Of all the world this century I see
What shimmers – artifice devoid of soul.
Pneumatic truncheons burying dreams of She,
The Mother, under satin sheets of coal.
If would mine eyes deceive me not I’d think
It just a putrid fantasy, from which
The shadows formed by tortured lids could blink
Awake into the rays from which no niche
Could cling like pincers holding darkness gripped.
Inverted it would seem the very Laws,
When God can’t stop in poison water dipped,
The baptism of Earth in fossil maws.
I pray that life – eternal Hope so fair,
Can snatch redemption from morose Despair.
Categories:
truncheons, environment,
Form: Sonnet
No more water hosing or truncheons beaten on bare feet,
no nightsticks cracking skulls on Bowery streets.
No cold water straitjackets or rubber padded rooms,
no laudanum doses sweeping minds like a broom.
Now its pretentious centers deluxe
brazenly charging big bucks
for twenty-eight days of schmoozing
to turn off the boozing,
and swallowing mega-vitamin pills
to ward off the chills,
or sit in circles with stories to tell
from like-minded survivors of hell.
More humane we're trying to be
even offering treatment for free
but it is still a choice at any cost.
To choose a sober life or, to an early death be lost.
Categories:
truncheons, caregiving, health, water, water,
Form: Couplet