Best Shipped Poems
Welcome,
to the Soul Factory
We have cool souls,
sophisticated souls,
luxury and economy.
Choice is a matter,
of who you want to be.
Yes we ship souls,
to many exotic places.
The beauty of some souls
shine through on faces.
But that isn’t true
in a few cases
Still our souls fit,
into big and small spaces.
We offer young souls
and old souls.
Some souls refurbished
with extra hot coals.
Each soul’s prepared,
to play different roles.
Some kind,
some cruel,
others may play the fool.
Uncontrollable souls,
might not follow the Golden Rule
If you are lucky
you’ll find inner peace
Those souls are mostly
shipped to the east
They know more,
even though they have the least
Somehow mindfulness,
calms their inner beast.
They are content
during famine and feast
Once selected,
just wait and see,
if your soul will make history.
Unfortunately we can’t promise,
there’s no guarantee,
some souls prefer obscurity.
Others seem to thrive on inner misery.
They may not match,
your life expectancy
Either way traveler,
you get what you choose,
there’s a no return policy,
here at the Soul Factory!
For Caren’s What would you make if you had a factory contest.
I was once a little twig with dreams of being a mighty tree
So people would come from all around just to look at me
As the years started to come and go I fell in love with the wind
I would open myself big and wide swaying to the music of my friend
My rings became many and my bark was as red as red could be
Then the day finally came I was the tallest of the tallest trees
I stood tall and I stood proud and everyone knew my name
As my rings continued recording my destiny to fame
Then the fateful day it came my friend and I had a fight
Looking back I can't recall who was wrong or right
I said, "You are but the wind something people can't even see"
" And I'm the king of them all the tallest of the tallest trees"
That night the wind started to howl she really started to blow
And I the tallest of all the trees learned we reap what we sow
My roots struggled to hold on tight but without a soul around
She who had been my dearest friend knocked me to the ground
The loggers came and cut me up then shipped me away
To my soul that truly was a sad and lonely day
Torn from all I knew and loved wishing I didn't have to feel
I was cut into boards and post down at the local mill
Now I'm back here at home just a few feet away
From where my friend the wind and I used to dance and play
I'm the deck on which you stand I lay below your feet
There is a bench made of me would you care to have a seat
Sometimes in life our roles change just take a look at me
The trick is no matter who are what you are be all you can be
See I was once a little twig who became a mighty tree
And now I'm a redwood deck as proud as proud can be
And of my friend the wind she visits me everyday
So I can thank her once again for helping me find my way
N ever again will the Tribes of Israel be the sacrificial lamb of man.
A nnealed in furnaces not in Olam HaEmet by the Almighty "the World of Truth."
Z ealots rose from the ashes of the ovens and now defend like Sicarii of old.
I srael blooms and grows in the desert, returned by Allied Forces to the cauldron.
H ome to the Holy Land, sent, shipped, caste surrounded by Arab foe, isolated.
O vens melted their hearts, striped their forms for their souls held no intrinsic value.
L ampshades and shoes made from their skin, jewelry from the gold in their teeth.
O rders given by The Third Reich obeyed without conscious. The herd was culled.
C hrist-killer the Christian mind said, devil worshiper, their deaths were acceptable.
A nti-Semitism always has been and always will be a threat to Jews everywhere.
U nited, Jews must form a majority in Israel, so Jews everywhere feel safe.
S anctuary will never again being denied, Israel will be safe haven from persecution.
T o a future where all men have worth regardless of race, creed or religion, pray.
*Thanks to Arild Andresen Ertsland for his inspiring
From the Ashes
"Made In China"
They can have my money
If it saves me money
The toys I played with when I was young,
Says I enjoyed their hands
The Labels read
"MADE IN CHINA"
The cheap material on my back, the shoes I wore.
How easily they faded and tore
However, I enjoyed their hands
The Tags on my rags;
"MADE IN CHINA"
The car I own saves money on gas
A tiny Honda Civic, takes me everywhere
I love my sweet silver car
"Manufactured in China"
The never been used--Made in the USA--cookware I own,
Says, I don't work hard at all:)
Yummy to Chinese all you can eat take Outs
Thank you China for being part of this world
Better Yet!
