How fortunate that I, correctly versed,
knew hand-grenades are passive. At their worst,
they maim and kill. But this is interspersed
with usefulness: defenders have no thirst
for carnage. Since the enemy had first
used violence, they had to be dispersed.
It fell to me. How often I’d rehearsed
in nightmares what came next, how often nursed
this killer in my hands. Like Damien Hirst,
I knew that I was certain to be cursed
by those who only see a shark immersed
in urine, not a work of art. Lips pursed,
I threw my bomb, and squatted, for I durst
not look upon the mayhem, when it burst.
Book by book,
I see the hook,
How about we have a look,
Don't make me choke,
I am with a bottle of Coke,
I hear a creek,
I am not a Greek,
The shrubs are on a bleak,
Glistened by the sleek,
I soften my cheek,
Keep me in check,
For the high-tech,
I smell a stench,
Without a blench,
I learned in French,
I did not sench,
Into a trench,
I'm blanch,
I went on blank,
I did not want to stay submerged,
I on a search,
For a lurch,
That I could not wait for my lunch,
I sat on a hunch,
I go for a punch,
Wait, it is the launch,
I would not move an inch,
That starts with an itch,
I did not put a salt on my stitch,
To worsen the condition of a hitch,
I run away with a glitch,
I am out of reach,
For more research,
Of what I found and searched.
The lampposts stand,
stoic and lonely,
spirits overlooking the barren land.
Their light’s turned cold,
same as the air’s developing bite.
It’s only natural;
winter drags in a reality both harsh and unforgiving,
unrelenting in its frigid austerity.
How could anything not bare its teeth in response?
The chill is seeping into my fingertips,
turning my blood to ice.
My northern attitude creeps back in,
darkening my vision,
and I start to feel I’m on shaky ground.
I’m overlooking a precipice;
one foot in today,
the other in a clouded future.
I can discern from it nothing but terrifying probabilities.
The cold wraps its fingers around the base of my spine and whispers:
the friends you know today will be blurry ghosts of themselves come tomorrow.
They’ll never regard you without frost in their hearts and eyes.
I pray my sense will return when I thaw.
Israel has every right to defend itself
wily American ‘liberals’ say
If they said the same thing about Poland
How do they think that would play?
R-estrictions
E-rase
N-asty
E-pidemic
U-ntil
B-acteria
A-voids
L-ockdown's
D-efensive
O-ffense
Topic: Birthday of Bro. Rene Ubaldo (May 31)
Form: Vertical Monocrostic
I sit on the fence
Would like to be eccentric
But don’t quite pull it off
I still cater to way too many people
Yet I’ll never become their puppet
So beware to those who
Try to pull their stunts
I don’t handle well
Being manipulated
Though I’ll applaud it
If well done
I no longer have it in me to be
That lovely little cheerful girl
The naïve type I used to be
Especially when dealing
With people who’ve been known
To try to take advantage of me
I can move on but can’t forget
I’m OK with being an acquired taste
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Submitted on July 8, 2019 for contest YOU AND YOURS, LET'S GET PERSONAL sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - RANKED 2nd
It takes a big, strong guy to play on defense.
However, you need more than brawn. You need intelligence.
You can’t let that offense run wild on game day.
Make them use their three downs, and they have to punt away.
As a defensive lineman, your sights are on the quarterback.
Penetrate that backfield, and throw him for a loss with a sack.
That gives your own offense the chance to win the game.
Play at all-star caliber, and you can make yourself a name.
Limping towards the hall,
why cant you see its falling down the hole?
O you need to know,
know that there is nothing to know.,
Only you and your delusional thoughts,
think this, thought that,
what is going to happen to the rat?,
what rat?.
You the rat who is polluting all what was given as a gift,
more you want, less you give,
less you get,
cant you see you are drowning in your own growls.,
Growls being produced from your nasty vowels,
vows of torture,
vows of destruction.,
O you puny silly human,
cant you see you are polluting your own family tree?
lost in filth you are,
filth coming out of your nasty mouth,
slime infecting natures rhyme,
thus Nature sweeping you away with the might of its rite.,
How dare you go against natures eyes?
cant you see we are the context of within its eyes?
O how soulless you are,
You cant even recognize that you have wrecked your own tree!.
I made it through yet again
I walked away, again unharmed
One small battle, one small win
In which this beast was charmed.
Next time I might not get so blessed
to be able to walk away
This is becoming too much stress!
But I made it, if just for today.
There will come a time I am sure,
when I will succumb, fall and die
And for that there is no cure.
Please just leave me where I lie.
But that day is not here yet.
Please believe, trust me I know,
when I say I am in debt,
my life is full of sorrow and woe.
Maybe I’ll ask myself then,
which one of my character flaws
caused me to allow this in.
Then sit back take note and pause.
But today I find glory in this small win
tomorrow is the day I will sit back
let my mind wander back once again,
Ask myself just what it is I lack.
And prepare myself,
for a defensive attack.
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