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Welcome to Brian James Rational Poet’s poetry blog
Welcome to my poetry blog. I love reading Plath and Sexton and Dickenson and Maya. But to me, the best poets I have read are the unknows. The giants are great for sure, but the friends and locals and groups are a joy to participate in. I encourage everyone who writes poetry to be themselves. It is ok to have influences, but you should always in the end be yourself. There is only one them, and only one you.
Let words be your canvas, show them the raw you, in all your happiness and sadness. Show them your love of nature, and empathy and kindness, but also make them think, provoke, even blaspheme. The poet’s job to me, is to never be shy or timid, but use every word in your vocabulary to paint the best pictures you can. Paint your sunrises, your sunsets, your romance, your fears. Paint your insecurities, your addictions, your successes, your tears.
This blog is dedicated to my late mother Jane. She was my biggest supporter and never let me fall through the cracks. While she was a bit of an authoritarian growing up, that all melted away in her late years, and we grew as close as any parent child could. We had so much fun with our silly car games and rubber duckies, and counting the trees. And our wordplay games, and our thumb wrestling. And forget Yahtzee and backgammon, she always kicked my…… at that. I love you mom. I miss you horribly.
And also my late best friend ever, Bob. He unfortunately passed away in 2017. He lived in Australia, he was a science geek, and he taught me a lot about debate, and some science. I can only grasp overall concepts, not real nitty gritty details. But he most importantly made me feel comfortable in my own skin. I miss you too Bob.
Then there is this annoying guy from Okleeee homa, who says “tators”, and “videeeaaaa” instead of “video”. And don’t get John started on banjos. He is my best friend and he is always there for me, and I love that redneck.
And also Dwayne, Stacey and Vicki. You saved my life all of you. Thank you.
All poetry posted by me on this website is attached to @brianrrs37, handle RationalPoet on Twitter ,as well as “Brian James Rational Poet” on Facebook/ META. And is subject to copywrite on all my pages.
A Special thanks to Brian Sapient of Rational Responders http://www.rationalresponders.com for hosting my poetry thread for so long. Thank you.
AND….. YOU are more than welcome to share this link on your social media. Especially Meta and Twitter, but your own social media too. Any help bringing traffic here is more than welcome. THANK YOU.This poetry blog may contain some material that may be considered sensitive to some viewers. Reader discretion advised.
Now, everyone, grab your popcorn, glass of wine, and watch me make a fool of myself. Enjoy.
HEADS UP….. THERE ARE PEOPLE MIMICKING MY TWITTER ACCOUNTS……
I only have two Twitter accounts.
“RationalPoet@brianrrs37”
AND
“Brian@rationalpoet37”THERE ARE MORE PAGES. WHEN YOU GET TO THE BOTTOM OF EACH PAGE, in mice print….. It says “Next Page”.
NEW EDIT………
If you want to leave a comment to any poem, click on the BOLD title of the poem first, scroll to the bottom of the poem, and you should see a field to leave the comment in.
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It Won’t Be Long
It Wont Be Long, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
It won’t be long
It’s been too long
Another day
Of rinse and repeat
They know no zip codes
They know no class
They don’t care the building
Where you take your last breath
It won’t be long
It’s been too long
The flags at half staff
Boggling math
They take glee
How easily
The reaper’s trigger
Availability
Just walk in
Like a side of fries
No record required
More people die
It won’t be long
It’s been too long
Short order massacre
Is no surprise
That’s not katsup
On your shirt
Easy access
The blood does squirt
Brain matter
On the floor
Another hides
Behind a door
It won’t be long
Before the next one
I bet another
Before your reading this done.
(end)
A week or so ago I wrote ” I Would Tell You” about mass shootings, and there seemed to be a welcome doldrum at the moment, but unfortunately days later it happened again. The irony is that that poem was a response about someone else who wrote a poem about the Pulse Night Club which was years ago.
“It Won’t Be Long” has to be to me the most insidious title I have ever come up with for this subject. I desperately want every mass shooting to be the last. -
“Truly Without Words”
“Truly Without Words”, based on Jill Biden’s quote today. By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter.
