Long Down the middle Poems
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We our blessed with many freedoms in America…
We may not always agree on what freedoms each of us select…
and where we often get into trouble is when our opposing views of freedom intersect.
We are free to choose our leaders…
even those who when trying to be a king…cause us suffering and shame…
and when this happens, because we were free to chose them…
we only have ourselves to blame.
The press is free to report the news…as best they can…honestly…impartially…
but if they only report one side of the news…are the reporters really free?
We are free to worship any God…or no God..but where it gets confusing…
is when we’re told the only God we can worship…
is a God of someone else’s choosing.
We are free to bear arms across this land…but the number of innocents afflicted
make some of us think that right needs to be a little more restricted.
We are free to speak our minds…to protest peacefully…
to dissent…to disagree…
without the fear of reprisals from a government who sees the world so differently.
It seems the very freedoms we possess…have caused a seemingly unsolvable riddle
as it appears our freedom to choose has split our country somewhere down the middle.
And we are left to wonder if these two sides will ever get along…
when each side knows that they are right and the other side is wrong.
Still when it comes to our freedoms in America…as we count them every day
we must raise or voices in opposition…when we see those freedoms being stripped away.
Because freedom is a lot like love…it’s a gift…a blessing when given to you…or me
and like love, unless it’s nurtured…it becomes a faded memory.
And when we see our freedoms trampled…this is a burden we must take on…
So our children will be free to count their freedoms…
long after we are gone.
He painted his smile
in shades of orange spite,
made a throne
out of broken truths
and broadcast static.
The crowd laughed
while the kingdom burned—
“at least he’s honest,”
they said,
as he juggled justice,
dropping it
for a standing ovation.
They mistook
noise for vision,
a tantrum
for revolution.
He said
Make America Great Again
like a preacher selling heaven,
and lit the match
that turned the country
into kindling.
But the trick
was never greatness—
it was greed,
rebranded,
threaded through a flag,
stitched into a red cap.
And with
bitter pride,
he smeared the past
onto the present
and called it legacy.
They cheered for the clown
while women’s bodies
were bartered for votes,
while justice closed its eyes
to the color of your skin.
Cheered
while he fed the rich
and called the hungry lazy,
cutting lifelines
with a joker smile.
Cheered
while workers begged,
while children starved,
while love was stripped of rights
and called a threat.
He didn’t fix the country—
he fractured it.
Split the sky down the middle
and called it freedom.
And now,
he’s drowning the rest
in noise and theater,
so we forget
who lit the fire.
We’ve read this playbook before—
dog-eared,
blood-worn,
foreign-printed,
but familiar
in every footnote.
The rise.
The march.
The scapegoat.
The silence.
He calls it showmanship.
I call it foreshadowing.
History doesn’t repeat—
it dresses in drag,
changes its accent,
and paints its face
for the crowd.
The crowd roared
for a past they never lived,
imagining power
without remembering
who paid for it.
But no—
don’t crown the clown.
Don’t give the stage
to the man
who turns spotlights
into searchlights.
No—
don’t crown the clown.
Don’t dress him in robes
stitched from fear.
He’s not the king.
He’s just the act
before the fall.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
My childhood spent without peers
alone and prey to my fears.
Nights spent face buried in my pillow
my emotions like a weeping willow.
The school kid disliked and attacked
like a player continuously sacked.
Bruises and scars physical,
cuts deep and salted, emotional.
Not a friend not even one
or an adult there to help - none.
You look to the skies for relief
but lessons taught come with grief.
Our life books come prewritten
set in stone, can't be rewritten.
Loneliness moves in, year after year
without choice you hide behind a veneer.
You give up on living
focus on just existing.
Sorry, I have to stop here. This story now transcends
rhyming, calls for a voice free just to speak.
Loneliness has many faces.
I imagine one of the most intense state of loneliness
is losing a loved one.
A planet of three billion would feel empty.
I have witnessed my mothers chagrin after
losing my father.
Happy partners a lifetime long and suddenly
she is one of two.
You do the math.
They were two who became one.
Now she is alone cut down the middle
add her pain and she is barely half.
There is no crowd that could fill her void.
There is no amount of family love
that could fill the hole in her heart.
My pain was different. I just had a wish to belong,
to have one friend, one love, or just to have a hand to hold.
