Lock me in a room for days
Suffocating in purple haze
Tried so hard to change my ways
Catch me from this second chance floor
I used the window, but you slammed the door
No, holding me close like you did before
No use hiding anymore
I've been holding it so long
I forgot how to breathe
I've been waiting so long
I forgot how to leave
Drag my troubles away
Until I forget how to grieve
Lost in a maze, you can't help but inveigh
Draw your money, I tallied the day
Count your blessings, and I'll count your flaws
That pinned me down between your claws
Now pick my bones out from your jaws
And fold our paper life away
Tell me now; it's not okay
I dragged my troubles away
'Cause I forgot how to grieve
Cottage cheese or curds and whey
I try to eat some every day
I generally can find a way
But always after morning weigh
So that my weight I won’t inveigh
There’s not much market for the curd
And on its face, that seems absurd
For surely if you got the word
You to would find that you preferred
The clumpy product from the herd
Which some claim gives relief with gerd
Now some of you do yogurt seek
Downing cartons as we speak
Fruity flavors interest piques
But if you eschew the plain Greek
You'll just fatten your physique
Chairman Xi, like Chairman Mao
Vladimir Putin, shades of Josef Stalin
Kim Jong-un, plus Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Iranian Mullahs producing drones and bombs
Our world is an awfully dangerous place
Yet America's response is a first-class disgrace
Yesterday Congress' focus on International Pronoun Day
At New York's UN today, autocrats against Israel inveigh
At home, crime's way up, 'so' we end cash bail
Why not let all the thugs out of jail
To protect its citizenry, America's government once existed
Now it opens the borders, its explanations ham-fisted
Add to all this rampant inflation, rising racial tensions
Plus self-defeating 'green goals' and underfunded pensions...
The 'threat to democracy' shouters couldn't be more wrong
The reason it's real ~ America misguided is no longer strong
An Eight Inch Rain
(is enough to make a man say,
“hey, what’s the deal”)
Miracle Man
5-13-2022
In tornado alley it’s our season for storming,
the adept will declare, “more global warming”.
I awoke this morning to thunder’s rumble,
sleep time was mostly just turn and tumble.
Last week saw an eight inch rain in one day,
and against the flooding I began to inveigh.
But in the near future lies summers drought,
and once again I’ll inveigh, rant and shout.
Though I rant and whine until my face is pale,
It’s God who’s controlling each minute detail.
When the system's down, why get unnerved or inveigh
It's a chance to think outside -- of poetry's box for a day
Rome wasn't built in a day
Mexicans like saying "Ole!"
If your horse eats nothing but hay
Teach him how to order on e-Bay
While terriers put sugar in their 'tay'
Cigarette smokers should use an ashtray
People say every dog has his day
Though I was told that crime doesn't pay
First April showers, then come what May
In life one's gotta find his own way
A voice vote's always a yea or a nay
It's lonely tonight -- Won't you stay?
When you're older, your hair might turn gray
Every knight needs some dragons to slay
If a soldier won't enter the fray
Against him will a nation inveigh
On her tuffet, Little Miss Muffet ate whey
When a donkey's upset, it'll bray
In Puerto Rico how those palm trees do sway
Now the sun's out: Go catch a ray
Do you remember when happy meant 'gay'
And nursery school age kids used to play?
From the path it's far too easy to stray
~ Life's choices please carefully weigh!
We woke in darkness, not because
The dawn had not arrived
But rather due to power, of which
We had been deprived.
An underground transformer,
We were told, at our hotel,
Went on the fritz and when it
Could be fixed, they couldn’t tell.
Our flight was in the morning, so
We packed and dressed to leave,
A challenge in a pitch-black room,
Which you could well believe.
We skipped the shower and no make-up
I could thus apply,
And so I looked as bad
As I could look if I did try.
Although, within the scheme of things
That can go wrong each day,
This glitch, while quite annoying’s
Hardly reason to inveigh.
Faceless Fear
Inside of me there haunts to be, a pain that never seems to go away,
Within a darkened room, of a dismal day...
Hell compounds and will confounds, my demons come out to play,
Within a darkened tomb, I faintly pray...
Help me, Lord, for I’ve cut the cord, my shifting spirit has gone astray,
A fateless fetus fume, the unborn made of clay...
