Best Residences Poems
The middle class here can't be saved
When 0.001% act so depraved
Their wealth without end
These royals* still pretend
Did not come from us—their
enslaved**
*The Royals: CEOs, Banksters, Revolving Door Regulators, The FED, Congressmen for sale, Lobbyists, Board Members of Big Corporations, Major Shareholders who vote for these Board
Members, Corrupt Managers, Dishonest Used Car Salesmen, Presidential Candidates with more than two Residences, Elected Presidents (and their lackeys who pretend to regulate but look the other way)
**The Enslaved: Workers, Career Regulators who are trying to protect the public, Honest Hard Working Citizens, Students--some with oppressive loans, Immigrants, Soldiers, Police, Firemen and Firewomen, Parents, Children, Orphans, Disabled, The Sick, Small Business Owners (who don’t hire lobbyists), Volunteers, Health Care Workers, Welfare Recipients, Inventors, Investors, Entrepreneurs, Actors, Artists, Journalists who do in-depth investigation (not like those with FOX News, ABC Radio or many other of the outlets where they mouth the status quo), Non Profit Corporations, Charities, Teachers, Transportation Workers, Waiters and Waitresses, Dishwashers, Servants, Farmers, Managers, Ship Hands, Cooks, Unemployed
Author' s Note: Have been at Occupy Wall Street 8 days in the past two months--which is why I haven't been here--plus I have to work. Miss you all, but it's for a good cause. I am very briefly seen on Conan's feature: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at Occupy Wall Street if you are looking for some humor with a little umph.
The rivers rise, released, unrestrained
Reborn of unrepentant rain
Recalling remnants of rimrock gained
Wrecked residences, drifting rafts, remain
Though dawn's rays reveal ruin and regret
Resolve ran through the returning vets
Of robust wars, whose rigors met
The rate the sliding roadblocks set
The ramparts raised, unrestricted
Remorse, redirected and evicted
Replacing rusty banks, constricted
Rebuilt runs regulated, predicted
They'll ride the restored, irrigated plains
Until the red ridges reclaim the range.
3/26/18
Zone A is a flightless bee turning a corner on a wheel. A glowing wheel. Wow such atomic prowess of stripes. But entering under the ocean and travelling at speed is a submerged undetected mobile monster whose instruction is to annihilate an entire side of a country. Wave not at this. The sea life is very confused at the disturbance in the waters. It is not the fault of a fault line. It is merely the beginning of an eradication. This is no underwater pretty specie. It is a journeying destroyer. All trees know. They feel the vibrational frequency through their wise roots. No signal boxes in an underwater roadway. Preplanned movement of murmurs. Akin to an epic blockbuster multiplied by several million. Safety safer still stating staying survives? And a dish of frozen ice cream is never eaten in a grey shrapnel cloud. Take a very large multicoloured multifunctional tent into the centrepiece of a land mass. Reaching residences. No ha no x nothing. Perhaps later. Maybe not. Message mingling minding mince. And a dove flying at over 80000099 feet above sea level. Not good. Not wow. Deviant not a design. Pickled worm. And a fat portly man with a pumpkin face. Darkness's of fortresses with smoked food. And an oceanographic soup boiling. Sap sale spit. And a dog in a stripey square hat laughing. No telephone wire in an earthly clump then. Ornithological 57*90*1
Amidst the broken windows
The blowing trash on the sidewalks
She walks, cheekbones prominent
Head held high
Past drunks, huddled against the cold
Past the shrunken veins of stoned addicts
She walks, leaning into the wind
Her step steady
Empty lots littered with glass to her right
On her left, boarded-up residences, nevertheless
She walks, her love for her children
Filling her tear-stained heart
To a bus stop, then a train station,
Another bus stop, and then finally
She walks, to those pretty, far-away castles
To polish her diamonds' futures
I steal everyone’s ideas
It is not like I do not have my own,
But the others are so much more interesting
As they are new
I have always been
A changeling
I change my residences, my clothes, my jewelry,
My taste in books, my interests, so that I can
Live in a new world.
I live in a new world most of the time.
Because I get bored rather fast.
