Best Dotted Poems
We met thirteen years ago this fateful day,
I heard and saw, I could never have known what I would learn and see across the port that day...
How true the words become...
The evil that men do.
I climbed the pile walking in heat,
smell of cooked meat,
cloud of ash
smell of fear,
tears fall from blocks above the adjoining buildings. mixed with concrete cracked from a broken skyline.
I think about you more often then not,
who were you?
Where did you work?
Kids?
Pile caught you between 59 and 67 per the pillars of steal...twisted.
My tear still falls for you...my Polka dotted dress.
Seeing your last moment frozen.
Your ring firm to your hurt hands.
Glistening bright with a love you shared...reflected from the fires below us.
my homing beacon...
It got quiet. I heard you,..
You went home.
Oh, I’m nothing but a red polka-dotted pug.
I’m silly and smug and my name is Mug.
I need to see the Wiz to remove these dots,
I don’t care of he has to peel, pull and tug,
I’m just so sick of these red circle spots!
I shall walk along the yellow brick road to see
if the Wiz of Oz would like to fumigate me.
Will I see the Tin Man who needs a heart?
Or is that just how it is in the Oz movie?
If I were real, who would play my part?
So here I am on this path to see the Wiz,
even though he don’t know who I is.
I’ll be like, “Hey you! Get rid of my imperfections!”
And he would do it like it’s none of his biz!
We’d share a rare bond and Ozardly connection.
Dorothy and Toto! Is it really you guys?
I didn’t expect you, let me clear my eyes.
Can you lead me to the right place I need to be,
you know where I can take off my polka-dot disguise?
I’d finally be who I want to be, normal and free.
I approach the Coward of the forest wood,
He craves that courage and being understood.
So he sings a song of an annoying tale,
wants to be “King of the Forest” if he could.
I decide to move along slowly like a desert snail.
OH BOY! Here I am and the end of the road.
These dots sure were such a heavy load.
“So, Wiz…can you help peel off my fur
so it can grow back after it’s neatly sewed?”
He said, “dear Mug, yes you need help, I concur.”
I say, “thank you”, and was on my merry way.
I’m sore and bruised but it’s a glorious day!
No longer am I unlike the other pugs I know,
I’m conventional and typical, I am okay.
I’m just a regular pug, a common Pug-Shmoe!
Off to See the Wizard Contest
Charles Messina
November 26, 2018
The Dotted Line
Americans today don’t know their way,
But that’s with one exception.
The folks that sign that dotted line,
And pledge without deception.
To serve their country faithfully,
And protect us all from those,
Who’d do us harm, who’d bring us down,
Both foreign and domestic foes.
These veterans all deserve due praise,
From this grateful nation.
For their sacrifice to risk their lives,
Without hesitation.
So tie your ribbons and fly your flags,
But remember throughout time.
You owe your freedom to those folks,
Who signed on the dotted line.
Can't keep refusing it's on the hands of you
Is this the haunting image of hell I view?
So, to care or plead for my discreet silence
Weak hands are calling to you for guidance
Praying to get help for feelings that permeate
Like watching, hurting, rolled down a sewer grate
Gentle hands tapping a telegraph in dotted code
Seek to find salvation before all these feelings erode
Scared to run, diseases like this don't seem to phase you
Are the answers to it all, I read, found in a hard wooden pew
I wish I had your faults, there aren't many, but I have found a few
Wringing hands, no answers, come fly around my hell, all a skew
No blasphemy intended, no one nailed to the board
Once written, answers in time, by the pearl gate lord
When you get to the king’s palace
My brother
Whenever you get the chance to sit and dine with the king
Do not raise your shoulders so high,
So high above the level of your head
Do not ask him for too many favors
Do not stir up old quarrels
Never should you reflect upon the past bone of contention;
Remember all those who helped you-
Those who introduced you to the king
And his cohorts
Do not eat hastily
Nor drink noisily
In the presence of the princes
Uphold your beautiful, courageous character;
Do not deflower the young princess there
Do not stand or leave the presence of the king
With crumpled shirts or an unkempt bow-tie
Many lives have been lost before you gained acceptance
And recognition to stay in that glamorous palace-
It sounds though like Pyrrhic victory in my ears:
Our gains do not outweigh our losses.
May we sing the glad song of Moses?
I shall be consoled by the long stretch
Of the dotted semibreve.
Written by Ebenezer K N Baiden- Amissah
P O Box LG 1254, Legon, Accra.
Telephone 0245310380/0201257024
It was raining and so great to play,
outside- though the blue sky was gray.
Oh, an adventure to embark,
to run and fly like a skylark!
But, my sister blocked the doorway.
So, I thought up a getaway,
quiet, I tiptoed on the parquet.
Dotted 'brella and me to park!
It was r a i n i n g !
I walked fast on the crossway,
yes, I was bad to disobey.
A park bench was my floating arc,
I was flying free as a lark!
Sister, found me with kisses gay.
It was RAINING !
