POEM: “Kids these daze” – Mother Earth

Posted on September 5, 2024 by Top Pun

A bit of wisdom: listen to your momma.

“Kids these daze” – Mother Earth

Pardon
Dying
Too ax
How due
You
No
Your mama
Accept as
A consume her
Living as if theirs
No tomorrow

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POEM: Unschooled Shootings

Posted on September 4, 2024 by Top Pun

Georgia on my mind.

Unschooled Shootings

As law abiding sits in trouble
An other
School shooting
A nation whys
The soul thing
That stops
A bad man
With a gun
More often then not
Is a body politic
Riddled with bull
Its quest for free dumb
Holy unschooled
In a republic free
Of violins
Played
Simp-ly as an overture
To amor of the same
Pining for something beyond
Thoughts and preyers

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POEM: Canary in a Coal Mine

Posted on August 31, 2024 by Top Pun

Canaries were used in coal mines as an early detection system for toxic gasses. Canaries are particularly susceptible to methane and carbon monoxide. Canaries will get sick or die before it affects humans, miners. Still, the miners have to respect the vulnerability of the canaries, or they will suffer a similar fate.

This poem plays with the notion that the most vulnerable among us serve as early warning signs of our common, shared fate. I mourn the fact that even when we possess such knowledge, we often only take the time and effort to be glad that we aren’t the vulnerable one at that given moment. This poem also includes a tip of the hat to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Canary in a Coal Mine

Don’t flip
The bird
Singing that cagey song
Living afar
Deeper than just
Six feet under
A mist
That not sow
Gentle rock
Of ages
From seeing
The sun
Burning nigh
And wading for what
Life is
A gas
In visibility
No smell attest
As time in memorial
The bird flips off
And still
However unschooled
A miner gratitude
That he’s not
A canary
In what is
Mine

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POEM: I’m Mortal Hope

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Top Pun

Yet another poem about hope, in awe its fragile and enduring nature.

I’m Mortal Hope

Is it passable
To murder hope
What kind
Of mettle
Might it take
Gold
Silver
Or mirror bronze
As hope springs fourth
Eternally
Its resurrection soully possible
By others’ grace
Sow spare
Death’s victory
So commodious such grave berth
And still
Moving
Impregnable
As love ceded
On earth as it is
Each and every sun rise
As mourning transforms to light
And grays supplanted too bright
Replete the sounding joy
At the sight
Of awe that is wholly
And reconcile Abel
As much as wee Cain
And sow much more

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POEM: Of Babies and Bathwater

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Top Pun

In a world where genocide is thinkable, half of our brothers and sisters on this planet live on $8 per day or less, and the majority of humans do not have drinkable water in their homes, this is for those of us who have bathwater to throw out:

Of Babies and Bathwater

Round the corner
I was helled to a standstill
A towering pile of babies
The earth beneath such feat
Flooded
With bathwater
The coo was over
And silently I stood
Crying as allowed as I could
Never again

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POEM: Knows Helled

Posted on August 22, 2024 by Top Pun

Yesterday I was able to protest the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza outside the DNC in Chicago for four hours with thousands of other. Here is a poem to the “conventional” compromised political take that genocide is a necessary evil for political victory:

Knows Helled

Owed knews
Genocide agin
How are you doing?
They couldn’t fine
Anything worse than genocide
How could we pass
Threw
That subjugate
As bye some one party rule
Patronized in the mist of fete
As sum kind of promising present
Aww hell to the chief
Good mourning
Good daze ahead
Good eve of destruction
Eden our youth
And subsistence wagers
“Good tidings”
Wading for a bettor tomorrow
Woo who
To place abets with empty chants
Wins seeing all the way
With the gall to claim
As somehow soar loosers
Of genocide
Offering up
To a pact hows
What cannot pass
The smell attest
Knows helled
And vote for genocide

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POEM: Down With Shutting Up

Posted on August 18, 2024 by Top Pun

END U.S.-Israeli GENOCIDEGetting ready to protest the U.S.-Israeli genocide at the Chicago Democratic National Convention this week. Never be silent about genocide!

