24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
And at the end of the day, isn’t that all that matters?
Narrow-minded bigots are always sticking their noses
In where they don’t belong, and it’s sickening. What
No one seems to understand is why they even give
A crap about something that doesn’t affect them in
The slightest. Just keep your prejudiced opinions to
Yourself and we’ll all be much better off.
when I was 8
I lost my first tooth
a milestone I looked forward to
and celebrated
with pillow talk and fairies
and a quarter;
if only every loss could be
no more
than a distraction for my tongue
and an entry in my baby book
Instead of the emptiness of suffering
In a world without pillow talk
New jeans, smaller in size,
New shirts, to my surprise,
New bras, frilly and nice,
New lifestyle, at a cheaper price.
It’s finally begun.
I’ve finally won.
I’ve lost the one one thing I never want to gain.
Even if it’s a gigantic pain.
Pumpkin Wife
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well
You may think it isn’t very nice
Living in a pumpkin shell
But once you shellac the inside,
Getting rid of the basic sliminess,
It isn’t that bad
The walls are wholly carvable
I’ve made all sorts of brackets
and shelves and windows
It’s a sweet little home now
Quite cozy in fact
The thick rind keeps out the cold
Yet is quite cool on the hottest days
Some balk at the idea that I am a prisoner here
Not true!
I can come and go as I please
It just pleases me to stay,
now that we have a comfortable home
You should’ve seen the potato we were living in before!
I want to lay my head on the grass and have mother envelope me
Grow above and over me
t Swallow me whole
My soul wants to stomp hard, barefoot on the ground
Breaking Earth letting my foot slip pass the turning core
While my roots
Slide through the dust and dirt
Searching for somewhere to be
Somewhere that use to be
Feeling inside out with an unbearable nakedness
My spirit is not here,
My spirit has gone to the future
Enjoying what would have been
Flashing back to what was
I’m not here
I’ve escaped to the wind
I’ve transported myself to somewhere you all have not touched
To where colors beyond your stretch exist
Gone from all of the worries
Gone from the uncertainties
Gone from the obvious hinderances
Gone from ever being bent, used, depleted
Gone from these things to brood in my splendor
Just for me
Only me
Blood and Diamonds
VCS
From the heart of our mother’s pain
They speak to us
Of all that’s been and all that is to come
Diamonds
Those bits of carbon
Crushed in the fist of pain
The agony that makes life
The agony that frees
Diamonds sparkling
They say it’s all a scam
The value of the diamond
They say that it’s bad because…
Blood diamonds
All diamonds are made of blood
The blood of the earth as she
Is contorted into new forms
How funny that we ignore the bloodstains
On the things we use every day
But feel self righteous for avoiding
Sullying our hands
Eat the meat but spare the fur
Shun the diamonds but burn the oil seeped in bloody war
Self righteous is a fun horse to ride so high!
They say a lot of things about diamonds
Somme I believe to be true
One is that it’s bad luck
To buy your own diamond
Unless it’s to claim the bad luck you’ve already had
And own your pain
Diamonds
The gift of a mission accomplished
A new life, things never to be the same
For some a Medal of Honor is bestowed
But for others a diamond better fits
to describe
the hardness of life
that’s given the razor sharp acumen
and strength of those who survive
It’s the rainbow of understanding
All the colors embraced in one
Fire in a Carat
Blood diamonds
Immune to all but the most delicate and skilled touch
Nothing touches the diamonds heart
Or can put out her fire
Sparkle sparkle
I used to say
As we shone the brass away
In a Cinderella life
Now I sparkle another way
Now I’ve earned my medals from lessons learned
Badges of honor
From the only mother
Who loved me most
I will wear my diamonds
As I wear my scars
Each a badge of honor
As my mother taught me
15 2017 Baby Boomer Identity Crisis.
Baby Boomer Identity Crisis.
by Paul Robert Sanford
They told all us youngsters when we became wan and confused
after matriculation in college in the sixties
that we were just suffering from and “identity crisis.”
The implication was that we would get over the yips,
settle down and become good square citizens
as soon as we got some life experience.
By the time I graduated
the Vietnam War had hit its stride;
assassinations claimed MLK, RFK and Malcolm.
the Watts riots and so forth burned, baby, burned.
Half of us dropped out in some way or another,
the other half pursued success and stability.
Some of us are still lost,
the rest of us entering a happy retirement.
It turns out the world has gone through an identity crisis also.
In that half century America has dominated a world
,full of war, famine, racism and tribalism,
genocide, growing chattel slavery,
a population boom, environmental challenges,
extinction of species, loss of habitat,
global warming, stagflation, inflation, recession and
the rise of depression among all of us.
Like some people today, we were too smart, too hip, to vote.
All the choices were between the lesser of two evils.
Then we learned how bad the greater of two evils can be.
There have been unprecedented changes in personal freedom
in our country, even as freedom is challenged and held hostage across the world.
We strum our lyres and sing Kum Bah Yah and We Shall Overcome
and to the naked eye it looks like progress.
For a brief window it looked like even the Supreme Court
was on the side of Justice and Freedom.
Decade after decade the pendulum has swung back and forth
between courage and terror, liberty and law and order,
Justice and Just Us.
For the first time it looks like the next generation won’t do as well as their parents.
Or a few of them will join the 1%.
The election of 2016 shocked us back half a century.
I don’t know if we will recover in time for me to see it.
Identity Crisis? It’s personal, it’s national, it’s global, maybe it’s universal
as we discover new and glittering ideas about cosmology.
It looks like we need to take to the streets and the ballot box again
and take back our identity.