When you're abandoned, ridiculed, and disliked
by everyone even by people who don't even
know you, you have no choice but to hide.
My loneliness turned me into a critter
that could curl up into a small ball.
Still I had hope.
I wished someone could love me.
Love me for my gentle ways,
my giving nature and my open arms.
18~11~2014
Sponsor: frank herrera
Contest Name: FACES OF LONELINESS
WRITE ABOUT LONLINESS FROM YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE....MUST BE AUTO BIOGRAPHICAL.
Prompt: ~ A torn canvas is two paintings*
A torn canvas is two paintings
Once upon a time, my childhood was built on fairy tales,
Of princesses and princes who never failed.
I believed every story ended with,
_"They lived happily ever after."_
But when I met you, my beloved,
The canvas of my life split in two.
_Painting One: The Golden Light_
You came like a sunbeam in the coldest winter,
Warm, healing my broken soul and heart.
I thought angels had spilled starlight into my dark.
Spring walked beside me. Joy followed my steps.
Your smile, your words, your phoenix eyes held me
Like a prince lifted from the pages of a storybook.
Hidden secrets burst from velvet clouds,
And I learned some love stories are not bound by time.
They do not need a happy ending to be holy.
_Painting Two: The Red River_
Then one day I saw black cloth tied on your arm —
A vow, a war fought for me.
Like every fairy tale, there was a villain in the story.
You fought... and I watched the red river run from your body.
You died.
And the canvas tore right down the middle.
The first painting kept smiling.
The second painting started bleeding.
They sent me to white-walled rooms,
But my window showed only the same sky we shared.
I went mad with grief. The world called it illness.
I called it loyalty.
One day I will die too,
And I will go to your grave with flowers in my hands
And madness in my eyes.
There, on cold stone, we will finally live
_"Happily ever after"_ —
Not in a kingdom,
But in heaven, where villains cannot reach.
A torn canvas is two paintings:
One where love begins,
One where love refuses to end.
I know I write a lot about my morning walks…let me now explain…
You see…each walk is different…like this morning…after the rain.
Last night’s rain was over but it’s vestiges were everywhere
Drops still clinging to the trees…the smell of rain still in the air.
The moon had set before I woke and the clouds had all flown by
making room up in the heavens for the stars to fill the sky.
When their starlight hit the raindrops…still clinging to the trees
they looked like little Christmas ornaments swaying in the breeze.
I like to feel the raindrops fall on me as I stand under the trees
I wait for them to be shaken loose by the early morning breeze.
The birds are still asleep…making sure when it’s their turn…their voices will be in tact
They sleep soundly knowing the crickets are already performing the first act.
This time of year…this early…it’s mostly rabbits that I see…
content to nod as I walk by or occasionally, share the walk with me.
Even the water in the gulf is sleeping…gently rocking sailboats that are mooring.
In the silence of the morning…I can hear…the waves softly snoring.
I always have the urge…after a rain…when I walk down the middle of the empty street
to walk and jump and splash like a child…in the puddles at my feet.
Remembering something my parents said…(it now seems like a hundred years before)
They’d smile as they watched us saying…that’s exactly what puddles are for.
I like to run my hand along the plants and the bushes…any place the rain has lingered
thinking how magical the same rain that fell from the clouds…is now resting on my fingers.
As I head across our lawn once home…
thinking of all these morning memories I’ve amassed.
I realize the only thing left to do after the rain
is to walk barefoot in the grass.
I know I write a lot about my morning walks…
but each walk in its own way entertains…
each walk is unique and magical and different…like this morning…after the rain.
my mouth agape,
salivating...
and I mean, a waterfall of saliva,
c a s c a d i n g!
oh, this pining, this unslakable hunger...
I need you, now,
more than I've ever needed anything, my sweet.
I'm eagerly anticipating "soon,"
which seems as far as thousands of miles.
you promised it,
so I'm holding onto it
do you hold me in your heart just as much?
every time our front door shuts -
behind you -
our world, life as we know it,
slices down the middle.
our home becomes a vast, lifeless desert;
the silence, deafening.
loneliness isn't just a feeling,
but an encumberance I can't shake off.
please, be back soon;
I need you now.
I miss your silhouette dancing on the walls.
i'm with emptiness;
she's a houseguest that refuses to leave,
tracking mud and grit across the floor.
