Best Mortgaged Poems
KEEPING UP WITH THE DOW JONESES
These here are the indisputable facts
I was born on the right side of the tracks
WITH People who only smiled if their stocks or equity increased
If not they wouldn’t have minded becoming deceased
They had big cars, big bucks and big time class
With a million dollar house mortgaged up the a*s
Their children went to private schools in uniforms
With charming and well decorated dorms
I looked at their faces and wondered why I didn’t fit
That’s when the fire in my belly was originally lit
I had no desire to play with kids from private schools
Nor did I ever agree to obey by their rules
So one day I skipped over steel and these here are the facts
The people I found lived in tents, not even shanties or shacks
But they didn’t have to read Dow Jones in order to smile
And couldn’t care less about having Gucci type style
They smiled at things people ignore like little tykes at play
And somehow or other they AWOKE contented day after day
They had no stocks to watch fretfully fall or RESOUNDINGLY rise
And you could see the easiness in their gleaming eyes
That which I observed in them appealed to me a great deal
The wrong side people taught me how satisfied I could feel
They lived out of back-packs, antique cedar chests and sacks
So if you come a’looking for me I’ll be on the wrong side of the tracks
© 2011.…Phreepoetree ~free cee!~
Trends mirrored me
I wrapped fire in my gut
Passed through the cells of light
I cut my anchor rope
Struggled to realize my dreams
I floated above time
All is left to me alone - alone
The suffering - sleeplessness
I swam the opposite of my tragedies
I'm a prisoner despite the distress
I did not give up my sails to the sea
In the memory of my begining
I walked in my derby
Criticism - heart breaks - suffering
I wore them my stories
Walkers hated me
Lookers spited at me ugliness
I held it for years
Crossed it to sleep on
Hugged it - Hugged it
Mortgaged myself
Watered all my seeds
Although revolution is repeated
Yet career has not risen
Planes of enemies
Tasted the scourge of the earth
Civilization denied me
Parties divided me
Earth hunger revolted it
Soul milk satiated it.
School was a mile and a half
walk from home,
across roadways, busy streets
and railway lines and through
parklands patrolled
by swooping magpies in spring.
We thought nothing of it
when it was pouring with rain
or hot as hell. Six year olds
walked a gauntlet of risk
back then.
Memory can almost recall
an image of each house
along that daily route, the smells
that gathered in the doorways
of shops, the reek of urine
wafting out of a laneway
beside the pub and, still mapped
upon the mind, where fruit trees
overhung a fence and were good
for a seasonal treat.
Each step taken fed the senses
with familiar signposts marking
the way between home
and the schoolyard gate.
Time has passed
into a more protective and yet
more dangerous age. Children
are shuttled to school by parents
in bull bar protected SUV's
and buses with flashing lights.
Souls have become
more brittle under the weight
of an insidious world, perhaps
no better or worse off
than when I walked to school
and danger hid in places where
the senses could go. In my day,
bully boys had names
and were dressed in uniforms.
Now, it is in the odorless
corridors behind digital screens
and in promises where lives
tick away in the sterile
waiting rooms
of mortgaged dreams.
His coffin was lowered deep into the ground,
they sprinkled cold earth, tears fell without sound.
From low in the grave echoed several loud knocks,
seemingly coming from under the box.
The mourners’ eyes widened, they turned tail and fled,
fearing such noise would awaken the dead.
The graveyard fell empty, the rapping returned,
now sorrow’s fresh roses lay withered and burned.
A guttural voice mocked ‘Knock knock dear departed,
I have come to complete the transaction we started’
‘What do you want?’a frail voice replied.
‘Please leave me in peace, I have only just died’
Malevolent laughter stagnated the breeze,
all earthly sounds suffocated with ease.
‘It seems you’ve forgotten the tryst that was planned
for the day your spent life was entombed in this land.
To pay for your years of excess and deceit,
you mortgaged your soul, I have the receipt.’
Amid cries for mercy, and spine chilling screams
the casket’s wood splintered as Satan slipped through the seams.
THE TOKEN POETRY EDITOR
Sexless, unloved, this poem tycoon
Reads the heart’s treasures as the brain's boon,
And riven with erudition, explores the spaces
Where uninvited couplets kill the places
With talk of probity and probability.
This mortgaged toad of honesty gives glee
To those who find in truth a rash offence
And save their daily lies in deference
To a lone columnist like herself, persuading
All that is needed is this harvest of envious raiding
To feed the bonfire of youth and exploitation –
The seducer’s vocabulary of apt explanation
On why God is absent from the universe,
And can only be heard in exploding verse.
(C) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER (2008)
Early morning I have to wake up and catch the train.
Distance long and crowd among, early start the only way
Mortgaged soul, lend heart and invested brain
Up to this journey what I've lost and what is gain
Calculated not what I posses and what to pay
Mortgaged soul, lend heart and invested brain
Daily spin the words, infertile ideas I toil to explain
They call me *babu, office assistant you better say
Early morning I have to wake up and catch the train.
