In a Perfect World
In a perfect world we’d need no God
horses hooves would ne’er be shod
nor would the instinct to fight or flee
determine how you’d relate to me.
Each cue ball break would sink your balls
there’d be no whispering in the halls
if every word uttered is true
I wonder what they’d say ‘bout you.
When every woman is a perfect ten
what would make men look again
or cause the woman to entertain
hot fleeting glances all the same.
And if perchance perfection’s choices
damn us all with perfect voices
perfect volume, perfect tone
a perfect, numbing, endless, drone.
Sunrise, sunset, perfect sameness
perfection’s sinners, perfect, blameless
nothing to venture, nothing to gain
‘cuz everything turns out the same.
Everybody shares the wealth
dogs pick up after themselves
hats in boomeranged retreat
returned, and landed, at our feet.
Perfection is its own reward
no need for heaven or its God
angels, idle, listless, dopey
wings - participation trophy.
2/8/2016
submitted to – In a Perfect World – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Catie Lindsey
Written by Gail DeBole
I dyed it.
The dye did not take.
So I pulled it out.
Then I climbed to the highest building and shoved it off.
It boomeranged when it hit the ground and came back to me.
Then I tried to bury it so deep within the ground that
I only succeeded in tunneling to the other side of the world.
And it was still with me.
I threw it off into the sunset.
The moon's shine threw it back at me.
I folded it umpteen times and paper clipped it to
Last week's newspaper for recycling.
It was recycled back to me.
I hung it in a facade of suicide.
It slipped through the noose.
I stamped on it.
Beat at it.
Did everything besides forget about it.
And hated it passionately.
And then one day, it had gone.
Of its own will, not mine.
And I could not find it though I searched high and low.
I surveyed the front of my scalp and back
And stared my victory down into the mirror...
A whole head of grey.
I stared into the mirror today.
I saw you -
a needled zealot
hovering around my left shoulder;
Adolph Hitler dressed in
opium-perfumed swatches.
You smelled like her.
You acted like him.
You looked like me.
Swastika tall and evenly abhorrent.
Syringe-insured yet,
never sharp enough to
successfully stab
outside the 50-point cork.
You slithered like a quadroplegic,
into my stratum.
Pointing and probing
a crooked finger -
never healing
the martyr's wound.
A broken grimace leaves me
ugly flesh to ponder.
Your tentacles:
toothless cleavers eclipse
black-dilated pupils,
servicing our
boomeranged arms
with dingoed malice -
peppermint leaves and peroxide boil
as the living corpse cackles.
Mussolini removed
thirteen quieted quills
from his heart
shortly before the noose was tied.
Into square knots.
Into napkin pleats.
Into a poet's silence - where
our self-induced stupor
was dragged upon
spiked cobblestones -
and for that,
my dear Stalin beauty;
I sew my spit into
vile words -
dribbling purposely
upon this diseased
cotton-swabbed
canvas
for you
and I
to clean.
It started once in chocolate,
It ended up in coke,
It found its way in music pangs,
Like vipers deadly fangs…
This poison spread like fire,
Throughout each state and home,
Now that it’s an epidemic,
To legalize they’re prone.
It started in candy,
Then ended-up in schools;
It spread when they thought the Bible...
"Was not-a-good Golden-rule...!”
It started in the homes,
When kids had nowhere to play;
It took its toll and boomeranged-,
Back on our heads to stay…!
Now it’s in our churches,
For each old aged-gran;
‘Cause Steroids aren’t just for boxers,
It’s for everyone across the land.
It seems the government has the market,
For every cause and lure;
Oh yea, drugs are really big business,
Or they would have found a cure!
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