Best Washington Poems
I pray a bright star will shine in the air
O'er Washington to guide some wise men there
Bringing gifts of commonsense
And harmony to dispense
To a nation that is in disrepair
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
The devil went down to Washington to see what he would see
Ah yes he said everything looks real good to me
Everything is sliding down as I have planned it
That phrase “under God”: they have all but banned it.
This is sweeter than in the days of Adam and Eve,
Appeal to their almighty pride and they’ll believe,
any old thing I wish them to perceive,
or ridiculous philosophy I may conceive.
“I” the great perpendicular pronoun,
they all love that delightful sound!
By using their pride I can steer them.
forcing the meek to fear them.
Those prime time commercials were my special inspiration,
The ones that reinforce their economic and ego inflation,
with the phrase “I buy this product because, “I’m Worth it!”
Or my favorite humility killer, “because I Deserve it!”
It’s so funny! They all think they do!
They stick to their mirrors like glue
While sliding in their own poo!
My what a little vanity can do!
Makes me feel like singing!
As my dark angels are winging
“Glory, glory well for me-ee
Glory, glory hell to thee-ee
Glory, glory hell to we-ee
I’ll have more compan-eeeeee!
That great river, the Potomac.
Means so very much to me.
In our nation's capitol,it's full
of American history and glory!
As a teen, our high school
visited that famous city in
this great American nation.
Such an excited class with
Samsonite luggage at that
train station!
All dressed in nice skirts and
sweaters.
Actual, leather shoes, made
in this nation.
Nuns for companions, they
were good women and kind
And of course, to be sure, we
stayed morally in line.
The monuments, granite and
marble, took your breath away.
Pride in my American soul,
will never stray.
Of course, I am aware how
some Americans and others
cannot see through my eyes.
To them..America and its
citizenry are something to
despise!
I stood at Lincoln's overwhelming
feet and I had to just smile.
Because from that moment on,
I became, forevermore....
America's blessed child!
4/1&/2021
A park has been making the news
Because people have differing views.
Those who live very near
Wish that all would adhere
To the rules and stop breaking taboos.
But a younger crowd’s recently found
They could party with no cops around
So they flock to this park,
Even more after dark,
Where their music and motors resound.
Since the park is a public-fed place
The old-timers would always embrace
People spending the day
In the usual way,
Not the mob that’s become a disgrace.
So it’s time for the city to act
When, at night, the park’s overly packed,
For the drugs and the noise
And the crowding annoys
Every neighbor who’s feeling attacked.
What to do when the young and the old
Find their values so often controlled
By the difference in years
Which, quite strangely, appears
To have neither side feeling consoled?
Four Two Nine Eight Washington Street
My childhood address
A place where neighbors were not afraid to spank us
And mothers handed out homemade cookies without fear
of being arrested
Four Two Nine Eight Washington Street
A place where we could hear Mrs.McGill's laughter day and night
Knowing she was watching her game shows, fancing herself on one
A place where neighbors took collections when people died
And fathers showed everyone's son how to fish and hunt
not just their own son
Four Two Nine Eight Washington Street
A small house, but filled with love
A porch whose railings usually housed six or eight neighbors
A yard full of marigolds and one lone cottonwood tree
A yard where the neighborhood children all played
"The ghost is out tonight" at eight p.m. and no one thought
about anyone being abducted.
Four Two Nine Eight Washington Street
A place that is much smaller now, that I am older and taller
But a place I can travel to whenever I want, in my mind
An innocent place.
A loving place.
A childhood place.
A safe place.
For sure.
The mind is a womb
Copulate it
Let the semen of reason
Part the legs of its cervix
And you will see
When moth struggles before its born
The power of its dreams for flight
Words are eggs, you know
Virginal eggs,
I saw him hatch them into bricks
Of ideas that he could carve
Like an Edna exhibit
All copulation must spontaneous
A true gentleman has that gift
Not to force his feelings
On his betrothed
He was also scholar, you know
A sort of poet
That prefer metaphors to the conflict
Of chisel and wood
He had such a mastery of the rhetoric
I mean he understood them better than us
For he did not only speak like them
But spoke their strategy better than them
I sometimes wondered how he knew himself
Apart.
