Half flesh, half steel, sinews and twined wire,
Begotten in the heat of half-love, tempered
By hatred and the axe, fathered by one
Who killed her mother, the male chauvinist boar
Whose eye-teeth, razor-sharp, saw through the spine,
Joy-sword in sheath. Wrought iron, blood vessels,
Bone and cable, one part conceived, the other forged
On the hard anvil where gusts of blood are seed
Of all the axeman most does fear – cast iron woman
With stanchions for a trunk, iron breastplate,
A malleable black heart, a metallic chastity belt
No man may boast of stealing and still live,
Who beats men at their own battle games,
A dab hand with the axe herself, as salty tears
And globules of mercury exude from grey glands
Categories:
dehumanization, angst, gothic,
Form: Free verse
Emerging from sleep dream temerity,
his remote aurora spectral prisms
from which his wakefulness gives legerity,
from which surfaces new burgeoning aphorisms.
Truth’s contours arrayed in fluid fluency,
his morning ataraxia in the still water lake
from where his senses lose their truancy,
from where ideation sheds the opaque.
He finds repose in a moment's seclusion,
his lucid cortex in reflective possibility,
but he learns his real confirmation in inclusion,
and learns our fellowship best protects our fragility.
So quickly we imbrute each other with walls,
he knows how militarization is summoned by anxiety,
he weeps at the endless requiem protocols,
he grieves at history’s long cruel impropriety.
But he detects his promise in human need,
our struggle against forces of dehumanization,
our commission in communitarian creed,
our hope in human family realization.
Awarded second place in Poetrysoup "Grace and Solitude" rhyming poetry contest sponsored by John Hamilton.
Categories:
dehumanization, grief, hope, humanity, military,
Form: Rhyme
Path To Dehumanization
Indifference being the height of inhumanity
Brings us to the loathsome solo sounds of children
In tears with fear and fleeing foreign lands to nowhere
People thinking, that’s not me. It’s a TV show
There’s nothing I can do
So moving on
Desensitized, we watch the news in silent isolation
So much violence becomes the common place
Numbed by too much information, we become complacent
Displaced children and humanity is not our job
Being human is a full time occupation
No one said life would be easy
We live a life but not one worth living for
What was once our reason to feel alive
Is now detachment, compromised, hanging in the void
If being a rock or stone was vogue
Replacing feelings
We could move to that location, that environment to feed the cold
It’s so easy to fit that mold
While children feed their hunger with silent tears
Soulless, waiting for a touch, and feel of peace
No hope, no soup, no refuge and no you
Empty is the void if you can’t feel
Indifference is the height of inhumanity
That fills in the holes of history, hungry, looking for some empathy
Categories:
dehumanization, absence, abuse, age, change,
Form: Free verse
The bullet is on the tip of my tongue
Your heart is underneath the barrel of the gun
I’ll blow your HEART to pieces
With this:
A lethal word; a deathly weapon
I’ll watch you bleed to nothing
Shrivel, shiver with this:
An assassinating label; DEHUMANIZATION
Categories:
dehumanization, angst, heart, heart,
Form: Free verse