Habitually, feeling an itch to write,
I’m introspective: sitting at the table
over a blank sheet, cherishing my blight
and rust, I think: “What if I'll not be able
to write a single stanza anymore?
What if to chuck it all, to travel, omnia
mea mecum porto*… What is all this for:
the doubts, the all-nighters, the insomnia?
What if…" Oh, wonder! In my line of sight
I have the lines: “…feeling an itch to write,
I’m introspective”.
(lat.) "All that is mine I carry with me", the quote that Cicero ascribes to Bias of Priene.
25.10.2019
Itch, Witch, Glitch Or Twitch Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nina Parmenter
"50 Words for Poe: Cicero"
On reflection
she should have used
Capone’s colt .38
which had been offered ...
at a price,
but the knife did
the trick just the same
She used it more than twice
Straight through
the Heart
of our anti-hero
in Room 101
Hotel Cicero
Weapon of Choice: 6 inch Italian Stiletto
Instead of Alcatraz
she found herself
haunting Asylum 666
doin’ ghost time from an early grave
counting skeleton bones and
playing marbles for sticks
She was now pleading her case
Dr Lucifer knew her game
Yes indeed, he understood
Life was a trick
(LadyLabyrinth/2019)
https://youtu.be/B1qQCFQCneA
Cell Block Tango
“...he ran into my knife 10 times. Not guilty”.
https://youtu.be/hdvIjmdHLEM
Miss Divine
the reasoning the fishing in the trenches
beyond tire swings and monkey wrenches
follies crawl behind the hanging logos
of unseen filth across 124th street
tassels dangled above an oasis
of fine dining and soiled linen
over the board rooms covered
in a mesh of purple mustard
beckoning ancient aura solid creed
coming throughout hidden rivalry
tampered with ankara's answering service
gravely time passes abaundantly
coarse and yet shunned quietly
we remember the malitia moreover
we began a new wearing gray hoodies
offering our youth to silent the storm
that brewed inside a percolator
pot of copenhagan snuff chewing tobacco
screaming a cure for cancer shall rise
over bob marley's tears as we munster up
courage a courage of faith challenged
behind the wrecking ball of ground zero
we count one more time mon
freedom will soon come
in our most sinful hope
Ho ho ho, he he he, break that lute across my knee, and if the bard should choose to fight, why then I'll set his clothes alight!
when I next meet that fair maid Nelly, I'll plunge my knife into her belly
and if I spy a singing bird, I'll snap its neck before it's heard
madness is merry and merriment's might, when the jester comes calling with his knife in the night
and I said to the baker, "You're not dead! You're a faker! But if that's your wish, I'll oblige"
oh, if I chance to see a cat, I'll feed its corpse to my pet rat
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance." Cicero , 55 BC
controversy over government nothing new
Civil War? oxymoron
in a country divided, there is no civility
protestors fume on Wall Street
Tea Partiers toss their caffeine into the mix
Federal Reserve makes unauthorized loans
but to whom we do not know
states debate seceding from the union
families learn to live on budgets
countries spend what they don’t have
why don’t we learn from history?
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”
is there anything left for us?
look to Cicero and sages of the past
Plato and Socrates will set the disenfranchised straight too
*Entry for Brian’s “Anywhichway” contest