waking.
Or a nightmare neverending.

Forewarning

When it’s settled, morning after,
Demagogia stands triumphant,
Savoring the prize he's conjured,
Casts a baleful eye about him,
Smiles grimly, mutters darkly:
‘’Now be fearful, non-believers;
Like the Phoenix, rising, rising
From the flame pit, from the ashes . . .’’

2/21/2016

(Poem Written in Anger Contest)

Explanatory note: 

“Song of Demagogia” is a mimic poem of Longfellow’s celebrated “Song of Hiawatha.” Definitions are fluid, but it is not, strictly speaking, a parody.

Neither is it a thinly disguised attack on any politician in office or running for office. Rather, it was conceived in anger at the devolution of our political culture in recent years and what that may portend for this country down the road.

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Soliloquy: To Run Honorably, Or Not To Run Honorably

To run honorably, or not to run honorably--those are my options:
Whether ‘tis wiser in the main to malign
The lives and motives of my foes
Or to defend myself against their charges,
And by defending . . . buoy them? To taint--to smear?
Perhaps. And by these means to goad the field
To err with thoughtless, scurrilous gibes
That mark them petty--a scenario
Most certainly to my gain. To taint--to smear.
To smear, perchance to rouse? O, there’s the risk!
For if I soil their names, what harm may come
Should they then probe my dark impulses
Prompts me to hold. Thus the upshot
Is that defamation circles back.
Why would he brook my lies on fraud and bribes,
That one his bullying ways and past as shameless rake,
This one’s bent for backroom deals, that wife’s excess,
His countenance of graft, this other’s fancy homes 
And malnourished dogs near death in household pens,
And not at once retort about my specious provenance,
Which would cut badly? I might slanders sling
And smirch and slime without a conscience tug,
But that the fear of fire coming back,
An incendiary charge from whose blast
No candidate survives, stays my hand
And has me at a loss for what to sow
Than turn to libels that may come back in tens.
Thus caution keeps me playing not to lose;
And thus my sordid plan to lie and bait
Is sidelined now for fear of what I’d reap.
And chicanery of such guile and lure,
A tack denied, puts victory at risk,
And boosts the case for cheating.
Shush now, fool; the cleric starts his homily.

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Wronged--Seven Deadly Sins

Thank you for coming on short notice, sir.
A drink, perhaps, before we speak of her?
No? To bus’ness then. Ending civil strife
Requires me to move against my wife.
I trust that you will note I’m not to blame
When you have heard how I’ve been put to shame.
She scolds me when I’ve had too much to eat,
Objects when I explain my right to cheat,
Upbraids me when I sleep ‘til after noon,
Laughs at my goal to own the sun and moon,
Reproves me when I covet what is theirs,
Knocks my hauteur and all my “put-on airs.” 
My fury at this treatment you must see;
I need your legal skills to set me free.

1/31/2016

Details | Steve Grammatico Poem

Robbing Hood

My supervisor ambled by one day 
To tell me he was adding one more to my load:
A juvie no other counselor could reach.
What could I say?

Gerry was a worldly-wise fifteen, 
A self-assured, well-spoken lad
Whose attitude was such
That nothing you could threaten mattered much.

He had a history, this young man,
A JD rap sheet that a decade spanned.
But what was curious to me
Was the final entry in his résumé.   

Shoplifting candy bars from supermarket shelves,
I said. That seems beneath you,
Given your transgressions of years past. 
He laughed. Skybars, Smores, Snickers, I amassed
Enough to sweeten lots of dreams.

You have a raging sweet tooth then, I said. 
No, he replied. Sugar rots your teeth and gives you zits. 
I was building up my stash for Halloween.
I live in Tower 6 on Forty-Fourth and Elm.  
On Candy Eve the high-rise kids stay home,
Kept inside to keep them safe. This childhood rite
Held hostage to the dangers of the night.

But this time round, this year when darkness falls, 
I will do trick-or-treating in reverse,
Carrying my sack of lifted sweets
Up and down each flight, down every hall,
Knocking on every door where there’s a tyke 
(I know them all)
And offering each one a reach into my bag,
A taste of the tradition.

Dumbstruck, I shed all my prior postulations
Of this "delinquent," with his hoodie on 
And his air of I-don’t-care-what-happens-here.

How often I’ve despaired of human nature,
Doubting accepted wisdom there’s good in every heart,
In every breast the seed of something fine.
But not this day.

2/13/2016

Twisted Poem about Robin Hood Contest

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Like Ferlinghetti, I Am Waiting

I am waiting for 60 Minutes to run out the clock
and I am waiting for Old Media to request end-of-life counseling
and I am waiting for NASA to announce an imminent extinction event
and I am waiting for the FCC to scrap its plan to monitor thought waves
And I am really waiting for someone to interrupt Bill O’Reilly

I am waiting for Wolf Blitzer to screw up one morning and shave
and I am waiting for GM to admit the Volt was not grounded in reality
and I am waiting for Madonna to say she’s mad as hell and she’s not gonna shake it anymore 
and I am waiting for a priest, a rabbi, and a mullah to walk into a bar
And I am really really waiting for the day when humor is color-blind 

Inspired by the poem I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
from A Coney Island of the Mind (1958)