Our First Lady
Along with our nation
Had the misfortune
Of becoming aware again
129 now so far
And the year
Far from over
Not even summer
I agree Jill
I am without words too
More teachers, more students
Just wanted to go to school
The boon of the morgues
The toe tag storage
In the wake of a fetish
The unrelenting carnage
And the sycophant cowards
Paid off by the lobby
Make the profits of one industry
Crimson streets flows misery
One more casket
One more headstone
A lifetime of PTSD
For those who make it home
It’s as if to them
This object breaths
As if it were life
To which they gave birth
Iron and steel are not.
Big clips don’t go to recess
Spray weapons
Don’t play quarterback
But the fetish of death
Takes their last breath
The cultists obsession
Has no boundaries
We are all truly
Without words Jill
But we must never
Become numb
(end)
THIS FUCKING TIME, NASHVILLE. I just wrote a poem the other day, not even a week ago. I want to see the day when I don’t have to write another poem on this subject. -
Stop Running
Stop Running, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
The pallet elusive
The brush dodges
The ink well dry
The quill dashes
The poem starts
The idea crashes
In mid stanza
Lost it’s passion
The days keep passing
And I am not writing
Writer’s block
I am constantly fighting.
(end) -
They Were
They Were, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
They were pseudo science
Eye color charts, nose size
Cranium size, evil stares
Responsible for the nation’s ills
They were xenophobic
And if you were handicap
Or mentally ill, you were
Unworthy of life
They were, anti science
Unless they used it
To build up their military
Or conduct cruel experiments
They were, anti intellectual
They were, anti art
Unless they approved
Or stole it from others
They banned books
The leader’s book
Was the official grievance
Of one man
They were a Christian movement
And their leader said
“We do not tolerate anyone
Within our ranks
Who offends the ideas
Of Christianity”.
No, not vanity
But the insecurity
Of a sicko who
Got even with the world
Because an art school
Rejected his paintings
They were fascists
And today, in Florida
A Principle is jobless
Fired for showing the artist’s
Work of the statue of David
Millions died denying covid
And Boebert failed multiple times
Before she got her G.E.D.
And their GOP Mussolini
Falsely plays victim
And tells you you are too
And only he knows what to do
He wants to be your authoritarian
He wants to get revenge for you
Just like Hitler did for WW1
So as well the failed businessman
The Nazis wanted retribution
For Mar A Lago, it’s the solution
He’s not doing it for anyone
It’s just a fraud, it’s just a con
They were the losers
And he will too
The fever of fear
Breaks when you get the clues.
(end)
I am tired of people saying the parallels between the Nazis and MAGA Trumpism are not the same, they are. The GOP is anti education, and Boebert just called for the total destruction of the public school system.
Which is funny because she failed her G.E.D. a few times before finally passing. She got a G.E.D. not a Highschool diploma. The government she claims to hate issued that G.E.D.
The GOP is constantly attacking judges and FBI agents and District Attorneys who do their jobs objectively. This is the same type of purging the Nazis did when they first named their party that, when Hitler was barely on the radar long before he became a national political figure.
Hitler was not an atheist, he was his own brand of occult/deist/catholic. He invoked God multiple times in Mien Kompf. and as the quote goes mentioned in the poem , but here is the full quote
“We do not tolerate anyone in our ranks who offends the ideas of Christianity, who stands up to a dissident, fights him, or provokes himself as a hereditary enemy of Christianity. This movement of ours is actually Christian.” Recorded by Max Vogl, from Hitler’s speech October 27th 1928 in Passau.
Today the MAGA right is selling White Christian Nationalism. Is selling the same anti intellectualism, anti art, anti science, and targeting minorities just like Hitler did. We are literally seeing the rise of fascism here in America.
They are deliberately selling mistrust of our government institutions, and demanding blind loyalty to the party. -
Timeless
Timeless, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
Foggy eyes
Tearing up
Don’t be sad
Just cheer up
I watched a video
Kids critiquing a song
I grew up with
Past time so long
I saw Miley
Singing Blondie
I know Blondie
Covered Buddy Holly
In the grocery store
A while a go
I saw a teen
Wearing AC/DCAdam Lambert
Keeping Queen alive
Future generations
The baton survives
I may be old
But some things
Are timeless
Music transcends
The spark is endless.
