Today’s the U.S. Open Final
Taking place in Queens,
With Alcaraz and Sinner
Front and center on our screens.
We’ve been told the prez will be on hand
And, while the anthem plays,
All the cameras will be focused
On the bluster he displays.
Yet to show how things have changed,
A memo managed to get sent
To the broadcast booths of every station
Brooking no dissent –
No booing of the U.S. king
Should make it on the air.
If such disruptions do get shown,
Well, broadcasters, beware!
This censorship just reinforces
How low we have sunk.
Our former democratic values
Certainly have shrunk.
Categories:
shrunk, america,
Form: Rhyme
I went to a land of little
A place of lovely smiles
Candle sticks and butter cups
Clothes of many styles
She gazed at me
With crinkled eyes
She said “you’re just a boy”
“But, I”m all of sixty four”
“So what, embrace your joy.”
Tiny hands and tiny feet
Flowing yellow hair
She flew about as fairies do
I couldn’t believe that she was there
The path before me
Stones and grass
The air it smelt so sweet
Butterflies with glowing eyes
Guided me to a seat
Animals and people too
Even Tiny tinker tots
Danced about with such glee
Amidst the Forget me nots
My problems shrunk to little
As I grew in joy
Sixty four’s just a number
After all, I'm just a boy.
Categories:
shrunk, appreciation, art, beauty, butterfly,
Form: Rhyme
To love your enemy
I should not say this, but there is no way to hide
I had a wonderful childhood when our country was
at war and occupied the mighty German army
walked in and out of an army barracks, riding on their
enormous horses, dark chocolate, drinking morning milk
until peace broke out, and it was back
to stark poverty that felt as if the daylight had been
switched off by an unseen hand
Headlong into communism, almost a humorous, but
That, too, had its sell-by date, and a cold war began
As seamen, we were in demand moving American
made gods around them had moved their industry
abroad and only exported wars
Once upon a time, I loved the USA, and I still have a pair
Of the jeans bought in New York, the jeans have shrunk
But I keep them as a memory of a glorious past
Categories:
shrunk, 8th grade, age, america,
Form: ABC
He shows his colors
no brain, no hair
just the disease
of old fashioned hate
the KKK his organism
a tattoo
that now only says k
shrunk stutter
Categories:
shrunk, evil, racism,
Form: Free verse
These voices, a cacophony of din,
ring in my head, but most of them aren't mine.
Somehow, they found their way under my skin.
Most are not nice, anything but benign,
masquerading as my true voice within.
Their suggestions, it's better to decline.
They tell me I must do all kinds of stuff,
because, otherwise, I'm not good enough.
Oftentimes, a voice has rescued me -
the one that says, "you're down, but you're not sunk",
when there's no shred of hope that I can see.
It says, "take one step" to shake off my funk,
when my life feels so bad, I want to flee,
it helps me face troubles from which I've shrunk.
Because of these encouragements I am alive.
They tell me what I must do to survive.
Another voice, I like more than the rest.
Inspires me to discover and create,
to love with the heart beating in my chest,
who says, "the time is now, no time to wait,
your love, my friend, must always be expressed",
and, day and night, it leaves me feeling great.
These are the words that show me how to give,
not self-blame, or just survive, but to live.
Categories:
shrunk, life, psychological, voice,
Form: Rhyme
I let him touch me.
I didn’t know him much
It was the first time I had ever felt that kind of touch
And it still haunts me now
Though I never thought it would
I don’t blame the wandering hands
I don’t think I ever could
For, someone hurt him too
They touched him with the bad
And it shrunk and shriveled before finding me sad
The bad which reaches out and crawls and spreads
A black mold in humid dread
It made me hurt some other soul
Who never asked for much
It made me want to take and take and touch
bask in the regret
Then spend the rest of my life
Running to forget
Categories:
shrunk, abuse, body, deep,
Form: Free verse
The irony of men’s life journey.
Man sees first light through the gap between his mother’s legs.
He spend most of his life trying to slip back into a gap.
The baby comes into this world wearing a hoody.
A doctor decides that the hoody must go, snip, snip.
The baby, the boy, the man, the old man’s head exposed
to the elements, except when entering the holy of holy’s.
Over eighty years have passed, time and fate has altered.
Gravity and age has shortened the height of ones stature
and added inches, feet and pounds to man’s girth.
Old age, has shrunk the length of the head of the family.
Old age, and all that that implies, leaves a negative impact.
As man looks down at the head of the family, the family jewels.
All he observes is sagging sacks and the hoody he lost as a baby.
B. J. “A” 2
June 3rd, 2025
Categories:
shrunk, baby,
Form: Free verse
To see the lilac blossom once more
I took a low road around my apartment building
I don't do this too often
So my way home was a little longer.
