foreboding omen
bumblebees on the decline
the worse yet to come
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
See the world around yourself,
See the people around you—
The scary face of people,
The crying face of children.
They are scared, lonely, and sad.
They fear the world.
See the fearless around the world.
The mothers are crying with children in their hands,
Praying for their children’s life,
While others are praying for their children’s future
To be bright.
People say, “This is the way of living.”
If you don’t understand,
Then you will lose your life.
The world is watching around in silence—
Can’t we stand against this violence?
Their hands are coloured with blood.
Some of our hearts are filled with guiltWe are living—
They are bleeding.
We are eating—
They are starving.
Some say this is revenge...
But we are taking lives.
On Growing Older
Sometimes my steps are steady,
Sometimes my hands shake.
Sometimes my memory falters,
And I make some sad mistake.
Sometimes I hear you talking
But I do not understand.
Just remember that I love you
And I do the best I can.
My skin is sagged and wrinkled.
I look a little like an Elf.
My eyesight's getting hazy,
Sometimes I repeat myself.
But I still love the beauty,
Of the big old open sky
And Precious little children,
Sometimes at night I cry,
I look back on my efforts
Did I do the things I should
But I find a gentle comfort,
That I did the best I could.
I am weary but the knowledge
That strikes the sweetest cord.
I can lay aside my worries
And leave them with the Lord.
In Nigeria's land, where yuletide cheer does fade
A yearly refrain echoes, "Last year was better made"
A curse, it seems, that haunts the present's door
As if the past's sweet memories, forever leave us poor
The cost of food, a constant woe, does rise
A negative trend, that brings tears to sorrowful eyes
Past leaders, revered, as if their wisdom, we can't replace
Does this mean Nigeria's well, of good people, has run dry, and lost its pace?
Should we forever pine, for bygone days of old?
Prefer the past's faded glory, to the present's tale, yet untold?
Fuel and transport costs, a burden, we can't define
Monopoly's grip, so tight, it chokes the poor, and makes them decline
The price of meat, a luxury, few can afford to buy
Yet salaries stagnate, as if frozen, in a bygone sky
Oh, Nigeria, land of promise, when will thy people thrive?
When will the yuletide season, bring joy, and not just a survival to stay alive?
VI.
It used to be that a child
was called a precious gift,
so many of them used to die
we were joyful if they lived.
To kill such a defenseless soul
was barbaric and cruel,
but oh, how Satan did return,
and play us all for fools.
Now sixty million have been killed
before breaching the womb,
we murdered for the convenience,
sent innocents to doom.
Unique, one-of-a-kind people,
snuffed out like they were trash,
we hide behind euphemism…
we will answer for that.
How many siblings won’t you know,
and friends will you not have,
how many spouses won’t you meet,
or children young and glad?
How many books won’t be written,
and movies won’t be shot,
how much culture would we cherish
that now we have not got?
How many inventions were lost
within that murdered mind?
How many great things have vanished
due to this blooding crime?
For every five that you see now,
one more soul should exist,
you want to talk about heinous,
Hitler didn’t kill like this!
For our own selfish convenience
we butcher our own youth,
see the evil and don’t forest
who was taken from you.
V.
It used to be understood that
people were pretty safe,
that our streets and our neighborhoods
weren’t a dangerous place,
that you could let your kids go out
and they’d come back alive,
that we had good law enforcement,
security to thrive.
But now they coddle criminals,
help them get out early,
our cities have become failed states
of crime, drugs, and feces.
Worse yet is they’re importing them,
illegals in cruel gangs,
handing out money to the thugs
who probably should hang.
It seems a week doesn’t go by
we don’t see migrant crime,
people murdered and women raped,
it happens all the time.
Whole apartments taken over,
the tenants extorted,
by people your leaders let in
so they could get ahead,
all of it just to rig the vote
so they alone can win,
no problem with condemning you
to a future quite grim.
Your life has no meaning to them,
they’ll gladly leave you screwed,
see the evil and don’t forget
what was taken from you.
IV.
It used to be expected that
you not care about race,
just treat all people like people,
things were better that way.
But that posed a problem for some,
most of them on the left,
without these victim narratives
people would not elect
them into positions of power,
and that they could not stand,
to lose power when addicted
destroys a venal man.
So they go to all their cronies,
media, academics,
have them gin up some sophistry,
cover for their bullsh-t,
start screaming your identity
is all tied to your skin,
call it ‘critical race theory,’
while I just call it sin.
Teach kids that this is what makes them,
get them to parrot the rage,
what we should expect from a party
that fought a war to keep slaves?
That’s how much they want their office,
built segregation anew,
see the evil and don’t forget
What was taken from you.
III.
It used to be that a school girl
in a bathroom was safe,
away from predators while in
a vulnerable state.
But now weaponized ‘compassion’
for the mentally ill
puts confused men in there with them,
some will rape, yes, they will.
We’ve already seen it happen
in our damn public schools,
they’re been caught hushing it all up,
these evil, programmed fools!