Wasted years of tormented tears, progressions of my punitive pay,
Within a woeful womb, a distant dormant stray...
For fear has no face only a place, in my mind a weighted weigh,
A deceitful doom, within a guilted gray...
The fear of losing love with a shattered shove, an enigmatic inveigh,
Where the Jackals loom, a wandering decay...
The fear of losing mind only to blind the only thoughts that I portray,
Thus my fear abloom, a bereaved bouquet...
A faceless fear my soul to steer, the inner wounds need to convey,
In my darkened room of my dismal day.
Sept.14.2017
Fear II
Sponsored by: Debbie Guzzi
I
When I breathe my last and my soul finds its path back to whence it came
and my lifeless body is lowered
beneath the earth to my resting place
and a stone is set over me
encrusted with endearing evocations,
I shall not tarry one more Night;
even though the mourners mourn beyond consolation
and in spite of all those forlorn tears,
I shall depart still…
Weep not for me, I go in peace.
II
When you pass by my tomb, do not cast a scornful gaze at me
I was fair to all:
the rich and the poor I served from the same cup
I withheld not a penny of the weak, nor
did I seek to inveigle into my neighbour’s wife
or chattel; nor chased the needy away from my doorstep…
Do not inveigh against me,
the labourer deserves his wages; and so did I…
I await my judgement day.
I Fret the Holiday Season
I invited it in:
insipid, insidious
holiday hoopla;
and now rue
my indolent heart
As time escapes
I inveigh aloud
a tirade of syllables
that berate my
immutable,
irascible self
I pine for insouciance,
iniquitously doled
to some
not to others,
and wear the ignominious
crown, self-bestowed
upon my head:
“Intransigent Queen.”
I’ve only myself to blame.
Grass
A Man of discernment the grass he gazes
With invariable appetite as a cow that grazes;
Grass in plains meanders with admiration,
And up the hills in its converse undulation-
He’s green, not with envy, but admiration!
The Idiot who laid a carpet, forgetting grass
His mind is dowdy and his brain has no mass
Who would dare bestow him worthy hugs
Who defiled the Soccer Pitch with shop tugs
Who killed Nature whilst in pursuit of rugs?
Green veldt, green courtyard; green, green
Green is life; where green is there’s no spleen.
Should distance of a kilometre grass you eat
Chances are that, should you survive the feat,
All ailments you’ll be cured once and neat!
Should we not eat grass- listen to the murmur-
To savour its natural taste and green glamour;
We better adore, stop to inveigh or to boast
In white milk we drink and meat we roast
Grass daily fills our stomachs with the toast?
***Inspired by the beauty and surreal view of a freshly mowed lawn.
JM
24th Nov’ 2013
Memory is my fading friend
of millennial days transpired—
faithful scribe and guardian
who measured mercy and intent
and gauged love’s joyful glint—
yet never turned from rutted path
when sorrow’s specter, tinged
in mottled shades of gray and black,
sought only to inveigh.
Dissembled memories puzzle,
viewed dimly from afar—
where motes of recollection dust
swirl in thoughtless disarray.
I stepped within to query,
asked what’s to be done,
but rueful silence was
the sole reply of ones
not only deaf but mute.
Then appeared a trove of treasured books,
pages crisp and white, without a crease—
gatherings firm, oblivious of age.
I lightly touched the gilded words,
their selfsame title: Wisdom: Gift of Time;
the Author’s name was mine.
I nodded, smiled and then withdrew
aware at once of where I was,
secure in all I knew.
1st Place, Portrait of a Poet, Gautami, Phookan
At times, she is pleasant. Other times, she broods.
Mother Nature has many, ever-changing moods.
How will the lady be acting today?
What can we expect on this summer day?
Will she bless us with sunshine, or inveigh?
As a mere mortal, I cannot say.
There may be weather as pleasant as can be.
Things can start being hot and sultry.
Without warning, she unleashes her fury.
The wind kicks up to a ferocious velocity.
Some dark, ominous clouds stretch across the sky.
Loud thunder I hear, lightning I see with my eye.
Anytime, a vehement summer storm can begin.
Is the lady paying us back for our sin?
They go on the attack and inveigh.
Hear the gasp and the utter dismay!
we try hard not to laugh
when they commit each gaffe
No rewind. no delete. no delay.
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