I'm tired of going
from room to room
scrubbing her footprints off the hardwood,
out of the rugs;
I have no use for her!
is it a sin that I want just your tracks?
I am but a lone wolf
howling at the moon that is you at twilight time.
please, just come back
and end my torturous yearning.
need I repeat?
I need you back, soon,
please?
John was painting white lines down the middle of the road
The lines extended rapidly but gradually slowed
The dotted line he'd painted was so accurately spaced
But then his boss said, “Sorry John, you’ll have to be replaced.
“I’m giving you your notice, John, your work rate’s going down,
This morning you got started and you reached the end of town,
After lunch you only painted thirty seven feet
And now it seems you’re really not much further up the street.”
John said, “Look I’m sorry boss, I am doing my best,
I didn’t know that I would face a time and motion test,
My line’s still getting longer, can’t you see how far I’ve got?
But every time I need the paint I’m further from the pot!”
This is a great place to hide, high above the frozen
creek. My brother will be walking down the middle of it soon.
He'll never see me or this snowball I will hit him with.
I hear footsteps crunching down the thin top layer of ice.
A little closer and I'll attack.
Here's a nice limb to hold onto to balance myself for the throw.
"Crack" The stem has broke, I'm falling, and I feel my body punch
through the ice. I'm cold freezing I need to crawl out onto the bank.
Good, I have made it out, now the long walk home through
the snow before my pants freeze. Each step is becoming more
painful than the last. My steps are becoming shuffles. The
distance home is becoming further and further away.
It's beginning to feel like forever.
Stepping heavy as the burden of my heart breaks
Heartfelt, never made an effort that was half-hearted
enough to be coming at your heart in half-steps
Check my prints, my footsteps never matched them
The path I tread in , my only companion be my melodies
Like the walls of Jericho fell, fall and there falls the Pharoah
Threats of Violence don't scare me
Thye just make me very hard to deal with
Especially when the means you using be excessive
Like you obsessed with my arrest's
Interested Like all my Faith is
Dead without the works
God's the rod to my back still
Man my back hurts
the battles I lost them
look at the cost here
I'm seed that is fallow, the ground is Hallowed
Pride swallowed, I still feel and taste that sorrow
It's unlikely, it's not even like me
to be talking to mice like they're men and mighty
so i switch it up and doulble dip them
Top them like i'm talking to models
My Motto "Aqua, Contra, Quatra"
I never quench the Spirit
My Spirit serious enough to quench a series
Precise, precisely, ETA> exact time arrival
Man I'm past due i ain't even arrived yet
I couldn't defeat 'em, but I survived them
And I will>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Be the one Pitching the Team here
and if They wanna be the devil
Well I be the Devil
Serving Curve balls and Strikes down the middle
Big Brother don't feel my anger
Just feel the Power
Come on man don' you wanna share it
Cuz you be Preaching to me about being stingy
look I'm the Potter, your the vessal, you want some Honor
i don't ask for nothing, nathan
I just take you and feed you like i did the pheines then
You never know I just might be that tree man
Whispering up in a breeze in
And there boy
Up in the air with The Airforce
Like the 3rd World War
Destruction>--- Of -C-our-se
Death For-- S-ure
Form:
We got really dumped on yesterday
Was hoping we would miss out on this one
But must remember, this is Canada!
The land of ice and snow and parkas and snow shoes
At least that's the general perception
We have electricity and runny water and even indoor toilets
And not only that, we have radio
However, the powers that be are promising TV before 2020
Okay okay, I'm exaggerating a wee bit
We just recently got indoor plumbing
Hmmm, strangely my tongue seems to be stuck firmly in my cheek
But we are a hearty bunch
On January 1st every year, some of our real hearty dudes
Take a dip in the Ottawa River
They're called the “Polar Bear Club”
I have a different name for them!!!!!
I call them the “Those That Have A Screw Loose Club”
They urgently need to seek psychiatric help
As backward as we are, we DO have medicare... yee haw!
So we can take all kinds of risks we wouldn't normally take
Like clomping down the middle of our major thoroughfares
Making sure we watch out for the occasional snowmobile
And wearing our stylish snowshoes and parkas
A hearty bunch we are!!!
© Jack Ellison 2014