Long Lawless Poems
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He Didn’t Leave Much
He didn’t leave much, never had much.
His “stuff” mostly fit in one drawer of the
old dresser. His world a daily grind of
rising at five AM, walking to his first job.
Then at five PM, walking from his first job
to his second job.
I don’t ever remember him being happy.
I know that he must have had some happiness
in his life, but it was never apparent to me.
He was intelligent, if not educated. He was
pretty much a non-participant in my life.
An Irish immigrant, he knew little of the
games his children loved, although I think
he feigned an interest at times. I imagine
these moments were his attempts to form
something of a bond with children who
knew little or nothing about their ancestors,
their history, their heredity.
The mystery of the man still shadows me
today. Who was he – really. There were
stories of Ireland and the IRA, of farms
and family, a family we never met.
As he grew older, he would become
melancholy at times and meander through
memories fueled by a bottle of Irish Whiskey.
He would play the accordion. His eyes would
sparkle as he played, as if he had gone back to
a different time, a kinder place.
Perhaps the mystery of the man is a better
legacy than knowing all the gritty details of
his loves and loses, his heartaches, his
youthful experiences. What were his secrets,
and why were they kept?
I wonder – when he left Ireland –
if he wept.
John G. Lawless
5/1/2014
Observing the realities of today's society
While contemplating the legacy we leave our children
Seeing only degradation of morality
And destruction of purpose
As we liberalize a generation
Making murder of the unseen child
Obsession of materialism
Exploitation of the human spirit
Not only acceptable
But encouraged
Dividing by status
With governmental repression of achievement and the repeated errors
Committed three centuries ago under puritanical rule
A legacy of blatant stupidity supported by
A not so supreme court of lawless
And a House of Misrepresentation
Promoting failure
Demoralizing effort and vision and
Creating entitlement minded robots
Of human flesh and programmed minds
No longer able to rebel only to accept what is, as is
A cry for the return of the patriot
A need to resurrect the glory
A reversal of the demise of faith
Restoring hope
An assault on ignorance then will become
A legacy of love
We preached passivity with violence
While spewing raucous vitriol
Offered all inclusion
Beneath a tie-dyed flag
Whispered to the innocent
Of the evil’s oh so near
Supported certain candidates
Just to get their ear
Taught kids how to rant and chant
Not how to understand
Promised them the everything
Of the nothing in our hand
Then promised them at bedtime
There’s a god that has a plan
We wished to keep them mindless
Thoughtless and uninformed
To cherish being average
And well within the norm
Finally, convince them
To fit in they must conform
John G. Lawless
©6/25/2023
I think my dog hates me
perhaps because he listens to my cat
I know my cat hates me
probably because I think he’s my cat.
The cat hates the dog just because he’s a cat,
at heart, a homicidal sociopath with claws.
The dog is slightly neurotic and paranoid
never knowing when the cat will strike again.
Each morning, like 4 AM, I let the cat out,
OK, he howls at the door and torments the dog
until I let him out. As he leaves I shout
“have a nice day, go kill something”.
He usually does and often brings it home
for my perusal. The dog just shakes his head
and longs for the good old days back at the shelter.
My neighbor hates me because my cat
uses his flower garden as his litter box.
The cats picture is posted in the Vets office
with one of those red circle/slashes over it.
She told me that this cat, my cat, was fiendishly
feral, that I was enabling his insanity
by refusing to take him to therapy.
The dog whimpered, probably thinking
about the fact the cat still had about
seven lives left.
John G. Lawless
©5/13/2019
Listen up troops, some words before battle
There is no need to fret or be afraid
Even as the walls around us rattle
The enemy's prowess will be betrayed
Yes, they may out number us three to one
With armor that is of much better grade
Our oppressors think we will turn and run
A graver mistake has never been made
This is our home, built from blood, sweat and tears
Hearts and souls forged better than any blade
We have worked so hard to banish our fears
Prepared immensely to defeat this raid
Raise your weapons high, let the arrows fly
The time for us to give it all is nigh!