Its sort of seemed ironic
That he did have the anger that Fanon composed
Unless wit is a subtle part of it
May be environment is such a part of it
The cool, I mean
We say that about Manchesterians
Roxborough,
If it could produce the soldier-scholar
Could not have produced just a little fire
Even for the cremation of his brother, Roy
Perhaps it was the mix blood ...
Busta said that his mother was Taino
I do not understand is who mixed them though
There is an overt statement of force to be made
A rape scrubbed from the memory
For how could one half of hm
Become so invisible ...
The mission I mean.
I must rule
More than wood, and more
Than water
For my destiny
Is more than what men may leech
So I am not exploited
I am killed for this robbery
And here I am left
A dead man on a throne
Here I am
Shrouded with self government
And staring into the empty eyes
Of children
So why do I love him then
Was it alone because my father
Fashioned my world for me
Gave me this icon
For proximity the barbarians
Who snatched my mother
Washing her white linen one day
From the sweet river
Do not take that thought to the bank
Where my children play
This man deserves his accolade
If only for taking blindness from my mind
If only for letting me know
The chain had never rattled their
And even in their own words
I could look at the world
And ask "why not?"
He gave me a ladder to my education
That was some gift,
Quite the best of all I am given
O it so beautiful to copulate the mind
Or hold hands through the annals
And see this Manley,
This little fountain of great ambition
Flowing at my lips.
George Washington Cole
1827 – 1911
So here I sleep.
Buried in this dirt.
Covered in this earth.
Returning to the dust.
Finding heaven in the whispers of the wind.
And as for all my friends here,
All these stilled silent voices of Clark Cemetery,
We represent just a single sand pebble
Just a minute solitary dust particle
In an ever expanding infinite universe
Of shadows and scant tracings.
Travel to any city or town in the United States,
Or any sovereign country on Terra Firma,
And you will find the endless names of us,
The dead,
Who lived and died since the onset
Of the Gilded Age of Bessemer steel.
And those endless lists of the dead are nothing,
Nothing in comparison to the endless lists
Of the by-gone personages before us,
The past generations,
Who breathed and sighed and spasmed
Since the onset of Eden’s first heartbeat.
My friends, we are all so small,
And so minuscule.
Does it not behoove us to dance
Even while the music plays?
Does it not behoove us to be kind,
Even when the cruel day
Finally slaps us on the side of our faces?
So here I sleep.
Buried deep in this forgotten grave
Just a whispering shadow of a former man
Awaiting with baited breath
The blare of the last trumpet!
I found some pithy quotes attributed to the Father of our Nation,
And thought I'd share some with you to further your education.
I've read his "Farewell To The Troops" but this stuff I'd never heard.
Sounds like he lifted them from The Proverbs as written in The Word!
I must maintain my reputation for rhyme and meter if you will permit,
So forgive me for using poetic license in paraphrasing George a bit.
"Refrain from booze which is the source of many problems big and small;
It'll give you headaches and trembling hands and you'll achieve no work at all!"
"Far superior is an army of asses led by a prudent and ferocious lion,
Than an army of lions led by an ass!" (And for sure he wasn't lyin'!)
"I maintain that a sensible woman can never by happy with a fool,
Especially if the man she weds is as stubborn as an army mule!"
"No long distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder,
Unless they find another and that could cause a serious blunder!"
These are just a few mots that George in his wisdom did bequeath.
It can be said that truer words were never spoken through falser teeth!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 2014 All Rights Reserved
"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your reputation!"
This sage advice was offered by George Washington, the father of our nation!
'Tis but one of many wise adages to us he did bequeath.
Can be said that truer words were never spoken through falser teeth!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) All Rights Reserved
days of Washington
where I lived my childhood,
the sun - which sometimes comes -
never stays
my dad was my sun,
and Mother tells us girls
how much fun our father
used to be
on rare occasions
my dad would shine for me. . .
till rain came like that of
Washington
In one photo, I
am sitting on his lap
and rain has washed the smile
from his lips
Mother couldn’t stay;
rain flooded my dad’s mind,
and Washington we then
left behind
A poem for the Contest using the Melancholy Form created by Constance La France
The forty-second
state, Washington State, is the
State of Washington!