______________________
September 25, 2017
Rondeau/The Boy With The Dotted 'Brella
Copyright Protected, ID 942530
Written for the contest, Red and White Polka Dotted Umbrella
sponsor, Eve Roper
First Place
Sign on the dotted line
You'll be just fine
There goes your life
There goes your wife
Twenty more years
Many more tears
There goes all my pay
Wallets running on empty today
Can't afford to play
Once was a free man understand
Now your standing in quicksand
Which way is up or down
Its why do you wear that frown
Pay for my house
But can't afford to feed a mouse
Go to work don't miss a day
No time to play
Your a slave
Ride the wave
To an early grave
No time to stop
You'll never reach the top
What is the week end
There's no money to spend
Gone with the wind
Driving a car that won't go
That's way to slow
Your for sure hired
Now your fired
Find a job anew
Since the last one you blew
Disgrace
Living the rat race
Leaves this look on your face
Round and round you go
Yet you have nothing to show
Meeting yourself at the door
Can't give no more
Yet more you want
With letters that haunt
Sometimes taunt
Slowly sinking on dry land
Only thing I need to understand
I'm going to have to find someone to rob
Just so i can pay Bob
Well, do I dot my t's
and cross my i's
No, I think I dot my p's
and cross my c's ...
I just can't remember
so I'll give this a try
I'll draw a line through my i's
Now they're crossed ~ Would I lie?
_________________________
~ Inspired by, but not an entry
in the Dot your i's and Cross
your t's contest. ~ gw
i’ve known individuals who never
signed the dotted line---
they never took the $20,000 sign up bonus
&
they never pretended,
lying to themselves beforehand,
that when they were
enlisted,
that it would somehow be “peace time,”
whatever that means.
i’ve known folks who have worked at a
gas station for years to pay off the bills that they
could have easily caught up on,
had they had the salary promised them,
if they had become
professional
hired
killers.
and i am well aware that there are those
that say that they had no other way to go to college,
than to join the military.
and i am well aware that these scumbag recruiters
prey on the poorest neighborhoods,
often seated right at the bottom of the stairwell of a
subway exit.
but i just don’t have any
sympathy for you,
if you have signed that dotted line---
because when you do that,
you are saying that
someday,
somewhere,
you won’t have a problem killing someone whom you have
never
met---
having stolen them from their family,
having taken from them all that was life,
for the purpose of
the
state---
you may even be sitting in an office in
arizona,
as i write this,
“manning” a drone,
that has entered any one of our prospective
targets (victims),
in order to beat them senseless
&
rape their land of their natural
resources.
if you come back & they hail you,
you still signed the dotted line.
if you come back in a box,
you still signed the dotted line.
you are a hired killer the minute that pen hits the paper &
no amount of praying or
“good deeds” when you get home,
will rectify doing so.
i have so much more respect for those of us that
work our asses off every day in a country with a decrepit
education system, no universal health care, 14+ million
unemployment, etc. etc.---
because we
stick
it
through---
we will never try and convince ourselves that even the
possibility
of killing someone else
or helping destroy another people’s country
will somehow
solve our own
problems.
They just want your money.
Just want your wealth.
Meagre or major they’ll take it all else.
Post sale and the manner changes in tone.
Commission awarded - it’s time to go home.
They’ll try to convince you that you need it to live!
They’ll try to persuade you that you’re doing the right thing.
But they just want your money. They’d take it and take it all. Smiles and so jolly until the deal ends it’s call.
They just want your money. They don’t care how hard it came by. They just want your money and hope you’ll be swooned by their guile.
I try to paint
with a shock I realize it is giving me no thrill
No joy; for the first time in six years
I return to the middle bedroom
darkest, gloomiest room in the house
turn on my electric blanket and go to sleep
wake up wondering if it is morning or night? Does it matter?
I am on strong meds; they keep me loopy.
Benadryl is a killer, keeping me sleepy, in perpetual lah-lah land.
Pink dots are parading up and down my arms and legs
I am scratching my torso until she bleeds
I look like a pink polka dotted Kewpie doll.
An angry pink polka dotted Kewpie doll
Thanks to yesterday’s prescription which I was allergic to.
Being sick is infuriating.
I am enraged.
Angry that it is me.
State of Being
(written for Mike Eslinger)
The herons fly overhead,
Flapping past, swooning cclouds,
Scaring cats, who
Along with their feline cousins
Don’t realize they aren’t the be all end all
At all. Stop bothering to sit so aloof.
Lick your paws and listen: there’s a God above,
Who, if he hadn’t given us humans the Word,
,
We’d be down here scampering all around,
The way we tend to, afraid of giant, dotted flies
Overhead, ready to proclaim they rule. We’d be
Swooning the moon, and still chirping like birds.
********. *********. *********. *********
(c) sally Young eslinger 1/2/21
Thanks be to God
And I drew a dotted line
Down my heart in graphite
One half for me
The other for the stars at night
And every drop in the sea
Because I couldn't give it to a person
(They always leave)
So if I gave it to the world
All the stormy clouds in the sky
My love would never wither
My love would never die
I wait for a sign
standing in this valley
my mind circling back to you
visions that I see
tall saguaros
mountains surrounding
warm sun
blue sky
me and you
the path we walked
side by side
has weeds pushing up
through the dotted lines
The polka dotted tit mouse was not tame.
She did not like faeries, it was her claim.
She loved dogs, had a female great dame.
Serendipity was her doggie’s name.
Polka dotted tit mouse had one big aim.
A pyromaniac, she loved a flame.
Burned a forest but never took the blame.
I know this may sound a little bit lame.
But burning stuff was her natural game.
Titmouse never meant to kill or to maim.
Unfortunately she did both, just the same.