He pulled the trigger
But it was in the air
Then he shouted
Everyone lie down
It was armed robbers
On the highway, on our way to the airport.
Then another one also pulled
The trigger
They just killed an officer
Just to input fear on everyone
Then another gunshots
One armed robber down.
From afar we can hear
Sirens sounds
More officers coming
For backup
There are only two armed robbers left
They were three initially
The odds are now too much for them to handle
One ran away and the other keeps fighting
Until he died, what a hero
I wish people could stand for good just like this!
Shattered Limb
broken tree limbs
lie shattered on the ground
no longer useful
the one-armed veteran
looks on with understanding
My one-armed life which i everyday juggle
All the moments of weakness and parenthood struggles.
Although you are selfish and never are home
Besides a few tears and sometimes feeling alone
Your absence changed nothing, Im sill holding my own
I've almost forgotten it.
It got too big -
holes appeared,
entire towns fell through
my memory.
The Forbidden City
is a convoluted red and gold ribbon,
my mind cannot now untangle.
Images float off the ink
of curling maps.
Snapshots flutter
like flags in a desert sky.
I recall in parts and pieces:
middle-aged couple’s street dancing,
no revolutionary strutting,
just Quickstep, Foxtrot,
and Bossa Nova.
The young watching,
taking notes, as if
studying for an exam.
A small one-armed boy,
riding a peddle bike,
weaving through traffic,
four black cormorants strapped to his back,
their necks craning out of their wicker cage,
like sight-seeing dogs.
A quick look at Mongolia
through a hole in the Wall.
China got loose,
it escaped the hotels,
the tour buses, the itinerary.
It went down a crowded alley,
draped with roast ducks,
and paper lanterns.
If I were now to follow it,
it might lead me,
to a restaurant in London,
San Francisco, or Toronto,
or like today
come together again,
in the eyes of a girl
who sells me a smart phone.
In my many years before the mast
I’d seen rocks and shoals conspire
To ground me down to powder
Till I was just dust in the wind,
And I’d never even been to Kansas.
I was useless as a one-armed paper hanger,
Skilled in the geometer’s art,
But no closer to infinity
Than the day I’d started out.
Just a journeyman aesthete
Dressing drywall plaster
With those tapestried patterns
Favored by the rich and famous.
But, being a lifelong learner,
I learned to breathe.
I learned to eat.
I learned to say, “No.”
I became a student of the universe,
Composer of the mini-verse,
Somewhere to the left of Earth.
Mainlining the vagus nerve
On the highway leading home.
And there’s no place like home.
I must be doin’ somethin’ right.
“Why raise this much crude alarm
Over the schemed little harm
To just chop off your left arm
Leaving your right for your farm…
Left arm coming to gross harm
Does not betray yields from farm,
Save for one with eyes on alms,
Since planning to dump farm’s palms...
Your right arm can yams harvest,
Just as it can put on vest.
No true lover would you jest
Or with tongue your patience test
For being now a one-armed man
She should leave for older stan!”
Pumpkin man tore off another’s arm for a walking stick.
He hiked through the pine forest with one-armed Nick.
The frown he gave me turned my hair star white.
Even on Halloween, this creep gave me a fright.
He had a foul odor and a glare to his ebony eyes.
He travelled with dead pumpkins, no big surprise.
I was terrified when he chased me in my dreams.
Don’t worry, he’s not as scary as he always seems!
Where had the voice come from? I yelled “hark!”
Opened my eyes and saw Pumpkin man in the dark.
The killing of a poet
There are many sorts of poets those who
extoll the sitting regime tell of order it has brought
their words are recited they win prizes but few, today remembers their names
Federico Lorca was not one of them.
He wrote the truth of the brutal fascistic nature of the state and what
it had become.
He was a man they had to kill.
He tried to flee but on a side road he was stopped by assassins, at the time
he was in the company of a one-armed priest a communist
They had to dig their own grave.
Since Lorca was gay, they shot him in the rear “you like this sort of things
they laughed, these cruel people were killing art.
They also shot him in the groin: squealed like a pig they later said.
