Padlocks Poems

- Heart In The Right Place -

  Memories from childhood summers
  still tickling my stomach
  Through overgrown paths
  Red painted farmhouse
  where flowers and weeds grew in harmony
  It seems as yesterday, but it is long ago

  Outbuilding with a heart on the door
  Didn't exactly smell as roses
  A carefree shed, with photographs
  of the royal family on the wall
  You don't wipe yourself behind with
  the head of the country
  With padlocks and cracked beams
  that filtered the daylight (and odor)

  Silent testimony
  the time when life was different
  Shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for existence
  with teamwork and brotherhood
  to achieve a common goal
  The feeling of community in all simplicity

  Childhood memories
  not only smell of venerable dust,
  outbuildings or weeds
  but brings along
  an atmosphere of ancient wisdom

My Name

I want to buy a wardrobe, 
And in it I place my name
In the top left corner
Of its darkest spot. 

I want to buy a wardrobe
And in it put a billion chambers, 
To keep my name safe
From vultures aimed
To pounce tiger like
And tear it into pieces. 

I want to hide my name, 
From the sadistic and narcissistic
Individuals aimed to put a show
And from it their fame
Grows
Heart hurt to smithereens. 

I want to hide my name, 
In the many chambers
Of my wardrobe
Made of finest of steel
And many padlocks
To shield it from scavengers sharp claws
Stinking hold of its skin. 

The name I want to hide, 
Is bleeding with a fire 
That does not burn
Busy on Kabale streets
Sweeping the floor clean
And babbling on all town walls
Of a native 
That ashames the kin
And the nation at large
I want to hide my name.

I want to buy a wardrobe, 
And in it I lay my name
In the top right corner
Of its brightest spot. 

And only then, 
Will My name  be free...

How Do You Feel

empty words without meaning
words mumbled for mere formality
lost in rolling endless echoes

we understand the game 
and agree it's nothing personal
just filler to mask the silence that besets us

so we erect tall fences, add padlocks
and answer the knock of only the rare few
we keep it formal so not to muddy waters

how do you do? is not a question
our fine means I don’t want to talk 
or I’m not convinced you care

don’t you see how we’ve become blasé
or maybe just maybe we need to better
recognize those pauses of genuine concern

so a how do you feel? becomes 
a how do you feel about me?
because I care and we can be friends



AP: Honorable Mention 2023, Honorable Mention 2023

Cancer

in the corridors of this endless labyrinth every corner hides the abominable, like your last sad diagnosis, crumpled up and thrown on the old sideboard, or my pale face in the embarrassing portrait, still scared of the storm that made the sunflowers disappear from the city, because this is a suffering in thick drops, it descends slow and bad through the cold walls and within all the medicines we find no solution, even trying to corrupt happiness with false therapies or keeping and forgetting the tickets of our trips to illusion, but now not even the broken armchair misses of our pain while it rots quietly in another dark corridor, in the abandoned house a mummified grasshopper lies beside the little boxes with padlocks, as if we could keep the screams of the wind that toppled our world, or if we could still see and follow in the footsteps of who we would never be again, it was you who tasted the sour void, you who saw the exit sign that time swallowed, It's really good not knowing who we were, because if we've lost each other forever and I'm no longer allowed to remember, the mirror of memory did well when it broke

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, 2021

Now  I lay me down to sleep
Dear Lord, allow me, my head to keep?
Insane Taliban, coming to our shores,
Heavy padlocks on all my doors!


If one Killer, into my house comes,
Beneath my pillows, I do have a gun.
Will use it too, without reservation!
I intend to stay alive, in this American national


                     9/20/2021

A Lidl Bit Odd - a True Story

A visit to Lidl, can seem like a riddle
But I like to browse through the aisles in the middle
Where you may find farmyards and little toy zoos
Right next to pair of size 5 ladies shoes

The range in the middle seems muddled and weird
The padlocks sit next to a small plastic beard
But I’ve just discovered the madness had spread
The grocery aisles have messed with my head 

If you have gone there to chat up female singles
You will not impress with their own branded Pringles
Their fresh eggs are packaged like nothing I’ve seen
Who buys their eggs in a pack of fifteen

It does make some sense to have band-aids for bunions 
But what is the purpose of onion-less onions

Living Within the Box

Living Within the Box
by M. Griswold   04262020

For all those folks who live within the box.
Whose walls are shaped like li'l rigid blocks.
Let it be known and let it be my opinion stated.
That living within the box is grossly overrated.

For instance, vision is limited by a boxes tall walls. 
And usually has no windows or doors, big or small.
With only four sides that speak echos back at you.
Leaves one with a very short sighted point of view.

In secondstance, when you live within a restricted box.
It's hard to answer when opportunity comes and knocks.
Due to the fact there's no windows to see who is there.
And no doors to open for good fortune to enter and share.

Now, I understand folks need their box for security reasons.
and there's some that need it to resist any change of seasons.
But it is only my opinion that living within a restrictive box.
Is like living your life with a spirit chained with padlocks.

