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Best Poems Written by Alison Wimmer

Below are the all-time best Alison Wimmer poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Alison Wimmer Poem

They Don'T Know Me

I lived out loud, so they must have seen,
But they don’t know me, no one does.
The few I let in, must not have been
The ones I really needed, 
I discarded them as lessons learned 
– to burn lest I get burned. 

My too-long life’s sad error was
Thinking that age would narrow the scope,
When looking back through dwindled hope,
I ken the opposite was truth.
Through backwards time I haven’t changed
But relationships quite early on 
Seem somehow more significant,
Like my earliest encounters went.

How well he knew my own true self
The 2nd grade bully who tried for tears
But got instead a verbal slam.
‘Cuz bully power runs on fears
And injustice made me mad not scared,
It sucked the air from his balloon
And left me stronger in my room.

The fifth-grade kid who rode the bus
In Special Ed. for poverty.
A family of 10 in a two room shack
Just two stops from our farm
He always sat alone – even when by journey’s end
Some bench seats had three kids in them
The teasing, taunting pre-teen kids
Would often say ‘He smells.” (he did)
His clothes were rarely clean
His body often lacked hygiene.
I’ll never know what made me ask to sit
That first time while those kids looked on,
But he said “Sure.” And moved his books.
And we were friends a full school year
Until I moved, but once while in the recess yard
Another bully taunted me – for playing with the ‘retard’
Notwithstanding his ignorance,
The gross misdiagnosis (and lacking sensitivity)
I won again the verbal spar,
and his bruised ego demanded physicality, 
So to the ground he pushed me.
Two hands, my butt and feet upon the ground
I sat in puzzled wonderment as my new friend took two steps up
And pushed the bully to the ground eliciting calls for teacher’s help
The duty teacher saw this last act
And grabbed my friend each hand to arm
Roughly shaking, while proclaiming,
Misbehavior yields punishment… and off to the principal’s office he went.
But I jumped up before he left,
Confronted the teacher with her unjust act,
And instead of justice I too went.

My life is filled with things like this.
Mostly short encounters and randomness,
But those are the ones who knew me best.

Details | Alison Wimmer Poem

Things, Small and Large

Some things are small
Like things you should not sweat.
Others are large -
They make your temples wet.

Your hair stands up
And beads form on your brow
Rather than evaporate
The droplets join to flow

What if tears are added in
And pain is there as well?
Do you drown in liquid agony?
And who could ever tell?

When things get even smaller
They matter more but generate no tears or sweat
Like molecules, atoms. electron swarms and quarks
Scientific knowledge need not make our cheeks run wet.

And things on scales much larger yet,
Like galaxies (with neutron stars),
Are sources of excitement and wonderment
Like planning trips to Mars.

So - do not sweat things that are ‘small’
Really means insignificant,
And tears from joy of discovery
Means anxiety has come, then went.

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Idealism

earth
peace
give it a chance
tie-dye t-shirts
modern dance

macrame
and beaded chokers
woodstock
and pot smokers

flower power
zpg
alfalfa sprouts
herbal tea

burning draft cards
American flags
Vietnam bodies
coming home in bags

Kent
Augusta
Jackson state
Detroit Black Panthers
waking up too late

Oh Angela
Oh Beatles
Oh Martin Luther King
gratitude to all of you
for this special thing

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Survival of the Fittest

Poor Mr. Darwin
If only he could know
That genus homo (sapiens)
Created modern medicine
And that old familiar adage
Has virtually died
No room for natural selection
When a low zygote mortality rate
Gives them such great pride
They don’t purify our gene pool
But pollute it
With that ignorant and inhumane
Save the ‘baby’ campaign
And lest you think ‘eugenics’
So very wrong you’d be
The point is not control of life
But letting nature be
And this includes the right to choose
For those who bear the weight
To opt to grow the fruit
Is our responsibility
And if we do not change the course
And live sustainably
An optimistic omni-view
Should clear Charles’ frowning face
They said on ‘Wild Wild World of Animals’
“Evolutionary errors are quickly erased”

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Oh How I Love the Temperate Zone

Oh how I love the temperate zone!
When all four seasons manifest.
One by one they’ve come and gone;
Rebirth of each now deemed the best.
But just as one becomes too long,
And tired of the wait,
I yearn transition to the next.
Like old familiar friends abate.
Pristine rebirth from yearly rest,
A welcomed change to clean the slate.
The early green breaks through the snow.
Sequence of hues above the ground,
As each, in time, becomes mature
And colored blooms abound.
And even while the flowers drop
Wilted pallet profligate 
In clumps upon the ground
The trees begin to foliate
Then offer up their fruit and seeds
And prove they’re worth your wait.
Then mostly greens are left for months
The chlorophyll to harness light
The growth now earnest in its race
For bush and tree in girth and height
As flora taps the energy 
Of solar juice in space and time
The yearly growth a welcomed sign
That life is not a static force
But Mother Earth’s dynamic vine.
First autumn creeps, then rushes in.
As life slows down and now the wane
Of foliage yields brilliant hues
In splashes on the mountain tops
Till last leaves fall and color drains
The hardwood trees now bare and bleak
And only evergreens remain
The frozen ground and dormant tree
Announcing winter’s reign
As all life rests and lays in wait
For spring to come again.

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We Were the Cancer

Humanity itself
Riding off on horse
Not just pale, but albino
Leaving in its wake
Filth and destruction
Life reduced
To the most resilient
Nature’s wonder
Evolution
Stalled
For now

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Fairy Dust

On this 19th day of March
I woke to find a morning sun,
On each and every branch and twig
Like glass - a sparkling coat of ice
A crystal kingdom bending light
A prism of hues and delicate
Like fairies crept on tippy-toe
A night-time trip to share with us
The vision from their fairy dust

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Depression Is a Spirit Troll

The worst part is waking up
With wispy, fleeting, figments of anxious dream
Looking at the clock and realizing
It doesn’t matter what time it is anymore
Then there’s the coffee
It tastes so good, but no longer has allure
Then mindless counsel with my laptop
To free my mind and replace the sad fog
That doesn’t leave, but dances, taunting
Into deep dark corners
Where it can continue throughout the day
To bug even the simple code

Details | Alison Wimmer Poem

Belushi One

In January
He made the cover of Rolling Stone.
I had thumb-tacked it
To my living room wall
Just to the right
And a little below
My Michelangelo self-portrait print.
Not knowing
The April issue
Of the same magazine
Would cover itself
With him, his death,
Not thinking
Not even thinking
Such a thing
Could ever happen
And so sorry it did
Though not shocked,
Not even really surprised
And oddly
Seeing something wonderful in it
Because it made me cry
Tears of depthless feeling
Tears that always make me feel good

Details | Alison Wimmer Poem

Newborn Potential

The quality of
The tape itself
May vary,
But the 1812 Overture
On an off-brand is better
Than ‘Mary had a little lamb’
On Maxell

The size of the rubber band
Is limiting
But six inches stretched to seven
Is wasted,
When four can be stretched to eleven
Quite well.