Not much longer actually, about 200 steps more.
Lilacs were beautiful, I smelled the heady scent of lilacs
Walking through the back lane. I love the lilacs in bloom
They were in the late stage of flowering, already shrunk a little, soon to fade.
As I turned to the home drive, I saw a tractor standing
With the engine running, the driver was smoking, sitting in his cabin.
It didn't mean anything, but I remembered this trifle.
I can't say why I tend to remember meaningless things.
Maybe they relate to me on a deeper level,
That I can't explain to myself, and I never try.
Categories:
shrunk, feelings, flower, home,
Form: Free verse
Some people can shrug off their failures
Or laugh at their feeble attempts,
While others, like me,
Find frustration to be
What an aptitude never exempts.
For when trying to learn a new skill set,
If I find myself really inept,
I get into a funk
With my confidence shrunk
And there’ve even been times I have wept.
Oh, I envy those shrugging-off people
Who poke fun at their silly mistakes,
Though it’s our DNA
Which has made us this way,
So I guess we should cut us some breaks.
Categories:
shrunk, me,
Form: Rhyme
A true sentence
As Hemingway said, start with a true sentence
the roof of the school building, I can see from
where I sit on a cloudy day is grey as lead
when lit up by sunlight that has broken through
the clouds, it turns silvery and pleasant to see
That is, a true sentence about what I see, but it
is not what I'm thinking is a love story that
began a summer's day, lasted with its drama
when days got shorter and the wind bitter
leaves shrunk and fell on a rainy street
The true sentence is the gripping sadness
the knowledge that the best of my time has gone
Categories:
shrunk, absence, angst, april,
Form: ABC
the invisible threshold
i shall not hide
i shall not die
in fervors demeanors
mis-contraception
dedicate that grammar
under sheets i halt breads
nervous
nervous is samsara
the apprehension of sorrow
end sowing of silks
cursiffs
i am also finnish
regalitry and conformity
i thee web
backstrokes towards mercy
another strings pluck
without and gaunt
she labeled and i shrunk
guilded rembrandts
dethroned liberation
my carpentry
and my stones
cementing fences
learning tones
all as duty
and none as before
once again known breach
sand shall never relent
the shore is not bright
#civilrightslaws
Categories:
shrunk, america,
Form: Free verse
The press is filled with gossip and chatter,
Like frogs and scorpions trapped in a bottle.
People have shrunk, it seems, in the end,
Boasting and bragging, but what does it mend?
The press spreads news with a calculating mind,
I’m stunned by the senseless gossip I find.
Some say they care for the nation's plight,
When they lay in bed, with husband and wife.
Digging for tales from deep underground,
Copying rumors, spreading them all around.
What someone eats or the clothes they wear,
Why does it matter? Does anyone care?
Why do we focus on parties and feasts,
When sacred treasures are starving at least?
Mainstream channels, they push their design,
To keep us distracted, to make us blind.
Is it the time, or have we grown old,
What values do we teach, what stories are told?
Fed by rumors, lies, and deceit,
A devil’s growth in our minds takes its seat.
Categories:
shrunk, society,
Form: Rhyme
You can’t defeat me!
You can’t stop my crimes!
I’ll someday get it right, you see,
I’ll even do it speaking rhymes.
I can rob a bank.
I can end it all.
Your hero powers have been shrank -
Or is it shrunk? I can’t recall.
That’s besides the point.
I’ll still win this day.
I’m so sorry to disappoint,
This will be your demise, I say!
Why destroy, you ask?
I don’t really know.
I haven’t had a tragic past.
I guess it’s fun to be your foe.
It is a pleasure
To rob this here vault.
I do not need all that treasure,
But I do need the extra…salt!
Yes, you are a salty,
That’s what makes this fun!
I love this strife and your faulty
Attempts to stop what I have done.
But you can’t win me!
You can’t stop my crimes!
This time I got it right, you see,
And I did this while speaking rhymes!
Categories:
shrunk, confidence, fantasy, funny, hero,
Form: Rhyme
They wait
for the promised
golden days
wth hope.
But in the shadows
some trembling
with fear.
On the same road
one going with hope,
another going shrunk
with anxieties.
One to lose most what he has,
another to gain more than
what he possesses.
To some
coming of the dawn,
some afraid
it is the coming
of dusk.
Categories:
shrunk, environment,
Form: Free verse
Blue hibernation tones
Frost shrunk the leaves curled
Frog that jumped into an icy pond
burrowed deep into the earth
- even the shadow turned to ice
(alternative possibility for survival )
Love winter for those short moments,
when the clouds break up
and the sun's rays shine
With my icy hands,
I cling to the miracles of joy
Categories:
shrunk, love hurts, magic, winter,
Form: Free verse
Related Poems