Thank you China, for making this world a part of yours.
MADE IN CHINA
Shipped easily in a box
~SKAT~
Forever will I long for you
Remembering your love each day
Enabled me to make it through
Each time I shipped away
Do not be afraid," I said,
Oblige me in this task I take
Many people depend on me
Soldier's love do not forsake
Come to me in the dark of night
And I shall know you believe
Let me hear your silent prayer
Let your love help me achieve
6/27/15
On the day after Christmas, they started appearing,
cast out of houses, stripped of their finery,
lying crooked in the gutter, garbage bags flanking.
My brothers and I walked to school
and halfway there, three blocks away,
was a steep ravine called The Hollow.
A place of some dark mystery in summer,
one hundred feet deep and forbidden land
according to most parents, The Hollow
sang its song to all neighborhood kids.
Returning to school after Christmas,
my brothers and I would drag the discarded
Christmas trees along the sidewalk and onto the bridge
that spanned The Hollow, then heave them over the railing,
watching their graceful tumble earthward,
their air brushing final fall.
"Hey, I used to do that too!" Donnie was a lot older,
almost done with high school, and his walk took him
right by our elementary school - he laughed to see us
hauling the trees to that concluding bridge.
He grabbed a large one, bigger than any of us could handle,
and upon the bridge had us help him hold it upright on the railing,
as it stood in life, as it looked down upon Christmas gifts;
we watched it slowly lean into Gravity,
watched the balletic descent into silence.
Donnie kept with us that first month into the new year,
the pile of trees growing in the bottom of The Hollow.
He told us things, we told him things,
we asked him things and he told us more.
My brothers and I still talk about that big tree
on the railing of the bridge over The Hollow.
It hit right on top of the pile of other trees
and bounced off to the side, its own special place.
As January wore on, we didn't find as many trees,
and ultimately it was all done.
Eventually the school year too was done,
and then more years, and school itself was done.
The trees at the bottom of The Hollow rotted away to nothing.
Somewhere in there my mom told me that Donnie
had been shipped off to war, killed within a few weeks.
We had that one magic month.
December 25, 2016
For Anthony Slausen's contest - 'The Day After Christmas'
The year is 2025
I have come back to my past
To witness the Mayans
Who said Earth would not last
2012
Was the year they declared
That the planet we knew
Could never be spared
An Asteroid shower
We could never comprehend
Sends this heaven to hell
In catastrophic spend
The first to hit
Was the daddy of them all
Our axis twisted
The human race in fall
Just of Madagascar
In the Indian Ocean
It's where it all started
That set our demise in motion
Tsunami waves
Like giant tower blocks
Swamped Indonesia
As Polynesia rocked
The force of impact
Reverberated west
On the Canary Islands
A dormant volcano so reft
It's massive mountain side
Into the Atlantic slipped
To the eastern seaboard
Of the United States it shipped
A second Tsunami
Half the world long
Would submerge the east
Taking the weak and the strong
The second to hit
Hit a place struck before
Tunguska in Russia
Receives another sore
Daylight turns to night
As earth meets our skies
Fallout from the reactors
In shattered demise
Radiated clouds
Eventually filter down
Leaving bleeding lacerations
As we humans death drown
Smaller asteroids
Some just a few hundred feet
Around the world they were marvelled
Until they meet their greet
The place where I stand now
Was Yosemite National Park
Now dark ridges of black
So bare and stark
It's been many many years
Since the sun shone through the screen
When I close my eyes I remember
When the earth was lush and green
How many of us survived
Will we ever know
Was this in our destiny
I think all around me, now shows
`
Those who lash out when the heart speaks
avoid the many mirrors reflecting themselves
For in this rippled dream,
where perfect does exist
and mistakes are long gone like a Milli Vanilli song,
they fail to see that we are all human…
errors come with the package (batteries not included)
Sidewalk footprints, back and forth
pacing past the entrance to that world
where words have no meaning,
regardless of how they are spoken (or written)
Self-absorbed deeply in the waves
of an ocean tide of fantasy
crashing in white foam feelings, disappearing by sunset
What is it that makes us who we are…
our smile, our fingers, our brand of cigarettes
shipped in plain brown envelopes,
our thoughts, our dreams, the poetry we write
when we need to get it out…good or bad
When lack of judgment drips from the skylight,
illuminating courage to do what we shouldn’t (even in darkness)
Wrong, I was wrong…regret, more than I could have known
I have looked in this mirror, then I looked away quickly,
Ashamed of that face, fell three stories below my heart,
slipped on the disgust splattered at my feet (by me)
Sunk up to my knees…bent, folding, scraped and bruised
but I require no sympathy, for I am not that devil Jagger sings of…
at least I hope not…please allow me to introduce myself…I am…me
Written for the Premiere I - Open Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Rob Carmack
Entered in the: NA the day away Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Lu loo
The Great Lakes Engineering Works built a new boat
S. S. Edmund Fitzgerald, t'would soon be afloat
The people that owned her needed a name
President of the company was given that fame.