This was a Spain of old but the ghost of fascism is still among us we have
To be vigilant.
off the wall dancing
electric blue shoes awhirl
one-armed pushup
11/5/2020
Start All over Again (First in my poetic poem Civil War Series. Jim Horn)
Bodies, once with souls, we did carry,
From church to a country cemetery,
And new thought came to me again;
How many battles had they been in?
It really cuts your quick to the core;
Civil War, what were they fighting for;
Maybe South’s mere, meager existence;
People applying pressure with persistence.
Should it be so slavery can come to an end?
Cattle and crops, who should be one to tend?
Entrust so to take care of our native soil,
While real hot outside and about to boil.
Was it high society and a social difference?
How they treat those on wrong side of fence,
Or some tracks, if living in a sweaty city,
With poor renting property, such a pity.
Languished war lasted for a long while;
South lost and came home in single file;
Lonely, legless and a one-armed man,
Coming home to start all over again.
Jim Horn
Along the blood road there are thousands of ponds.
Carved out by American bombs.
A futile attempt to blast communism
into the next millennium.
It'll take a hundred years to remove
unexploded ordinances.
Children mistake them for shiny toys.
Every day is black Christmas for children
who play along the blood road.
The metal from war doesn't go to waste.
The skin of bombs is made into skiffs.
That putter around the delta mist.
Some taking in round-eyed tourists...
Who're eager to see how a poor communist lives.
More often than not they'll be invited into a hut
provided a humble, heartfelt meal.
Sometimes by a widowed one-armed matriarch.
Today, the blood road is being devoured by jungle.
Natives still slave over rice paddies.
Just like they have for a thousand years.
And will for a thousand years more.
Some of the bomb ponds hold trapped fish
where villagers toss hopeful nets...
and who said war is good for nothing?
I've almost forgotten it.
It got too big -
holes appeared,
entire towns fell through them.
The Forbidden City
is a convoluted red and gold ribbon
my mind cannot now untangle.
Images float off the ink
of curling maps.
Snapshots flutter
like flags in a desert sky.
I recall in parts and pieces:
middle-aged couple’s street dancing,
no revolutionary strutting,
just Quickstep, Foxtrot,
and Bossa Nova.
The young watching,
taking notes, as if
studying for an exam.
A small one-armed boy,
riding a peddle bike
weaving through traffic,
four black cormorants strapped to his back,
necks craning out of their wicker cage
like sight-seeing dogs.
A quick look at Mongolia
through a hole in the Wall.
China got loose,
it escaped the hotels,
the tour buses, the itinerary.
It went down a crowded alley,
draped with roast ducks
and paper lanterns.
If I were to follow it,
it might lead me
to a restaurant in London,
San Francisco, or Toronto,
or like today
come together again
in the face of a girl
who sells me a phone
at Radio Shack.
Drawing from the shadow of La Manquita
The mighty Spanish master from Málaga
Painted his m'lady borderline grotesque
Features so far flung and un fathomably stretched
She had an eye in Segovia and a nose in Madrid
7/9/2019
H G Longfellow Inspired Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Julia Ward
While waiting
While I was waiting for the poem, I was going to write
to show up but I can`t find the right words
starting the process, I have amused myself by
writing two smaller things. I look at my nails
they are too long but clean mainly because I do
the washing up after lunch by hand or rather
two hands I have never heard of a one-armed dishwasher.
Thought of the German philosopher who said
that God was dead, I ask; How can something not
Born be dead? The great poem I was going to write
is in hiding looking at the screen didn`t help,
so it will have to wait and soon it will be morning.
Bourbon street and candy canes two unicorns in disguise,
Nickels for an easy dime,
And a quarter for a rhyme.
Shooting stars and colored moons aces to the heart,
A world through rose tinted glasses,
And dreams left standing gone from the masses.
Take the day out of night and the night out of day,
A different drummer a different song,
And the one-armed bandit takes what's wrong.
A cloak and dagger game of men and mice,
Every bait and switch of hand,
And the piper leads to the promised land.
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.