(end)
I love the fact that often I run across teens or young adults who love the same music I grew up with. Last week I ran into a kid who loved Pink Floyd. Today I was watching a video of black couple, must be in their early 20s critiquing Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” and liking it. And I was thrilled to see Queen play the Global Citizen’s festival and Adam Lambert charging up the young adults singing side by side with their parents and even grandparents.
I hate getting old, but I get a tear in my eye seeing this. It especially hits close to home because I was a dork, awkward teen and didn’t have my first friend until high school. Music and TV were my only friends on my street, my only escape from the bullies. It is simply nice to know I really wasn’t as alone as I thought I was back then.I can look back at even the Bee Gees and ABBA and not give a shit what people thought back then of them, or what some still think now. I can listen to them and Metallica and Paula Abdul and Living Coulour. Point is the really good songs, last and become timeless and future generations will like them too. It simply makes me feel young again.
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I Would Tell You
I Would Tell You, by Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
I would tell you
Their names
But those killers
Don’t deserve the fame
I would tell you
How many so far
But it’s been countless
Over the decades to start
.I would tell you
We’ve had enough
But not even Newtown
Shook things up
I would tell you
Not to worry
But the bodies pile up
Everyday in a hurry
I would tell you
It is safe to go outside
But even I look for exits
Out in public inside
I would tell you
It was isolated
The tune of 100 a day
Makes that claim negated
I would tell you
To go see a movie
To go out shopping
It is safe at school
I wish I could tell you
Not to fear bullets rule
I wish we could
Give the slip
Of the industry’s grip
The merchants of death
Profit off of blood baths
Caskets in masses
I would tell you
It is getting better
But the numbers
Keep rising forever
I can tell you this
We can never, should never
Get used to this
Living under the gun
Every hour, every day
Under the sun
In the dark allies
In our homes
In our workplaces
Losing loved ones
It is up to you
To not become complacent
It is a generational fight
The right plight
To stay alive, without fear
Of someone’s selfish fetish.
Make the tide change
We don’t have to live this way
Non violence should always
Win the day
They are afraid
Of our vote
They are afraid
We are right
And we are.
(end)
Mass shootings are unfortunately a very unique distinct and vile quality of American life that does not have to be that way. I wrote this poem as a response to a poem someone read on a Twitter space today about the Pulse night club shooting. And that was after watching a made for TV movie about a very real mass shooting that happened in 1988, the night before. And that is not including my JR yr HS yearbook which had a two page spread called “The Year In News.”
In that two page spread, it had pictures with paragraphs describing the person or event in the pictures under each. One was a picture of Reagan, another was the firs artificial heart guy, another the space shuttle. But also the picture of a mass shooting in California in 1984.
And the 10s of thousands in the past 40 years in between the few I mentioned and others you may remember but I don’t. The sad fact is that they happen every fucking day, and until the industry can be sued into behaving, and the shops being held responsible for where their products end up, this is not going to stop.
But unfortunately the industry has a grip on a large enough minority that holds the rest of the nation hostage. It is insane to think being number 1 in firearm violence can be solved by adding more firearms to civilian hands when we already have 400 million in civilian hands. I never get a good number that would suffice the firearm worshipers. Would 1 billion guns in civilian hands be enough? How about 10 billion firearms in civilian hands? How about 50 billion? How many is enough? I say they don’t care, they simply want to win to own us, not because they are right, but because they know they are on the wrong side of history.
Don’t ever get used to this. It may be a long road, and things may seem hopeless right now, but every voice counts, and the industry CEOs and profiteers of violence cannot win unless we let them. Use your voice, use your vote, don’t stop, no matter how long it takes. -
Heads up for those who have Twitter. My audio poetry reading.
If you go to both my accounts, either one and scroll down, you will see my most recent poetry reading which is about an hour long called “Skeptics Poetry” . You can listen to it at either @Brianrrs37 or @rationalpoet37. You’ll have to skip past the dead air at the beginning. I hate that it doesn’t auto clip or auto fill that. But there is an hour’s worth of poetry there. If you do decide to listen please let me know if it works for you. Twitter has been a mess lately. But it is showing up on my end.
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Not a poem but an OP/ED
Good Cop. OP/ED, now what you are about to read is my opinion about a news event, but it still does not change the disparity about how law enforcement treats whites or middle class whites, vs how over policed and over charged and over sentenced minorities are treated for committing similar infractions/crimes.