Contrary policies and balance to maintain
Malice, greed, pride sharp word spikes and I’m the prey
Mortgaged soul, lend heart and invested brain
You know the story of rabbit visiting lion’s den
Heap of bones, going in foot prints no signs out way
Early morning I have to wake up and catch the train.
Call it cycle of life or the destruction chain
Earning sources, Means of livelihood taking lives away
Early morning I have to wake up and catch the train.
Mortgaged soul, lend heart and invested brain
First time exprimenting with Villanelle poetic form. comments are welcome!
babu is a common word for office clerk in India
My journey is shorter than a wink
Tarry a little, I shall be back
Apathy emits nauseating stink
Kindness is a needle in haystack
What shall I stay here for?
Bondages are hard to endure
Thy creations allure me from far
Beauties are mine, I’m not sure
Thy free gifts have a price tag
I’ve to pay even to breathe
My cravings, my desires have snag
I am mortgaged up to teeth
Love has stretching demands
Life bewails the limited grant
There are bonds, bonds and bonds
How to endure the ceaseless haunt
Prepare the hearse for me
I beseech you let my soul free.
On this Eid, as your sumum bonum
Is consumerism and as your soul is
Mortgaged to the Federal Reserve Bank
And hedonism, your mental wish-list has been
Inked on ‘things-to-dos’. The catalogue is
Quite impressive. Apart from the toddler,
On your lap, often you place your lap-top.
This time before Eid, to go smarter, you have
A must-gadget purchase: Palm-top.
To outshine others, and to add some
Extra gloss to your gadget-profile
You actively consider getting a tablet.
Even though, it is not the diminutive of table
And has nothing to do with the quadruped rectangle
And it is not to be swallowed with water,
It still has some therapeutic attributes.
Your schedule has accrued extra adipose tissue
With a cluster of meetings looming large on the corporate horizon,
You order designer cloths for yourself. Those fancy textile Marco Polos
Globe-trot and come to your door-step riding their
‘You shop, we drop’ policy.
You give blank cheque to your greater-half
To travel to Metropolitan Centres or Peripheral megacities
To epicurianize herself and her cohorts.
From the other side of the horizon,
Thoreau watches you thoroughly and asks,
This time you’ve parted with
From your obesity-ridden bank account.
All this, I know, is cosmetic purpose-driven.
You, proud buddy, spent this much to decorate your body.
Have you spent a single farthing to adorn your soul?
Freedom life and sacrifice
But tell me what's the ending price?
When most are bound beneath these chains....
And all one sees has gone insane
Shall I entangle, engage within my mind
Mortifieds mortgaged morticious eyes
Whom wish to cast me under their spells
Of melancholies projected tears....
While sounding crimsons rusted bells
Behind these bars they bent themselves
Amid conceptions misconceived
This tainted truth, that they should believe
Twisted....
Now nailed upon the judgmental cross
Wretched flesh, burning, its ultimate cost
When smitten fresh permeates the air
The stench that gathers, that they all may share
This feast of sorrow from among mangled times
Cannibals moment, at the expense of another human life
When the moon turns to blood, and the sun grows black
And right is wrong, and wrong is back
To gather its flocks amid the night of the day
As darkness rules, within the most subtle way....
Freedom life and sacrifice
But tell me what's the ending price?
When most are bound beneath these chains
And all one sees, has gone insane!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The final thesis....
Form:
Freedom won on a distant battlefield
Gallant words to remember them by
Unspoken tears for the old to cry,
A game for the young to play
Never a thought for freedoms way
.
For tyrants are easy to spot
Peaceful takeovers not,
Look through the haze
.
For when wheat replaces the meadows
The birds have no home
When forests are felled,
Extinction will come
You are a commodity,
For globalisation has won
.
When TV calls caressing your soul
With the next discount, and
“Yes its free fitting”
Without a shot being fired
Your future mortgaged
.
And when your ration of bread
Demands the last fish in the sea
Neatly Packaged and dolphin free
Who will pay the price?
.
This is the legacy
There is no escape
Big brother is watching
.
Mankind in a zoo of its own creation
Come, peer through the bars at,
This condemnation of society broken
For freedom lies on the other side.
Tom said to his kitten: Don't hunt! It's hard work!
Leave hunting to others and don't be a burk
Watch me and heed me and later admire
We'll slink to the future - a far distant fire
There sat some bald apes - one cooking some meat
Fur clad and thick bearded and great hairy feet
Tom stares at the bald apes - wide eyed and miaows
They throw him a meat scrap - the kit just says "wow"
Did I just see that? Blind luck or a trick?
Why did they feed you? They must be so thick?