One of the largest boats to sail on the Great Lakes
Was a solidly built boat and had what it takes
September twenty fourth nineteen fifty and eight
Was her maiden voyage, laden with freight.
The 'Mighty Fitz' was the nickname they gave her
'Titanic Of The Lakes', sadly that would come later
For years she shipped freight from town to town
Crossing the Great Lakes, left, right, up and down.
The lakes weather worsened in the month of November
Ferocious storm's that would pull ships asunder
That fateful day 'The Fitz' took a route
Sailing to Detroit from a port near Duluth.
A hurricane force storm was heading their way
Other ships took refuge in Whitefish bay
Captain McSorleys last message, " We're holding our own"
What happened thereafter isn't quite known.
The storm battered the boat with thirty foot waves
And sent all her crew to their watery graves
November the tenth, nineteen seventy five
The 'Mighty Fitz' sank, no one did survive.
Lake Superior was where the tragedy occurred
When the news got out, church bells could be heard
The Reverend Ingalls twenty nine times he did toll
For the crew of 'The Mighty Fitz' every lost soul.
A memorial service is held once a year
The bells are tolled, they pray, shed a tear
Stories have been written, and a ballad too
Dedicated to the men of 'The Mighty Fitz' crew.
A Noteworthy Ship Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Robert James Ligouri
Written 18.12. 2017
We gave Johnny a gun and a uniform
Trained him to kill, in a regiment conform
Sent him deep into Vietnam jungles warm
With little regard to how we did him harm
So certain we knew what we joined to fight for
We were shipped off to fight an unwinnable war
A war of "containment," unlike those before
Mothers screamed, fathers wept, siblings ached to the core
By parachute dropped to a ghastly death scene
Johnny ached for the life left behind, so serene
His family, fiance did not know what war means
Especially the haunting of lost children's screams
Those of us who survived thought we'd just done our jobs
We returned and were shamed by violent gobs
Of silver-spoon white kids in hate-spewing mobs
Spat-on and welcomed as baby-killer slobs
No heroes welcome would await these young men
No ticker-tape parades were staged for them
Just jeers from crowds, uncaring government
Greeted the lonely Vietnam Veteran
Too classy and noble to demand our fair share
We lay in that shabby old hospital there
In a closet-sized room with no visitors' chair
Understaffed, underfunded, with short-handed care
The "benefits" they found would astound all now
And it leaves one to wonder how our hallowed ground
Would be filled with unnamed graves of men once proud
Before the rows of white crosses we should bow
Our Wailing-Wall stands now in Washington, D.C.
So shiny but black, a telling-tale of the fee
We have paid for our nation, our land of the free
Will you come pay respects? Will you not at last see?
Some veterans still suffer disgraceful neglect
So please explain who more deserves our respect
Let us pause with angelic choirs and genuflect
To show gratitude as on this Wall we reflect
Friends, Dane Ann is among those who served in the army during the Vietnam war and is
now recovering from long-overdue hip surgery performed at an old VA hospital in
Gainesville, Florida. Thank you for your prayers on her behalf. Many thanks
to Tim Ryerson, another Vietnam veteran, for joining me in this write.
On the bank of the James River,
Virginia Colony,
a proposal was conceived to constrain the African fire.
The ploy, a real achievement in the West-Indian settlements.
In Rome, bodies were paraded along the byways,
to make a statement.
