Mamdani’s bankrupting New York
Chicago’s Mayor’s a big dork
They both raise taxes
Each city collapses
In every road there’s a new fork
How will you ever
afford yourself
the cost
beyond your means
How will you pay
the price of longing
financing
your dreams
How will you leverage
the cost of hope
interest rates
on fire
How will you love
your heart
in debt
— bankrupting desire
(Dreamsleep: September, 2024)
Following the devastating war
between the big nosed people
and the large eared folks,
reparations and reconstruction
were sorely needed.
Both sides poured billions of dollars
into each other to rebuild
all the stuff that had been
knocked down and flattened.
The money flowed back and forth
eventually bankrupting both nations.
As we all know, or should do,
harsh economic times
lead to social unrest,
the populous will seek
someone to blame.
Naturally the big eared guys
blamed the long noses.
and vice-versa
so, they again
made war upon each other.
Rockets flew, cannons roared
until everyone was again
just left sitting around
amidst the mess and rubble.
By then, the only currency
of any practical value
was in the form of
Zippo lighters, fuel, cigarettes,
and toilet paper.
By that sorry time,
if you had a notable stock of all four
you were considered by many
to have won the war.
I suffer in poverty for lack of baroque emotions;
glimmers to decorate my eyes would be an anomaly
as deja vu smiles blend the grays of going through the motions~
I am poor but for the rich ennui now my life’s homily.
Once, I had danced with rhythmic elan embellished with passion
in dilettante days of hedonistic ways for amusement,
carte blanche in disco nights of sexuality in fashion,
cacophony jaded my being to lack of attunement.
Youth was lost, soul sold in lustful lifestyle with wild avant-garde,
bankrupting bona fide animation - sabotaged and scarred.
Susan Ashley
January 21, 2017
~ Honorable Mention ~
Contest: Your Choice 5, Any Form, Any Theme
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~ First Place ~
Contest: Ten Words Ten Lines 2
Sponsor: Silent One
*required words: anomaly, avant-garde, baroque,
bona fide, cacophony, carte blanche, deja vu, dilettante,
elan, ennui*
~ Poem Of The Day ~
January 23, 2018
The foolish greedy
Their simple minds cannot comprehend lifelessness
They waste the sands of their hourglass
Bankrupting the short lives of others
Chasing after the little green paper that controls the world
The concept of money is a mere illusion-
But the concept of death
And this ephemeral life
Are as genuine as the blood in their veins
We claim to love
but foolish pride swallows apologies
wrecks reconciliation and forgoes forgiveness
rendering sweetness bitter
it is an emotional hoarder
an insatiable sin
incessantly collecting resentment
commoditizing the priceless
bankrupting unity and burning optimism to ashes
it is an assassin’s bullet shattering the windows to the soul
it is a death kiss
pernicious and ubiquitous
convinced of its infallibility and yet
the ego is a manifold deception
a blindfold masquerading an x-ray
high octane recklessness eviscerating progress
it is arrogance mimicking affirmation
lending mystery to the vacuous
self-centered gibberish
rippling into infinity
and stripping love of its gist
it is delusions of grandeur
parading naked through town square
and fooling the fool alone
They knew a secret that we've not yet found
Indians placed their dead in burial mounds
or laid them to rest in beds above ground
where the Great Spirit walks and nature abounds
Blame arrogant Pharaohs who made the request
to preserve their bodies, 'twas cocky at best
Be-gone foul mummies! 'Tis the end of thy quest!
Take a float down the Nile! Make room for the rest!
Reserved parking spots are clearly unwise
We'll run out of room before the world dies
Imagine God peering down with a gasp of surprise
viewing one giant graveyard beneath His blue skies
Forget the autopsy, don't waste your red tape
By-pass parlor-homes that paupers escape
No need for insurance or credit card rape
no bankrupting service, no coffin to drape
Re-cycle me please, no soul wants to see
a porcelain shell of what I used to be
Let me melt in good soil and help sprout a new tree
Let me rest in cool earth and rot naturally
Consider a moment,
Tentative steps.
Perhaps they seem new
and an uncharted realm,
requiring a measure of time
to truly remember how to walk
a path that leads to happiness.
Glance at the citadels' walls
which you have built over time,
to protect your hearts desires.
Do you really comprehended,
its image, stature and strength
from the other side of perception?
Is wanting to know for certain,
you are not making another
emotionally bankrupting mistake,
an indication of fear or mistrust?
Or perhaps is it wisdom,
garnered from a lifetime
of hard learned lessons, that
mandates patience to allow
what ever may happen to occur,
in its own time and way
in un conjured innocent freedom.
Do you trust nothing more than
you initial emotional reaction,
or the longing to derive some semblance
of unrealized happiness in place of
the void loneliness dictates?
Wanting nothing more than to ingrain,
the entire essence and being of the other,
so that a serene completeness can
turn waking dreams into reality's treasure.
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