When you stop and think about it,
the sheer audacity,
that rape is less of a big deal
then false ‘identify?!’
I think it is moral to say,
and on this I wont’ move,
girls shouldn't have to see male parts
when in the changing room.
We all know what the predators
are going to do next,
say, “I’m a woman,” go on in,
and force girls into sex.
All to pander to some sick man’s
entitled point of view,
see the evil and don’t forget
what was taken from you.
II.
It used to be that a woman
could choose to stay at home,
do the job of molding children,
at least until they’re grown,
shielded from this quite brutal world,
quite the great privilege,
and base on what we see these days
it was better they did.
But then the feminists came ’round,
called raising kids a curse,
shamed the women who would do it,
an action quite perverse.
Shamed the women who would do it,
an action quite perverse,
said women should be just like men,
called that equality,
pushed it so hard the most people
no longer have babies.
Ignoring that most men hate work,
and wish they could escape,
but now women are just as sad,
and damned to lonely fates.
Politicians all went along,
driven mostly by greed,
more workers means more tax money,
which those scum always ‘need.’
Now our kids are raised by strangers,
and grow up wrong, it’s true,
see the evil and don’t forget
what was taken from you.
I.
It used to be a normal man
could work a factory
and make enough to buy a house,
see that his family eats.
But now the jobs are all off-shored,
there’s nothing much left here,
one man did try to bring them back,
they shot him in the ear.
The elites make too much cash off
cheap labor far away,
are in bed with politicos
(If not one and the same?)
No tariffs and high inflation
makes everything too hard,
young folks are renting, cannot own,
it’s all been pushed too far.
The globalists have made their choice,
they’ve sided with the few,
see their evil and don’t forget
what was taken from you.
I’m so excited about this election
about America and our direction
We’ll trust old men
to make big decisions
elderly men
of compassion and vision
Men who were there
when the work was done
when we went to the moon
and warred in Vietnam
A glorious age is at hand
we’ll be safe in those trembling hands
One who launched a murderous insurrection*
Another who can’t even follow simple directions
They will grasp what needs to be done,
our land will be free and efficiently run
We’ll trust old men
who think with precision
to keep us safe
with complex decisions
Men who were there
when the work was done
promoting corporate advantage
and environmental damage
A glorious age is at hand
we’ll be safe in those trembling hands
I’m so excited about this election
about America and our direction
.
.
Officer, Brian D. Sicknick was murdered by rioters, beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. 113 other police officers were injured trying to protect our capital on January 6th, 2021.
In shadows cast on amber streets,
The American Dream is fading fast.
Once a beacon and why it now wanes,
A tale of loss, of silent pains.
Industry roared, cities grew tall,
But inequality cast its shadowy pall.
Corruption crept, unchecked and sly,
Dreams thus fractured, our hopes left to die.
In the land of plenty, hunger grew,
As greed's poison tainted the red, white, and blue.
Education crumbled, a broken bridge,
Opportunity lost, but for the privileged few.
Wall Street whispers, a haunting hum,
As the dream succumbs to the beat of the drum.
Political storms, a tempest's tide,
The American Dream, lost, set aside.
Climate crisis knocks at our door,
Nature weeps, a world at war.
In the wake of choices, heedless and blind,
The American Dream fades, left behind.
A Slow Decline
Farmers wake, farm their fields.
Their wives tend hearth and home,
chickens, pull milk from cows,
slop the pigs. Fishermen struggle
against fleets of slowly departing
commercial ships, haul in smaller
catches of ever-smaller fish.
But entangled seals barbed in wire
loosely fit, don’t care, burgeon
swollen into a razor sharp ring
cuts through flippers, neck, and tail,
chokes, slowly amputates does
an ostentatious necklace
flashy, glinting beneath a grayish
overly hot and hazing sun,
an aftermath of plastic, fish hooks,
fossil fuel blackened air, and tons
and tons of rank and raw sewage.
How does an old man as old as me
Keep up with the changes in society
Men can be women, old men can be girls
Pronouns can be mx or they, or hers
Abortion is healthcare through faces proud
Is said by the bearer who echoes the crowd
The word “marriage” has changed from the ancients
Is nothing pure? Is nothing sacred?
Positive and negative no longer are compliments
Now we’re the same cos no need for supplements
Sport now reflects the querying of boundaries
Like robots obeying we are and non-binaried
All whites are oppressive without a choice
Everyone else sings in harmonic voice.
The floodgates opened in 2014
Homosexual marriage the new morphine
All institutions now deceitfully captured
So called progressives buoyantly enraptured
The decline of the west has left me behind
But eternal truth is on my side.
first love was easy as a stroke
the body of april flesh,
strobes of light
on busty beats,
Bright ships unplundered
love was easy at first
the act itself
beyond fulfilments need
Then Winters call
we shed our skins
we had no calling
other than our own
just two beasts bucklering's in the night
Our pages fulfilled
we await tomorrow's snow
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