My Massa used ropes.
We dangled by our necks like roosters in a slaughter house.
When the pining for liberty was stirred up in the marrows of our bones,
we set ablaze a few bungalows,
and murder some dumb beasts.
The statement we made was called an uprising.
The fields were abandoned, the livestock ran wild,
and the slothful young mistress had to breast-feed her own child.
The scheme had the ingredients of breaking a mule,
and Virginia Colony was the first lab for creating fools.
A prophet’s blessing was given to the merchants,
and black diamonds were shipped;
they were purged of the soil of the mother land.
A new being was fashioned, dependent on Massa.
A man was set against his consort and his seeds,
and the whips wrote rules on our backs in their faces;
our pride drained from the gorges in our hides,
and respect slowly seeped from their eyes.
The bond was broken;
a ***** was concocted
without the spirit of Ghana, the Warrior King,
and the Ashanti, the pre-colonial backbone.
Should we not push as a woman in nativity for the renaissance?
"Going All Bruce Lee"
It’s like holding water
in your hands.
they say, be like water
as if on the drop,
the turn of H20 on tap,
one can go all Bruce Lee.
he was rather gung-ho;
but the subliminal message
he projected, without malice
in his lithe fluidity
brought on dreamy visions
of going all soft
and compliant.
one might say
malleable,
with the flow.
water has its hard moments
like when it turns to ice.
frozen in cold
abrupt moments.
I read a poet, tonight,
she says,
“consciousness swims slick
outside my fingers,
trembling perceptions
pure and round.
Infinitely slow
I close my grip,
entrapping and watch
them drown”.
I felt that.
I felt that.
Memories of what was
solid once, drift down
with the heaviness of time,
weight sinking through the
lightness of water.
Sun shines
through water.
it touches
the top to mid-section
doesn't mean it rhymes
in time with
what is beautiful
and poetic. Sometimes
the beauty lies, ugly,
at the bottom,
covered in silt.
drowned.
you know what I mean.
I know you know
what I mean.
Sunshine never
touches that place.
but treasure and
objects of beauty
lie there, waiting to be found.
the silt residing
with sunken treasure,
that which also lies
with car wrecks, sifting
rotting useless tenure,
carries residual essence.
there is found forgotten
moments of beauty and
pleasure in the discarded
flotsam and jetsam
washed up on a shore,
like memories
begging to be gripped
in palms that want
to be read. it aint shiny and new.
shells held to an ear,
there is message
in the sound;
we are just, content
with the mystery of it all.
"Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless,
like water.
You put water into a cup,
it becomes the cup."
Me and drowned
Bruce Lee, in the end
floating memories.
war came in like
a flood, no ark
nor shipped
platform to be
saved.
Memories dissolve
like aspirin.
We swallow
all we love
and understand,
the meaning of it all
hits us on review.
eventually,
we float
immortal
into other worlds
on the next tsunami.
dry bed
or wet,
we sink, we rise,
we float away
into other worlds.
we accept
the contract.
we ride the next wave.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
The Trail Of Tears.
.
The snow fell when the long knifes came
Savages who robbed the sacred homelands
And buffalo slaughtered bloody plains
Men woman and children the old and lame
Frog marched against their will
Never to see they’re homeland again
They’re hearts so full of pain
.
And the big chief in Washington
In his big tall ivory tower
Declared the native American
Should live how he pleased
Even though it took the native Americans
Dignity away and fall to the ground
Like chopped down falling trees
.
Thousands upon thousands
Wounded souls resigned to they’re defeat
Walked the long trail of tears
With their little belongings and sore feet
Many sick and old
Succumbed to hunger illness and the cold
Countless frozen bodies lay like ice blocks
Littering the snow
The big chief in Washington
Won the days and the demon sold his soul
.
From the prosperous green Caroline's
To Oklahoma and apathy
By a mad cruel man’s greed
And decree
.
Forced to become farmers
When just a dust bowl is all they found
And nothing would grow from the ground
A once proud mighty nation
Did an ancestral dance
Hopeful it would return them
To they’re scared homelands
As hunters and the buffalo
Would again return given half a chance
.