Now having said that, an Oklahoma police Captain was pulled over by police for suspicion of DUI. The suspect, the Captain, repeatedly stated his title, and asked the officer to turn off his body cam, several times. To that officer’s credit, he did not. He in fact said, “I do not care if you are a gang banger or the President of the United States.” meaning he treats everyone the same and wasn’t going to play favorites because of the title.
The Captain was arrested and put up bail and put on administrative leave pending investigation. I do wonder if it had been a black officer would they have been fired? I also now worry about this arresting officer’s safety.
I once witnessed the aftermath of a car crash and pulled out an off duty police officer from his private car. I knew he was an officer because he constantly stopped at the convenience store I worked at multiple times a week. As I pulled him out of smokey car (Turned out to be the airbag gas), I noticed an empty booze bottle on the passenger side floor I pulled him out of.
When the rescue and fire showed up, they took my statement, I did not see the actual impact but came across it just after it had happened, as it was a slow traffic day with no cars around. I got a summons to show up to court, which I did. But as was waiting for his case to be called, two officers came up to me and told me I would not be needed to testify.
I didn’t quite understand at the time what they were doing, but I did leave right then. I now know they were covering his accident up to save him. I regret not sticking around now, but also wonder if I could have been threatened or had trumped up traffic charges hoisted on me by the other officers possibly stalking me.
The point is, especially now, with one party sucking up to a dangerous liar and bully, it is now more than ever important for our law agencies at the highest ranks to be as objective as this individual officer was with a superior. The former guy has gotten way with far more damaging things that are becoming a threat to our national stability.
If the highest in power in our intel and law enforcement are corrupt and divided politically our nation cannot function, the system will collapse and we cannot take it for granted that our system will always stand. We cannot allow election lies to foster distrust in our voting system, and we cannot allow the courts who uphold the results to be divided or corrupt either.
It is ok to hold power to account regardless of party. It is not ok for those in power to deliberately lie and sell fear and division to the point it casts doubt on our concept of peaceful transfer of power. The former guy is under multiple civil lawsuits, and possible criminal indictments. Not because he is a Republican, but because he is abusing his power and has broken his oath multiple times and thrown his own intel under the bus to suck up to Putin and Un both brutal dictators.
If the truth and objectivity can matter to an individual police officer then it most certainly should matter to the courts, judges and grand juries investigating the former guy. (end)
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/17/us/oklahoma-city-police-captain-pulled-over-dui-body-cam/index.html -
The Fallacy Of Cuteness
The Fallacy Of Cuteness, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37)
It is a trap
Easy to assume
If it is a cute animal
How can it meet it’s doom
Take a duckling
For example
It is cute
When it quacks for it’s mother
But we falsely assume
All the chicks survive
She’ll protect them all
When they hatch and arrive
If late to hatch
Or born a runt
If it cant keep up
Falls back too much
The mother won’t
Always come to defense
If it sees the chick
As a burden to them
We do often see
In nature that of adoption
Like a pride of lionesses
Care for other’s cubs
But not always the case
If cub ages not the same
If one is a straggler
Abandons her claim
In other avian
It is quite common
For the weak chick
To be tossed out of the nest
A buffalo calf
Could be sacrificed
To a lion stalking it
For more to survive
I like to root
For the underdog
I like to see
Success for all
Nature doesn’t
Work that way
Cuteness doesn’t
Always get it’s way.
(end)
Far to often laypeople think anything cute always has the upper hand. Not in nature. Allegators and crocks are viciously protective of their nest and young, at least until they get the babies to water. Mother crocks and gators can pick up their young in their mouths very gently and carry them to safety.
In other cases mothers and fathers of many species will kick the runts or weak out of the home or abandon them or even kill them. Mother ducks are no different.
Cute makes us feel warm and fuzzy, but nature isn’t ways warm and fuzzy. -
Our Conceit
Our Conceit, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)
Titles are fleeting
So too wealth
And fame
This passenger jet
We call life
Takes off
And lands
The same
Carl Sagan
Was on the spot
Pointing out
Our short lives
Perceived self importance
On this “Pale Blue Dot”
We scurry
And scream
And flail
Dominate and fail
Fleeting marks
We make, if any
To no avail.
#vss365 #poetrycommunity