lows over my eyes
trying kill what's inside
just a different drive
hi jacked the vibe
trying to bug my line
get sprayed with pesticide
you see them thuggin
I'm with the plug
trippin on luggage
why you fronting
I see you trucking
moving sluggish
hop out the bucket
it's all for nothing
let's get this money
stop acting funny
we don't love them hos
running a muck
searching for love
always kept it blunt
running from love
searching to re up
always kept that heater
always been players
pushing p
run the streets
serving fiends
bout a couple keys
TV news broadcasts the motel dark,
she lies flat, belly soft with rabbit tattoos,
ash smudged into the sheets.
My boots drip clay and pesticide,
fingers stained from counting nickels.
Outside, a pumpjack bows to the ground,
over and over,
like it’s praying.
She whispers something about escape.
I kiss the scar beneath her jaw,
taste motel soap and Marlboro light.
The window rattles
an oil train snakes past in the distance,
headlights stitching the prairie shut.
Somewhere under the bed,
a cockroach drags a matchstick.
We don’t speak again.
Just listen
to the fridge counting seconds
between the thunder.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
Tried to follow Frost’s journey as far as I could.
Nah, f*** this, walking is terrible.
I stray off the paths
searching for something,
a little more bearable
I find a farmhouse and an old pesticide plane
At this point the road not taken by has gone down the drain
Steal the plane and now we fly
Through pink clouds and regretless skies
I jerk wide awake.. from my dreams,
And my pillows soften
my grounded screams.
In a world where hate reigns in whirling waves, as winter wreaths form chilling chains.
I seek refuge from weeping war strains; my one desire to vacate the poverty lane.
These gliding lights we glimpse in the atmosphere aren't honest or humane.
On the screen, they consume champagne whilst we hunt for remote grains.
My kin is slowly sinking into the sad soil from the purple pair’s pesticide campaign.
I paint my canvas of poetry in pigments of dismal despair.
They are the only words my brain can declare, I scrutinize them, seeking a breath of fresh air.
My life has become a blue, teary-eyed, sordid affair.
The only time I open my spirit and stare is at dawn when the palls play the symphony of the sunrise glare,
It's the only light I want to see and hear because I know it's golden and fair.
Robins seem to enjoy my yard
Awaiting the coolness of dewed mornings
To awaken the wriggling worms
A seasonal offering favored by the feathered ones
Dandelion waiters tend to the color and flavor
Serving up “all natural”, organic, pesticide free offerings
They can vouch for the claim
As they have managed the place for 30 years
A bold red Cardinal sits atop a fence post preaching
A Beyonce’ butted ground hog scurries away
Doves coo from within the safety of the hedges
A house cat stalks them from a windowsill
Buds dance to the music of the wood winds
A sparrow choir sings an opening hymn
As a disinterested hawk rides the updrafts
A chipmunk takes his order to go
In the Year 2023
I shall:
Breathe in – Breathe out
Slurp the soup
Eat the fried chicken with my fingers
Lick my fingers
Pet passing dogs
Write my name in the snow
Make snow “devils”
Throw at least one snowball
Try to look like I’m paying attention
Stop engaging in arguments with inanimate objects
Stop talking to the newscasters
Check the toilet paper before sitting
Negotiate with the dandelions in my pesticide free yard
Shout loudly into the abyss
Chant
Sing my song whether anyone likes it or not
Write poetry
Breath in – Breathe out
John G. Lawless
©12/18/2022
i want to go back to a time where i felt pretty
a time where i felt
something.
where slam poetry about brittle bones and bottles spoke to me
where sharp pieces of metal and sexy, seducing, sad songs spoke for me
and scars whispered what could’ve never been said
projectile vomiting diet coke and sugar-free bubblegum
choking on what i didn’t eat and the secrets eating me alive.
what a beautiful way to rot
i am a pesticide covered flower
a beautiful being crumbling slowly
right in front of your eyes.
you picked me to try and brighten your already dull life,
unknowing of my dullness
placed me in a dirty glass
what else could you have done?
i felt.
I felt pretty.
something.
something i wasn’t used to
like i was meant for more than rotting in this flower bed.
It seems to be snowing but it’s aphids.
They look like cotton or dandelion fluff.
You wouldn’t want them on your lashes.
They cling to grass, screens & other stuff.
You wouldn’t think aphids are alive, ‘til
you take a closer look - they unhook
and fly away, like the great hymn. Still,
I first saw them at Dad’s. They’re off the hook.
On plants, ladybugs enjoy them as a snack.
Oh no! Pesticide is sometimes needed when
aphids gather in great numbers and unpack.