They’re dreams were fruitless
And lost forever in the river of dreams
The depths of they’re sorrow so deep
That haunted they’re waking hours
And the one’s they’d sleep
.
They sent the young ones to schools in New York
To be educated in the white man’s ways
While those left behind
In the reserve concentration camps
Wandered like ghosts in limbo
And rotted in their graves
.
The wheel of history rotates
But the same things always come around
The person with the biggest stick
Lays the law down
.
The black man kidnapped from his home
And shipped to be sold as slaves
When will all this end
And when will man love everyone
No matter who they be
But the truth is many don’t care
And all they are concerned about
Is themselves power and greed
.
Thousands upon millions of stories
Never to be told
Lost forever
Since days of old
Man cannot even
Direct his own footstep
So the good book says
There is no real justice and we are living in
The last days.
.
Peter Dome©2021.
SENSITIVITY
They’re all ignored by us, but they have feelings too :
A black gravestone in New York, down in the world,
Recalling its halcyon days as a part of
The impressive strata at Palisades Park.
The statue in the museum of Androcles and the Lion
Daydreaming - oh, for the good old days just lying sunbaked
On the beach surrounded by
Fossil shells and shrimp at Sables d’ Olonne,
With the feet of the famous resting gently on you.
And the marble fireplace in our living room -
He can still see in his mind’s eye
The Carrara quarries in bygone days…..
Why, some of his great-grand-daddies were
Hacked out of there and taken to Rome for the Via Appia.
Oh yes, stones have feelings too.
My carved ship-of-the-line from Nelson’s navy
With her masts and spars and decks and cabins
Lies awake at night thinking of her days
In the pine forests of Norway; and next to her
This old cedar jewellery box, with intoxicating
Smells of the coast at Prince Rupert
Where she lay on the beach for weeks
Before the saw mill changed her shape and sent her to me.
The new sapele door in our hall spends hours
Wishing for his buddies in the jungles of Uganda
Where the ants would tickle you
Half to death with their constant scurrying
Up and down your branches, building this or that.
Listen closely and he’ll boast that some
of his relatives ended their days as propellers
on German zeppelins, I kid you not.
Everyone has to feel special.
And what about those unassuming steel forks in my drawer
who can still tell stories
Of their days as iron ore in Finland,
And how their brother Ernie became
A bumper on the President’s limo (supposedly).
Or my wife’s copper bracelets with their pathetic tales
Of being shipped from Cyprus
and remelted into ingots in Bimingham.
I have overheard the wings of a 747
Recollecting in the hangars at night
How their existence as bauxite in Jamaica was so idyllic,
“Wit all dat reggae and smokin’ and god knows what, man.”
They too have their memories.
And, man, de smell in dat hangar!
Once glorious, but now rusting buildings, lined every dusty road.
Somehow everywhere clung the smell of cow dung.
My heavy bag, a giant rucksack,
Most of it I shipped right back.
I thought there wasn't much glitz or glamour,
And fought rough in a bit of a clamour.
Tuk-Tuk's going tut-tut, the hawkers piercing eyes and traders raise the price.
Welcome to Mumbai!
First, I met Tony, who promised to show me,
All the sights and sounds and where stuff might be found.
He exerted Rupees and expertly duped me,
But for a guided tour, I'd have expected to pay more.
My first "queue" for train tickets,
I was newly in the thick of it,
Could they organise a straight line?
They're walking on the train line!!
The infusion of livestock into the traffic,
My confusion and shock, all of this madness,
Each to their own, but, who the hell planned this?
But first impressions are often misleading,
Best get some rest, a wash and a feeding.
An open mind, that beliefs, often null and blind,
Just might find, can lead toward the fuller life.
From the mountains to the Thar desert,
Everywhere, I found was rather pleasant,
Lived like a king, paid like a peasant.
The colours everywhere and flowers worn in hair,
The spices on display and price you have to pay,
Surprises me to say, she'd grown upon me more each day.
And I had five months to travel through,
I bid a sad goodbye India, I'll see you real soon.
On scented breeze, she'd whispered to me,
As her saffron voice caressed my ears,
She hinted with ease and flickered desire,
While cinnamon curls lingered from her hair,
and nutmeg sweetened my dreams.