When I am on a kick, I am
On that kick fast and furiously
But when it is over, it
Is truly
Over.
Every day I think is this my
Last poem? Is this the last time I
Will write anything? The day will come,
And when it does, I will simply stop.
Fade into the sun, disappear.
But ah,
My poems will still be there.
This is why I write.
VANISHED
We are the echoing voices crying within the darkness,
Melting mists of vapor co-existing amongst the living,
The ambling drifters shifting between reality and limbo,
The vanished.
Displacement malfunction, the frozen chill in one’s space,
Happening without explanation, the corporal spirit sliding
In the temporal rift as if a doorway has opened then closes
With sudden forces slamming,
The vanished.
Running at full sails speed the ghostly ship hanging on the
Distant horizons cresting wave, the Bermuda Triangles curious
Answer, never revealed, a planes broadcasting its S.O.S. then
Nothing except statics silence, the walkers of historical significance,
Never heard from again except in dusty monologue’s ancient text,
The vanished.
Rebukes despised disposed by hatred lies of malice, the forgotten,
Yet we touch the living by the night’s lunar light, angers tortured
Languishing amidst the flames of hell’s fire, crying out for justice
But receiving only torment, silences footsteps heard amongst the
The land of the living,
The vanished.
Sacrifice’s vanished foe, given to the idle gods of the past,
Manipulations fallen solider who gave his life for what
He believed was a justified cause, the lost soul of the
Innocent that does not realize he lies in the kingdom
Of the diseased,
The vanished.
The crumbling ruined city, with its lingering residences,
Still haunting the abandon streets and venues of the past,
Do to tragedies misguidance, or alliances bomb shelled fortress
Torn apart and left to molten ash, these shadows of innocence
Remain, behold
The vanished.
The dead man’s sleep walker, emerging from his cryptic
Tomb, suddenly realizing it’s survived the end of the world,
But now he’s all alone, in isolations one celled chamber,
As the human ash cloud descends upon the last ma
On earth falls to his knees and screams out loud, why,
Dear God, why
The vanished.
Listen to the voices carried upon the wind,
It is the vanquished seeking answers without
Replies response, the weeping victims of time
Bang against our shutters windows, and knock
At the front doors of our souls, they will not
Be ignored,
Those vanished.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
THE CHENNAI FLOODS - FIRST PART
Firstly the rains came calling cool
It instantly brought hope and happiness
For people relished the Celsius dip down
And hoped for reservoirs to fill to lips
But pretty soon the horrific floods followed
As it rained cats and dogs, days on end
As monsoon turned to a tormentor possessed
And led many to many a sleepless night
The inevitable pain came calling chill and fast
As roads and streets were ravaged entirely
And excess water submerged ponds and land
As waterways and drains could pass no more
The serious threat meandered in with a roar
With intense rains adding to the fury and more
Amidst storm, lightning, thunder on crescendo
Emanating from deep depressions in the Bay
Then fear and scare all showed up all night
As water inundated fields and farms alike
And entered into houses and dwelling units
Causing widespread loss to assets and life
The floods slithered in surely winding its way
Uprooting trees and destructing everywhere
Cattle, dogs and pets perished soon, unsung
With hapless people of all ages, in a gloom
The engulfing darkness brought chaos, for
Gloomy conditions only worsened soon
With nothing in sight; except rising waters
Seething snakes and reptiles added blues
Trauma and melancholy, magnified manifold
As waters chill, ran amuck human household
Swirling in; bringing great despair, in Cities too
Nightmare everywhere; yet nowhere to go;
The disaster itself was a Broadway show
As city and residences became a water-show
And in no time all hell had broken loose;
Making waterways of rail and road ways too
The big losses came quick and fast
As households washed off in a gaffe
And apartments and cars submerged
With basements becoming watery graves
Overnight and instantly everything was lost
Furniture, valuables, utensils and garments,
Refrigerators, kitchenware, other gadgets too
Gold, silver, cash and documents; phones too
And then it was the death that reared its head,
As people drowned and went missing cold
Pitch darkness engulfing the misery in whole
People breathed their last; their grief untold
........ Continued in Second Part
It’s a swill no one interrupts—
A pill that consumes and corrupts
Our honor's been jailed
And truth’s will is impaled
As the blood PAC tempest erupts
Author's note: Many of the super-rich (who do not yet have it all) are determined to have more of the pie since their multiple residences and bank accounts are not enough and their yachts and jets are too small and range restricted (OMG). There are about 600 people who have donated more than $1,000,000 to presidential political action committees (PACs). The very rich, who also are trying to buy Congress, are in the process of remodeling our society. They liked it when society was feudal--when the rest of us were consigned to serfdom or were slaves. This weekend, the Koch brothers are interviewing candidates to see who they will spend almost a billion dollars to elect. Are we to believe their propaganda (that they have our interest in mind)? That is why I support the only candidate who does not have a super PAC who is running for President--Bernie Sanders. Enough is enough and maybe, just maybe, we can prevail over the corruption of wealth. The truth always matters and can never be denied over the long term.
