Two shoplifters, when they were caught,
Stealing items they just should have bought,
Fought their felony charge
For their total was large,
Adding up to much more than they’d thought.
See, their sentence, the thieves had deduced,
When the charges had been introduced,
Should be lessened, to scale,
Since just items on sale
Had been stolen, their prices reduced.
Redemption
David J Walker
The unrelenting quest
For the rest of
What was meant to be said
The best intentions
Mislaid
Mislead conventions
Discarded convictions
Colors of lost horizons
Least of the left last rites
The Vespers
of whispers
The worshipers
The shoplifters
all
Seek redemption
Before the end of the end
Of the evening
To come
Shoplifters allowed to just walk out of stores,
And suddenly it doesn’t feel like home anymore.
Racism spikes as politicians fight,
And still the law does nothing.
And still I sit wanting to do something,
But I am a nobody, a nothing.
All I am is just a fourteen year old with a dream,
For the air to be clear and the ocean clean.
Wishing people would get along
And society could move on.
But instead I sit, writing a free verse
About American the broken, and possibly cursed.
Mess
If sour cream is good,
then why is spoiled milk bad?
Does sour cream get "more"-sour with age?
Does it go backward, by turning less?
Milk... spilt!
Why is this important?
Because they make a great deal about it.
Changes whole futures,
starts wars,
and ends them.
Looks like a butterfly,
stings like a bee.
Huh.
Is that a murder hornet,
or a Vax bat?
There is something rotten,
in the market...
that has no name,
but they sell it for a dime.
People buy it,
even if they do not know...
that they do.
It is a sign,
of the time.
Shoplifters stealing countries,
for the sport of attacking flies.
A dire field of despair,
and reckless beliefs.
There is a scarecrow standing,
but no pumpkins to guard.
There is no water left,
to drink.
Clean up takes effort,
and there is little left.
Can you feel the brokenness,
of the theft?
Ann Foster
God bless your day!
I commute down the highway quite early each morn:
South toward the seashore, days work to be done.
Half way to the ocean, traveling north through the sky;
A large flock of sea gulls, passes me by.
They too have their work load cut out for the day:
At the nearest large land-fill, on their ravenous way.
Traveling ever far inland away from the sea:
They will spend the day scouring town dumps for debris.
The hours pass slowly: comes the end of my day,
I drive the same highway to a home far away.
I see in the distance flying back to the shore;
The same flock of seagulls, but hungry no more.
I can never help smile when I meet them again,
These feathered shoplifters, heading where I have been.
Life's very well ordered for these ‘foul’ of the sea,
Who each day earn a living, stealing smelly debris.
Dusk finds them at shore line with short, squawk filled flights,
They will then disappear to where gulls go at night.
And with a new morning; I will greet them once more:
On their way to those landfills, from their home at the shore.
At this moment in time
There are moms giving birth,
While gravediggers shovel
A plot in the earth.
At this moment a plane
Is preparing to soar,
While a soldier’s blown up
In a far-away war.
At this moment some people
Confess all their sins,
While the gamblers assess
All their losses and wins.
There are folks who are sleeping
Or cooking or reading;
Shoplifters stealing
And knife victims bleeding.
Actors rehearsing and
Bar patrons drinking.
Cars crashing crazily;
Novelists thinking.
Knitters are knitting
And lovers embracing;
Criminals learn of
The sentence they’re facing.
Capture one moment
And measure the arc.
Everything happens –
The light and the dark.
Here in this moment
Some journey from home,
While I sit and ponder
And jot down this poem.
One day I wanted to get my girlfriend a gift.
It was terrible because I decided to shoplift.
I tried to steal something that I should've bought.
Like many other shoplifters, I was caught.
I offered to pay for the perfume that I tried to steal.
But they decided to prosecute me and I felt ill.
It was scary when they locked me in a cell.
After I was released, things didn't go well.
It was stupid to think that I'd get off scotfree.
When I saw my girlfriend, she dumped me.
When I think about what happened, I get a chill.
Please listen to me when I tell you not to steal.
(THIS IS A FICTIONAL POEM BUT SADLY MANY PEOPLE DO SHOPLIFT.)
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