Freedom Is

Freedom is 
complex affairs
walking barefoot
lover’s shoes still warm
happy home


Freedom is 
landscapes of complication
binding flowers
Chaining pedals
Intertwining exit of padlocks

Freedom is 
desolate harmony
saxophone captivation
kidnapped instrument of dissonance

Freedom is
opposition-al terror
fists of illiteracy
callous and cold
bleeding knowledge


Freedom is 
heartbroken beauty
painting behind closet doors
The streets are 
Cold, Wet and Dark
profession of harrowing persistence


Freedom is
mother’s watching glare
Confined Shelter Protected 
Invulnerability heart
conditional truth
camouflaged passion 
her brainwashed eyes
See Your Freedom

A Sunny Afternoon In My Country

On a sunny afternoon in my country...
With the hope of receiving alert for the new minimum wage in my dreams
I decided to sleep knowing it was a sunny afternoon 
Everything was hot and could not have been made cool no matter how many consumed ice creams

NEPA people even after privatization have refused to bring constant power supply 
And so, I was left to swim in my salty sweat
You can imagine such a punishment for a young man trying to survive in a very hard economy of no sure employment opportunities
Except you know a person that knows a person wey sabi another person for that place 
Like that was not enough within that space

Decided to take a stroll down the street 
Just to get some sachets of sweet
Unfortunately the owner was just opening 
And had to wait a whooping ten or more minutes for her to open her shop. Why?
There were more than eight solid padlocks to be unlocked  for her shop to be opened in a country where all the security forces recruit on yearly basis

The afternoon was short but the experiences lasted longer than the roads being constructed in my lovely country
Just me satirically reflecting on a sunny afternoon in my country.

©ABSOL

There Is a Bridge

Where padlocks represent both the beginning and renewal, of deep love.
Appropriately it is in the city of lights.
Were imagination, creativity, and openness to all, flow from the hearts of artists, along the Seine.
The padlocks in the beginning are easy to affix to the bridge.
They are new and shiny, work well, no rust, to stop there attachment.
The padlocks that come from renewal are quite different.
They are rusty, dented, and hard to move.
That's because to remove them from the locked door, It took patience and time, distance and weather taking it's toll on the workings within.
Those who are lucky enough to remember the combination, to open doors shut and locked,
can now enjoy the sites of Paris, free of doubts,  not alone, but together.

Icicle Castles and the Residents Inside:

#Icicle Castles and the Residents inside:
Meet the PADLOCKS, RESIDENTS and the POTENTIALS...

They are locked inside, as time goes by, and all they had to do, was make a BREAKTHROUGH...However, NO ONE WANTED TO BE THE "ICEBREAKER"

Except the Sun MELTED the Castle!
A current Hassle for the Padlocks, (Participants) and Potentials???

Let's Hope They Find New Land...

With The Exclusion Of SAND.

©Renee D. Gross   3/28/2018#

Every Wife Is a Padlock

My friend, did you know this?

Every wife is a padlock in a home
handed over the home by trust
to keep safe and secure from loot
and report any attempted robbery

My friend did you know this?
few report attempted robbery
often padlock becomes looter

Very pads keep doors locked
thieves often break into chambers
and grab the safes down there
full of pearls, gold, honey, cakes

What I know you do know too
but why do thieves break padlocks?
Simple. For every door is master key
for willing opener, willing opening

The husband it is true is a watchdog
guarding straws, honey pots, beers
in every home they live and bark

My friend did you know this?
listen and reflect on this message

Often as they bark and run around
they use straws to drink honey, beers
surely looted from unwatchful owners
mindless they carry some away in joy

Padlock, watchdog, wife, husband;
expel master keys, shun baits, be a wall

If Love Took Me

IF love took me 
take me my love
   when breathing is
you breathing with me
   and life is at 
it's most loving.

   And nighttime:  
my hand upon your 
breast keeps time
 as an arm of the hour
 stealing moments 
within our dark.

As jaws of Cupid open
 my priest of pain
begins to sing:
"Ruby heart, padlocks
and all, deployed by
angels smiling
thunderbolt-lust;
  and i, too frail."

    Drowning in wishing-
like sea swells 
like if love took me
take me my love
 across the night 
into the dews, and the
'give me everything 
i wish/give me everything
i love/where life is at
it's most loving.

:: 08-27-2017 ::

Unshackle My Verse

The End Is Near

My existence is under absolute rule of a dictator regime,
I have grown up in the shadow of a tyrannical, overbearing man;
(and family)
he has built huge walls,
   cutting us off from the world- no one leaves;
      or ever enters.

      He jailed all journalist, newscasters, and activists,
and ended newspapers;
all writing is illegal-  the law is death if caught.

No books are allowed and all libraries have padlocks,
(and schools)
A black cloud hangs in the sky from coal burning;
nothing green exists, and
all is brown,
(nothing wild survives)
   I live in the basement of my ruined home;
      my activist parents have disappeared,
      and I write poems.

      I have to (I must) it is in my blood,
although the punishment great;
yesterday, I ran out of paper and I am writing on walls.

      The end is near-  and there is no future.

____________________
April 1, 2017

Verse/Unshackle My Verse
Copyright Protected, ID 889040

Unshackle My Verse
Kim Rodriques

I Am Not Done Yet

I have died a thousand times but I am  not dead yet
I have been  buried  a hundred times with padlocks hanging around my tomb
sealed off in a golden  glass coffin with a sign on top which reads
"Having a long rest don't disturb"
but every time I break the glass and continue on my destined path
I have been cursed a million times but I am  not cursed yet
A million daggers has been thrown from different angles at me
But each time ten million angels  rushed to protect me
I will live a thousand years more so don't come screaming at my door
I will run a thousand more  miles so don't be surprised
Ten million more will  woo me  but I know for sure that none of them is worthy
So you see none of this mombo jumbo doesn't  affect me
But don't be surprised when I wake up from my long  deserved rest 
and take my rightful place in history
Then the entire world will wake up with me 
and  celebrate this long-awaited victory.
I am not done yet!

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