Let me tell you a story...
It has not happened often in our neck of the woods;
I can remember only one time we've had snow on Easter.
The Ohio River had flooded earlier
that March of 1964
causing many disruptions in our lives.
Our town had a floodwall which protected
its low-lying residences from damage;
but my aging grandmother had to evacuate her area
and come to our home ten miles north.
This flood was second only (in her lifetime)
to the disastrous cost and destruction
triggered by a 1937 deluge.
Her visit was haunted by the memory of
severe damage to their home and business
twenty-seven years earlier
during the worst flood ever on the Ohio.
She worried the whole time - re-telling stories
of how folks had taken sick with scarlet fever and pneumonia.
How they had to stay with higher-ground relatives
and the back-breaking clean-up after the water receded.
They had just bought a new square grand piano.
She told of how they put ropes under the
legs and hoisted up it to the ceiling to
protect it from the water damage.
This was the first time I ever remember
her spending any time away from her home.
She and my grandpa ran a small grocery store
and made their mark in the community
by also selling homemade ice cream.
Just prior to the era of swirling soft-serve,
Tom's Ice Cream was known for miles around.
When grandma finally returned to her home,
the damage was more than her eighty-five years could bear.
My German-immigrant granny died on Good Friday
and was buried on the following Sunday, March 29, 1964.
I remember well, we had a light dusting of snow that Easter,
a kind of heavenly eulogy
marking her entrance
to eternity.
April 22, 2022
Sponsor Constance La France
Contest Name Form N - Narrative - New Poems
I chose a family theme
The Benaminis are a family of rodents,
who live their lives capitalizing on other
peoples' residences,
They scope the homes when they're not
home,
or invade it when only one member's alone,
They scamper up and down,
acting like confounded clowns,
going through closets and secret hiding places,
at the end of their visits , they carry satchels on their backs
filled with delicacies and knick-knacks,
The familes set traps of honey and cheese,
hoping they all will fall to their knees,
But they just keeping rambling and showing up at
the oddest times,
even when polluted with coffee grinds,
They run a muck, taking what they want,
Their sniveling looks seem to haunt,
making families edgy, and promoting dreams
that taunt,
Oh, they give the children quite a scare,
by climbing everywhere,
They cover their bodies from head to toes,
for fear that the Benaminis grizzly hands may take them
out the windows,
The gypsies who traveled from "Nowhere",
have put enmity and nervousness everywhere,
helping themselves to life's delights,
only stopped with traps and horrible fights.
Enchanting Encounter With Rustic Beauty on an Early Morning Stroll
Along the beautiful tree lined avenues and residences I strode, ruminating spirituality and poetry, amidst peace and bird chirping background.
Upon a sharp turn, afar stood a woman in an Indian suit of black and pink – adjusting her hair standing in a side pose revealing all her attractive angles.
Brief, distant glances exchanged, Sharply she retired homewards, perhaps for a better view from the safety of the curtains?
I passed the house with intent sideways glance to check whether she stood in shade - but continued my stroll back to reflections and bird talk, finding her not to be there.
It was a mere passing scene on a early morning walk – one among many we see that make our lives bright, I thought. I strode on without any expectations – wearing a grateful smile - for the brief colourful sight.
But it was not to be.
