Long Hatchets Poems

Hannah, I haven't seen or heard you cry
not in the gray of winter day
or in the cold silence of our prisoner nights,
the others can hardly keep up with you on the marches
your face is changeless...

Read More

UndefeaTed.  A Boxing Lesson.

A friend, off the Vineyard,
wrighted a ship.
And, perhaps himself,
and certainly the worlds ‘round him.
His words were fashioned, shipshape and watertight
as were the splines and bungholes and rudder pins and
All the Things...

Read More

Did you even want to be found?
I took my shackles off and formed a search and rescue team 
But did you even want to be found?
You’ve been running all your life I think you’ve aced...

Read More

Tears after Fears….By Kones Kipkoech

The church, the police station,
The mall, the school, the airport,
The bus stop, the market,
Even the State House
Everyone lives in fears,
Which soon turns to tears.

Why murder ?
Is it religion ?
Is it region...

Read More

We had been married thirteen years. 
We had two daughters aged four and one year old. 
I had no idea what she wanted to talk about that day. 

We went into our bedroom and closed...

Read More

THE CLOWN

The entire world loves a clown,
But wait until they get a load of me,
Is what the faceless figure under the mask
Says, heckling with laughter's haunting zeal.
After the lights of the midway fade, and the
Crowd's...

Read More

We started going house to house and freeing all the 
slaves, then killing all the white folks left with 
hatchets, knives and chains,

we only used blunt objects to conceal our wave of 
smoke, I'll surely...

Read More

I lay crying in the woods,
Bloody knees and a broken nose,
The rain is falling washing away some blood,
My hair is knotted and filthy with who knows.

No one travels this dirt road,
This is to much of...

Read More

The concrete and plastic, chrome domed
bricked up auditorIum rang
like a hollow bell,
a meager few red skins circle the stadium seats
like smoke from a mythical “peace” pipe
ragged, distilled, diluted, distraught, “dised”
A 21st century ablution of angst.

Round...

Read More

slivers of gold sifted out
glints of sunshine
cutting through clouds
only for moments
we traipse through thick thorny vines
grabbing around our ankles 
each day falling into holes
of kids screaming
climbing jagged mountains
of bosses needing more 
more of our thinly...

Read More

the argument started like the lighting of a fuse
embers of an ongoing conflict spanning years &
the fact remains, at this age, neither of these family members need see each other any more unless they choose...

Read More

Nobody ever forgets where he buried the hatchet. ~ Kin Hubbard


You bring the hatchet
          each time
   and you bury it deep.
Your friend is still...

Read More

It took our boys, 
And turned them into men. 
It raped our girls, 
And made them pregnant with hate. 
It took away the toys from our children's hands, 
And taught them to toy with each...

Read More

MAMA PRAY FOR ME

In your deepest chamber Mama,pray for me 
To know who deserves my door and who worths not my window 
For i have seen those who destroyed a man
Attend his funeral to console...

Read More

Facing facts was never where he excelled:
avoiding them, he flitted, like a blind bat
guided as by sonar past obstacles
crowding the dark cave of his existence.
Still, some sight sifted through his shuttered eyes.
Onlookers might have guessed
he...

Read More

She is forty-seven, but insists on being with our twenty-five-year-olds.
I have heard her in the office hallway begging to be invited to things.
I will bring a really good present if you invite me to your...

Read More

I, ex-conservative, do swear
The liberal view beyond compare,
Obama’s term, all heaven knows,
Like sweet lush grass between our toes,
Conservatives of good intent
As rare as bread from heaven sent.
I kneel before my liberal friends
And pledge my heart...

Read More

Burying The Hatchet
©Ben Burton 4/7/2018

When burying the hatchet, make it deep
Thus none who travels by might ever see
That designee of senseless, squandered time
Wherein the guilt lies not in any crime
Save arrogance or stubborness gone wild
Which...

Read More

The eyes pierces into the soul of another 

Like a dagger driven deep through the heart
It drives deep into soul of thoughts


Without permission

It opens thoughts 
It flips through the pages of the mind 
Like an...

Read More

I like to stick my head up.
Sometimes it gets lopped off.
While the angry one glares at me.

I like to give them my views.
Especially when they are unpopular.
Even when they surround me and mob me
Yelling and...

Read More