To memorialize them, I scribble with a poet’s pen.
10/14/2022
Be nice to me. I’m just a little bee
that works so hard to see my hive succeed.
Why does it seem like you’re afraid of me?
I only want to fly around and feed
on pollen and sweet nectar. That’s my chore;
I’m necessary, for I pollinate!
But we're all being destroyed now. What for?
I do the world a service that’s so great!
My fellow bees and I just want to nourish
the plants you eat, but there’s a pesticide
which kills us! Don’t you want your fields to flourish?
Protect us, please! We’re facing genocide!
I only sting to save myself or hive
Don’t fear my kind. You need us to survive!
May 28, 2022
For Matt Caliri's Bee Creative Poetry Contest
It’s not easy to be a bee
Our crowded view of life
Sometimes the only things I see
Are trouble, toil and strife
We search to find the source of food
Then hurry to the hive
We hype the others in the mood
With waggle dance and jive
The queen, protected and aloof
Not like all the others
She is the sign and living proof
When smoke comes and smothers
Work and waggle, my daily chore
Then search a place to hide
Being a bee is so much more
When dodging pesticide
I’m a worker, and not a drone
I hope that you can see
When you harvest sweet honeycomb
It tough being a bee
I am a carpenter bee; I feast on your redwood deck
I am a flying wonder who will boldly stare you down
I don’t give a hoot that I’m destructive, what the heck!
While you sit on your porch, I just love to buzz around
Give me enough time and I’ll eat your whole deck away
And I’ll run you out of your beautiful, expensive home
What’s it to me? I have nothing better to do all day!
I see you’ve tried that pesticide foam, I will not roam
For I have hundreds of eggs laid in those cute little holes
And I plan to stay around until my children are hatched
You have your tasty redwood porch, but I have my goals
So, when it comes right down to it, you’ll be dispatched!
Written May 24, 2022
submitted to "Bee Creative" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Matt Caliri
The vale of the rich
A strange place houses as big as castles tall forbidding walls
on top of broken glass in cement: gates that can withstand
armoured tanks.
Lush dale but no humming bees or bird song too much pesticide
for the sake of beauty, what’s left is graveyard peace.
I sat on my bike for an hour in the hope of seeing people, but no.
Each palace was like an islet cut off from the world outside,
here they need no one and no one needs them, splendid isolation
Like an asylum of the weary madness.
Just as I was to leave a hearse pulled up an iron gate, the gate
opened and let, well even rich people must die, prisoners of wealth.
I ought to take some of them outside, so they see a bit of real-life
before a hearse arrives.
Buzzing mosquito
Celebrates my arrival
With a nice big bite
Skin slathered with pesticide
Will mosses give me a break!
Favourite target
I'm like medium rare steak
Beyond endurance
Miniature vampires eat me
Calamine lotion on bites.
Initially, I wrote a piece that rhymed then when I re-read rules realised it was a Tanka the sponsor wanted. So here goes with my redundant piece....
Malicious mosquito is not my friend
Hatched to bite until their end
My skin slathered in pesticide
No place to go, nowhere to hide.
Calamine lotion on all my bites
Beginning to look an absolute fright
Have enjoyed sun now I'm cooked
Avoiding mirror just can't look.
Will bloody mosses give me a break
I'm favourite target, medium rare steak
Frustrated, miserable where is that plane?
Holiday in sun! No, never again.
Bugs
Poetry Contest
Sponsored
by
M. L. Kiser
There are those, who start to judge you
from your looks and your personality
as they don’t want, to really know you
not knowing you suffer, from your mentality
It is very hard, to live your life
with always knowing, that this is on your plate
as your life, will always be in strive
with those who don’t understand, your mental state
Even when they know, you have a mental problem
they keep on using and abusing, your mentality
as they can’t accept, mental health problems
and they don’t respect you, for having any ability
Suicide is not a pesticide,, t is rage from within
that is not believed or received, by many kin
There’s hope for tomorrow
In the chaos of today
tomorrows will live on
like the ripple of the oceans
and the raging rivers.
It will survive in the
eyes of our children
with dreams that refuse to die
desires that will not be undone
left for dead under the cloak of our fear.
They will create a future
without restraint
taking notes from past mistakes
and redraft a new existence.
This is my hope for tomorrow
a world of equally
no one left behind
without avarice and exclusion
Oppression will crumple under the weight
of a true freedom
The young will watch the old hate die
bury their injustices deep into the ground
only to contaminate the soil
like a malignant pesticide,
and you know where they are buried.
It will the spot where the grass no longer grows.
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