On my routine next round, I again find her. This time standing in leisurely conversation with a timeworn woman I had seen trolling before.
A couple of long glances ensued. My heartbeat quickened. The old woman was serious in her advice; perhaps unaware of the real purpose of the discussion. The younger gave two, long, satisfying, glances.
Passing her close by, I aver she is not a conventional beauty, yet rustic and healthy, early in her middles. I am more advanced in time, though endowed with a firm and thin frame a fast gait. Fair in color she was and firm in flesh. Attractive she was in her own native way.
Further reflections focused not on poetry but on exciting prospects. I usually make only three, because of the paining knee. Now I extend it to four, expecting to find her in receiving extended guidance.
I find her not there. Disappointed. Perhaps she has made her assessment, this way or that. What it is, I can only know tomorrow during the early morning amble.
Alas it is not to be that way. For I have to leave. I do not live there, I am only on a visit and my next one is due only after a long interregnum.
By that time the memory of pleasant encounter will wilt in both. And chance will not repeat the favour.
A rustic beauty I discovered, one fine morning - a chance encounter during my early morning walk.
Case in point comprises emotional state of euphoria
would deafeningly, definitely, deliciously get
frenziedly expelled from stadium. Roe ting for
“our boys” packing every last seat in the bleachers
all manner of humankind would (during lulls)
Instagram, Kindle, Messenger, Outlook, Quicken,
Snapchat, Twitter. Santander, Verizon,Wells Fargo
might be sponsors for major competitive challenge.
Zero tolerance imposes winning at all costs versus
grievous miserable rapacious violent yawping
linkedin loss outcome of sporting events. Under
stand able home team owns an advantage (true
for rival players on their turf) predicated on avid
loyal fans boosting morale from family members,
friends, neighbors, et cetera. The ear splitting
roaring cheering hoopla emanating from spectators
(housed in relatively close proximity to handsomely
paid putting Pontius Pilate and bad ass Brutus brutes
rolled into one mean human fighting machine.
This previous comment meant as an honorable
kickstarter, hyperbolic endearment. My humblest apology
if said statement misinterpreted as a NON off fence sieve
strong moderate slight against any creed, race, religion,
et cetera. I merely sought an analogously effective
impact asper these hypothetical Popeye muscle
bulging arms length professional athletes plush residences
lodged in general metropolitan area to rubber baby
buggy bumper screaming banshee spectators. A
winning score affiliated with bruising, cutthroat,
dynamo...fierce-some giant, heaving, indomitably
jinxed, “killer” macho no nonsense, outlandish packed
quintessentially robust searing troopers translates
into utter screaming, quaking outrageous merciless
krazy individuals generating ecstatic cacophony
noon dandelions
all awash in seas of gold
spring has lately sprung
butterflies and bees
in beauty's residences
happy-go-lucky
joyful greenery
the songbirds are back in town
calico cat naps
Written on 4/20/2021
Spring Haiku Chain Poetry Contest
Sponsor: M. L. Kiser
In the old city of St. John's,
in the older neighborhoods,
there are haunted houses...
residences with revenants...
apartments with apparitions...
even schools with spectres;
and there is one edifice with an eidolon
that I know well:
a softhearted shadow
very benevolent,
not at all maleficent.
It is supposedly the ghost of a child
who passed many years before;
a tale from days of yore
not well-known in local folklore.
This ghost is known to close
latches, doors and windows,
as if the occupants are being told
"Please keep out the damp and cold!" -
a phenomenon inexplicable
by a force completely invisible.
Some years ago, I observed this first-hand
and I'm sure I did not fully understand,
but I quickly deduced that it would be most
polite to say "Thank you" to the ghost -
a sudden burst of intuition
to please and placate this amiable apparition!
I walk the Sunday streets once more
Long before the peal of church bells
Tuned to summon the hypocrites
From their cozy residences.
It will be awhile till they flock
En masse to the numinous house:
The butcher whose scale is slightly
Off in his favor; the lawyer
Whose soul was sold ages ago;
The car salesperson cramming cars;
Physicians unmindful of the poor
And an overweight clergyman
Orchestrating the proceedings.
Bong! Bong! Soon the parade begins.