Mr. Washington I want to know
what would you have to say?
as you gaze upon this land
if you were still alive today
what would be your thoughts
on a nation that lost its way
would you stand and fight?
like on that long ago day?
Mr. Washington would you stand by us?
would you stand by the American Nationalist?
to stand against left wing hate?
rebuttal looney lefts accusation of terrorist?
Is this the country you wanted?
or have they destroyed your vision?
your Constitution no longer applies here
Mr. Washington what would be your decision?
Mr. Washington do you remember Thomas Jefferson?
"it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government"
now would you still take up arms?
fight the tyrants with pure determinant?
what do you think about uncapped capitalism?
how about a multi racial society rotten to the core?
is this what you mean by all men are created equal?
or are your words obfuscated and what for?
Not Alexander, not Caesar, not Napoleon
None of the warring butchers
Can measure up to him
Who could have been but didn't want to be a king
Who didn't allow himself to be a god
Who running far ahead of all humankind
Grabbed the future
And brought it back
Like an ordinary apple
To put on the table of a new nation
GENERAL WASHINGTON
Once in command, he boxed in the British
At Boston where he captured Dorchester Heights,
Overlooking the Brits at his mercy
As his men took aim with their cannon sites.
The British commander had but one choice,
To sail to New York to renew the fight.
Where the English had much greater forces,
Who soon chased Washington's men in full flight.
They continued on to Pennsylvania
After crossing the Hudson in retreat,
With the British forces in hot pursuit
It looked as though George was doomed to defeat.
When winter seemed to have stopped the fighting
That's when Washington crossed the Delaware.
On that Christmas night he captured Trenton
Where Hessians were surprised and unaware.
He whipped the British at Princeton,
Where in victory his men began to sing.
Washington then wintered at Morristown,
Training his troops for the combat of spring.
Washington fought bravely at Brandywine
And again at a place called Germantown,
But the British were the victorious ones
As the dead of both sides covered the ground.
Americans were blessed early that spring,
When the French entered the war on their side.
Though most suffered frostbite at Valley Forge,
With the help of the French they marched in stride.
The battles raged on, in the North and South
As the King’s soldiers laid waste to the land.
Washington himself was in great despair,
Pleading for aid for his weakened command.
His prayers were answered by 5000 troops,
And a French fleet who took Chesapeake Bay.
They bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown,
Who surrendered to victory drums at play.
Yorktown was really the end of the war
Though not many quite realized that fact yet.
But the British soon grew tired of the fight
And the terms for its end were signed and set.
Washington yearned to retire at home,
But his country chose him first president.
Cheering crowds waved flags of love and support,
For they believed that "he," by God, was sent.
By Tom Zart
Here’s your roaming reporter, the Average Joe,
Always reporting, always on the go.
I’m reporting today on the impending battle,
As state troops amass in the city of Seattle.
Much to the surprise of our neighbors up North,
The state of Washington is marching forth
To capture Vancouver Island and Victoria city
Because, being Canadian, she’s much too pretty.
“We’ll just extend the longitude in a straight line;
Gerrymandering is accomplished all of the time”,
Says the proud Governor of the Evergreen State,
Hoping the Mounties rally too late.
“Victoria, for Canada, is too far south
Sitting right dab in the middle of Puget Sound’s mouth,
To Washington state she rightfully belongs
And we shall take her with a rallying throng.
“British Columbia can find a new capitol city.
Vancouver, from the Olympics, everyone knows is so pretty.
Just give us Victoria without any fight
To keep peace between us, you know it’s just right.”
So off I now ride in this navy of ferries
On a surprise attack with a border to vary
Armed to the teeth with passport in hand
Which all of us need now to enter this land.
When next I am able to send a report to you
I’m hoping this seizure is successfully through
And Washington State will have Victoria to claim
As a city of her own, adding more to our fame.