Tom cat said just listen. I have a great plan
We'll domesticate bald apes to better catkind
We'll make them build wheat farms then store all the grain
To attract vermin rodents - our staple buffet
Breed bovine and ovine to fill up our bowl
Carved wood then ceramic then hand made with gold
From stone tools to bronze craft to iron we lead
The wheel and the ploughshare makes sure that we feed
Mud huts to brick houses to keep us bone dry
Wood fires, coal boilers - to cold say goodbye
We'll make them cat worship - a pyramid scheme
Then reinvent printing - cat posters supreme
Electrics and TVs and PCs - the net
Cat websites and movies on YouTube - no sweat
Then rockets and spacecraft to aim for the stars
But somewhere warm thank you - it's real cold on Mars
They might have big brains but what's better than clever
Is ruling the clever - forever and ever
And when we are settled in their mortgaged homes
With sofas and cushions and beds for our thrones
And though we are fed, we'll go back to our roots
And stare at them wide eyed - miaow to be cute
Entry for "the love of kittens" contest
7th January 2017
The letter arrived in the mailbox
As icing upon the cake
While she knelt beside his headstone
Arranging the flowers she did take
It was stuck between new medical bills
That have mounted over the year
Lifesavings depleted by the cancer
That ate away at her husband dear
The house in which they raised their children
And compiled thousands of memories
Was mortgaged to pay the doctors
And has become another casualty
Banks have no compassion
Just numbers on a ledger sheet
The foreclosure letter awaits her now
To make her year tragically complete
Camera candy nose
Pyroclastic pose
Beverly Hills publicity
Her kitty’s named felicity
Do the Bentley boogie down
In that shaved Versace gown
Vesuvius Christmas wreath
Viral presents underneath
Walk that red carpet ruse
Marrying mortgaged shoes
Spaghetti string saunter
Sauced communists want her
Champagne celebrity schmooze
Collecting her psychic's dues
Visions of pin-up hair
Her cleavage loves a dare
Diamond mirrored glasses
Nonprescription asses
Paparazzi puckered lips
Pillow tops of Botox tips
She seduces colorblind nations
Undressing orphaned obligations
Designer hip dysplasia
High heel knockoffs in Asia
Behold the drama queen
A feudal minx of screen
Begging the homeless to dream
Because Oscar makes her scream
The Cockies are in trouble, they can’t live off the land
Mortgaged out of existence with the need to expand
Hope like the land eroding, luck just giving out
Bushies fighting continually, fire, floods and drought
And so the Banks are now the terror every cockie dreads
As they climb into debt fighting their overhead
Yet here in the big cities do we even bloody care
About their rural problems, the despair the bushies share
Streuth the bloody farmers live off the fat of the land
What galahs to think sugar a great way to expand
The fat cats watch their stocks rise in world market shares
The need to make big profits about Aussie battlers who cares
Then shares dropping to the bottom and life ain’t so sweet
Everyone struggling with mortgages they now can’t meet
Of course the Aussie farmer has been down this road before
But its getting harder the Banks now shut the door
Payment after payment, to keep the dream alive
No more borrowings so how will they now survive
Friendly creditors turn nasty destroying many lives
Scrubbing floors and cleaning the lot of many wives
Men trying to keep head above water, shattered lie the dreams
Australia where are you heading a disillusioned cockie screams
While Bankers in their ivory Towers no comfort do they lack
They the mortgage holders reap the rural lands outback
Farms, cattle and sheep stations, for generations were owned
By proud settlers and farmers those Kings are now dethroned
By prices and rising taxes, the bloody creditors and Banks
The bottom of the barrel, the battling farmers only thanks
Many facing foreclosure, they have nowhere else to go
While others are trying desperately, a profitable seed to sow
Farms soon under the hammer to the highest bidder they're sold
Blood suckers watch what you are doing, when you sell your soul for gold.
I
In church, decor by Desiree Seymour
Jesus rose up again, we sang with gusto
There followed communion, bread and wine
Thoughts: He, bread of life ; we, bread too!
If he were a loaf, Jesus, THE PERFECT One
Broken so we all might partake of His perfection (God seeing his blood, not my sin)
II
There is much awry in South Africa
The disease (dis-ease) make all money chasers
Funerals are bigger than weddings here
Because neighbors sell their ID copies
To other wiser neighbors: "Yes, buy a policy -
And help with my funeral." Banks write these;
Cell phone providers sell it: "insurance business"
No limit on number of covered persons. No relations- test
Another use of the bread? Our bodies here?
I cancelled one I bought with a church friend
When I suspected I was being stressed (to die quick?)
Evidence of pilfering abound; I still found
A way to cut through this, write of Perfect Bread --
Praying to move out of my church friend's home!
NOTE: I struggle to stay positive in my township, once I return "home" from church. This offering on Palm Sunday almost didn't see the light of day. Too much about! Yes, it is scary. "Civilization" mortgaged to money? Thank you Jesus, we got through. Hosanna!