Written for A WARRIOR SONNET by John lawless
9/21/2020
POLITICALLY RELIGIOUS PUNDITRY
and as the tide of mindless babble receded
whispering through the foaming bubbles,
giggling in the lather of their lies, smoothing
the unsuspecting edges of the irate populace
with the blandly pathetic pablum on which
they subsist, a rogue wave broke upon the
barren beach, tore the moorings of the past
from their entrenchments, cleansed the sands
of the needless detritus of failures filth, surged
through all the alleyways of wealth and power,
washing from their hands the stain of greed,
and in withdrawing left a stinging message -
repent - or I return.
John G. Lawless
9/30/2014
What story should I tell?
This is the tale of how the lonely acorn fell
far from where the mighty oak had stood
cut by the hands of man, felled for its wood.
The mother-father tree lay across the laid bare land
cut down in the forest no more to stand
and the branches stretched out along the dirt
releasing the acorn from its berth.
This acorn scratched and bruised, browned and torn
slipped into the streamflow of new rivers formed
and floated out to the open sea
she rode the tides salted and found herself - free.
The gulf stream path sped north into the wintry chill
as she cut across the sands where tidal waves were spilled
and a gull eyed her glistening shiny coat
and scooped her up but not down into her throat.
Pass the inlets, along the earthen roads
the gull dropped her beyond the manmade folds
where fertile land had long ago appeared
and squirrel and chipmunk vied for burrows cleared.
Buried deep in fertile soils blessed
this acorn was welcomed as the forest began its undress
with autumn fall and winter tamed,
she was awakened by the sun and rain.
This acorn found a place in the northeast spring
with hairy roots that began to form and sing,
of an acorn that was newly born.
escaping the outer shell coat torn.
She began to grow far from where she fell
and as life took on its hold in sapling meld
the newest oak began to watch history unfold
and knew then she was not the last acorn in the mold.
As time and historic years hurried pass
she knew she was not nor would be the last
with nature's watch and thirst
she was, the very first.
4/24/20
for John Lawless contest
The Last Acorn
A Judges Dream
While judging a poetry contest I dreamt
of the time and the thoughtful energy spent
perusing the content, rhythm and rhyme
confused by the presence of rosmary’s thyme
counted the syllables, measured the meter
only to read something sick’ningly sweeter
and then with a bang a poem exploded
my god was the writer just crazy – or loaded.
Thus was I tortured, forced to flee from my bed
to read once again whatever I’d read
awaken the muse, become more reflective
remember that poets have but one directive
and that is to write, and then to write more
then share what they’ve written with both rich and poor.
John G. Lawless
5/27/2021
Dare ye! Dare ye!
Dare ye unlock the tomb
release the musty words of fear
unleash the vitriol of anger
upon the rusted lockset
Freedom does not free one
from the mind’s dungeon
nor sweeten the stench
of clutched bitterness
Dare ye step away
deny the bindings power
to entrap us as we flee
the burden of being free
Scars are not the price we pay
only reminders of its sting
scabbed testament to a will
that would not bend
Dare ye breathe
the breath of who we are
leave behind the shadow
of what we had become
Shed tears that cleanse
blurred opaque vision
smile through the pain
of joy’s remembrance?
©John G. Lawless
4/5/2017
How I remember that song
Playing daily on the radio
Just a couple of notes
I’d instantly get shivers
And nothing else
Mattered around me
Seems I was barely twelve
I heard that saxophone
And masterful sexy voice
My knees would buckle
Realizing full well
I was hooked on a song
Praising the virtues
Of unfaithfulness and
Mystique of a love affair
I was swayed so
By that sax and sexy voice in spite of the
Unscrupulously questionable lyrics
Because really
There was nothing overly exciting
About a clandestine morning meeting
At some backwoods café
Yet that song still
Has its claws into me
And to this day
My heart skips a beat
As I buckle in spite of myself
At the charm of just a few notes
Realizing how powerless I am
Under the influence of that
Sly snake charmer
And it never gets old
There’s something
Quite magical about
How time stands perfectly still
For that one marvelously
Seductive ageless moment
Read on air by invitation ~ May 19, 2021 'WORDS & MUSIC'
AP: 1st place 2021, 3rd place 2021, Honorable Mention 2020, Honorable Mention 2020
Submitted on June 1, 2018. for contest POETRY FOR THE SAKE OF POETRY sponsored by JOHN LAWLESS - RANKED 8TH