Down With Shutting Up

Are you down
With genocide in Gaza
Only Abel to ax
What’s up
In
The hell
Of Gaza
Or only culpable
Of what hearing
Shut the hell
Up

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POEM: If Only a Poem

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Top Pun

I see art as an important part of resistance to evil which can be so unpoetic. Of course, a poem is mirrorly a representation of a struggle for a better world; more is required. May our resistance and struggle be a thing of beauty.

If Only a Poem

I put all of my sorrow
Into a poem
Untold myself
As if just
A poem
If only a poem
Were just
Paper and ink

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POEM: A Hill of Beings

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Top Pun

Not a fan of monarchy. Nobody should be a king of anything. Kings should be nobodies.

A Hill of Beings

He made it
He was king of the hill
Of beings
Amountin’ to nothin’
Butt
A fart in the win

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POEM: It Turns Out That Hope Is

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Top Pun

Hope is as persistent as cynicism — even more sow.

It Turns Out That Hope Is

Hope turned out
To be a stale mate
Or sow he helled
Hope could not breach
His impenetrable armor of cynicism
Fretting over awe inconceivable
Utterly mustered
Why me!
And as fate would halve it
A teacher peered
A whys guy
Who tolled him like it is
Hope is not like a sword
Too die or live buy
Hope is not like rockets red glare
Hope is more like air
Or water
Even greatly mist
Less of a stronghold
More of a light touch
Less heat
More warmth
Less of a tempest
More of a breeze
Less like armor
More like amor
And just then
He felt a breath
A whisper on his neck
And humidity rising
Awe of a sudden
His guarded whirled
Seemed a different kind
Of impregnable
And brood

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POEM: Committed Kamala and Those Naught

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Top Pun

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris met briefly backstage before a rally with a pair of “uncommitted” movement representatives seeking a U.S. arms embargo on Israel to stem the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Harris exhibited empathy and agreed to have her campaign staff to set up some meeting. Then, she went onstage for the rally and publicly and harshly shutdown those protesting genocide. This is my poetic take on such “diplomacy” in dis regards to today’s most vulnerable population on God’s good earth:

Committed Kamala and Those Naught

Uncommitted
Behind the seeings
Exhibit A
Empathy rendered
As will
Mete with you
A bout
Unstoppable shells

In affront of
Her rank
And filed
The flocking whored
Exhibit be
Scold as ice
It’s naught your time
The die loaded
In this gambol
The house always wins
And that ship has assailed

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POEM: The Raze for Leadership

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Top Pun

Is aiding and betting on genocide too reap a political win disqualifying for hire office, when the whole accost is pain by those being ethnically cleansed? What prophet is there in this?

The Raze for Leadership

They were axed
To take genocides
To make America the grater
Good
To give their undivided tension
To a unity
A blissful savor
Hanging
On what would
Be her every word
To gain
The whirled
She’s got nothing
To lose
Accept her sole
Atop those
Sticking their necks out
Unvisited in prison
And fore what?
Emperor for a day
Adore to the naked clothes
Feeding the ravenous
On the lamb, like mint jelly
As if
Goad shepherd
Baaaaad sheep
In searching for the lost
Won
Wile the 99 are pandered
Axing the fateful
To take won for the team
To the victors spoiled
Quiet a victory
To be had
Vanquishing the other
Guise
Flocked won way
Or the other
Just maybe
It’s not
All a bout
Ewe
Raised for slaughter

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POEM: Wanting to Say My Peace

Posted on August 8, 2024 by Top Pun

Today, at a Kamala Harris rally, her speech was interrupted by protesters chanting, “Kamala, Kamala you can’t hide! We won’t vote for genocide.” As they persisted, and would not be silenced, candidate Harris said: “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” Here is my poetic response to her tempt to shut down speaking out against genocide:

Wanting to Say My Peace

If you don’t want
Too get thrown under the bus
Get to the back of the bus
I’ll walk
Wile it’s your turn to talk
Your act
As a partisan in genocide
Bearing strange fruit
In that which is speechless
Silence
Weather a friend of my enemy
Or an enemy of my enemy
Such owed confederations
Offering little knew
Tanks allot
Fore such a vicious cycle
I think
Should I
Buy cycle
As hear
I stand
My friends’ friend
A true alloy
That cannot be forged
In fear of no’ing
Our place

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POEM: Owed to Muhammad Ali

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Top Pun

I wrote this poem after watching, again, my favorite documentary of all time: When We Were Kings. This film is about the leadup and spectacle that is known as the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire, the heavyweight boxing title fight between Muhammad Ali and the then-reigning champion, George Foreman. The incomparable Ali — The Greatest — makes his against-the-odds comeback with all the charisma, grit, poetry, creativity and purpose that has endeared billions of humans around the globe. This riveting film is masterful storytelling and filmmaking at its best.

This poem employs one small exemplar of Muhammad Ali’s place in human history: the author of the shortest poem in the English language — “Me. We.” He was a poet in and out of the ring. I count him as one of my favorite public figures of all time. Ali was deeply human, profoundly reverent and irreverent, and he shared awe of himself with wee.

Owed to Muhammad Ali

Me wee
He had me
A heavyweight at the met
It was like
The first time
I saw
Muhammad
A prophet with punch
A transcendent combination
A champion of Olympic portions
Besting feat of Clay
An eye on the prize fighter
As ultimately pro
Knot a willing con script
Agin and agin
Just the same
The champ
Won ring
To rule them
Awe!
A poet in and out
Larger than life
Knowing the master
Of solemnity
And living
In bombasticity
A dance party
Words
Everything
But the kitsch succinct
“Me. We”
Never alone in the ring
Besting every faux
His heart beats
To a different conundrum
His religion
Peace

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POEM: America and Its Britches

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Top Pun

Here is a somewhat poetic view of the body politic.

America and Its Britches

The whirled is full of hubris
America is too
Big for its britches
Its Lilliputian slacks
As tolled buy
Asocial media blitz
More like
The lowest forum of revolting
A thong
Riding up
Won’s ass
All a bout
Using
Power
Posedly in a pinch
The most whore-ifying kind
Of siren song
All the wile
Shuttering to think
How smashed wood wee half to be
To engage that

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POEM: Maid Too Order

Posted on July 26, 2024 by Top Pun

This short poem highlights the simple fact that each of us serve someone or something. Make it good.

Maid Too Order

You have
Got too
Serve some won
What are you maid of?

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POEM: Blade

Posted on July 25, 2024 by Top Pun

If in doubt, dance.

Blade

The blade of grass swayed in the wind
Yearning for attention
Or simply dancing unawares
You need not
Decide

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POEM: Cagey

Posted on July 24, 2024 by Top Pun

Bigger Cages! Longer Chains!

I am a big fan of the anarchist slogan, “Bigger Cages! Longer Chains!” This cheeky chant parodies the compromised solutions offered by conventional politics. The body politic seems all to willing to trade comfort for justice. If only we had more roomy cages finely appointed! This poem is dedicated to thinking outside the box, nay, living outside the box. If you ain’t living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.

Cagey

They constructed
Boxes to live in in
Ever bigger
Never quiet enough
Ever higher
Never flying
Bin there
Done that
Just encase
As some kind
Of buck it list
Enclosing
There is little
Left
To udder

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POEM: A Winning Politic

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Top Pun

An underwhelming poem for the grievance powered Republican party and their convention ill politics.

A Winning Politic

Out of fresh ideas
A republic can
A convention ill belief
Democracy culled out
They didn’t want
For any more
For they had
Won
What ails madders

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POEM: Outer and Inner Space

Posted on July 17, 2024 by Top Pun

There is beauty know wear and every wear, awe at once.

Outer and Inner Space

I am in space
Beautiful and mysterious
A timeless see
Beyond words
I hear
Only the breath of God
And in the twinkle of an I
I am born
In too a space
Of forgetting
And out of place

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