Bring Your Own Simone, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on @Twitter)

She is one of her own, she won’t leave it alone
When she feels strongly, don’t call her pesky
Your health could get risky, debate with her nicely
She makes her points precisely, she doesn’t take kindly

When you bully minorities, and trans people too
If you get stupid and dare to, she will eviscerate you
Misogyny, forget it, she’s done with you
Guns, flooded market, she’ll stand up for truth

A book, a book, a book, she’ll give you a dirty look
If you ask her is she’s seen a movie, I don’t even think
She knows what a TV is, that is, she loves to read
Indeed, voraciously

But don’t talk about cats or Charlie’s Angels
Do a Bill Clinton Impression, she will end the Twitter session
Tangle with her, she will teach you a lesson
This Jew knows how to handle you.
(end)

This is a personal poem to a online friend of mine named Simone.

She is a staunch defender of minorities and LGBTQ, and she won’t take any shit from anyone. She will be happy to have a polite debate with you, but will block or boot anyone who she thinks is being an intolerant bigot. She does her research so don’t think a debate with her would be easy.

But like any human she also has a great sense of humor, and can be goofy and silly.

The last stanza is an inside joke. Everyone who is a regular reader of my poetry knows I named my female cat “Kelly” after the real actress Jaclyn Smith because two months before I got the twin cats, I got a real Tweet from the actress, so I named one of my cats “Kelly”. Simone groans every time someone asks me about my cat avatar without me bringing it up and I tell the story. Point being, I’ve told it a billion times and she is like “not again”.

And I can also do a pretty good Bill Clinton impression, but I also had worn that out in Twitter spaces, so that is bootworthy to her.

Anywho, thank you Simone for being a good friend.

Who Asked You To? By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

I see that pretentious smile, knowing all the while
It’s your justification, not a relation, to feel superior
What is this morbid fascination with blood letting
You condemn the blood rituals of animal sacrifice

Isn’t that nice, but yet your hero, all powerful
Didn’t have to put on this show, this parlor trick
Yet you claim on a stick, he got stuck, in the side
And of this torture you take pride, I fail to see why

This display in the way he dies, 4 or 5 liters of blood
The legend claims drained him dry. Nice try
But this I can’t buy, and rigor mortis would be why
That is what happens 6 to 8 hours after the demise

Let me also attend to this notion, that someone else
Gets to decide for me who I do or don’t forgive
No, you do not. I will never value revenge
For that is not justice, that just is anger

However, I can choose to walk away
By my own say, and never see that person again
No, you will not take that away from me
I have my own autonomy, you don’t speak for me

And the gall to call it a sacrifice
When you don’t stay dead, instead
You had a little pin prick, an illusion
To bring attention to yourself

Creepy to me, that you’d follow me around
Like a stalker, pretend to kill yourself
And keep calling me after I tell you to stop
Make me want to call the cops

Like I am some celebrity like John Lennon
Selena, Christina Grimmie, or maybe, I am supposed to be
Your Francine Hughes for you to abuse
Or maybe you are Jodie Arias. If I choose to leave
You’ll give me no reprieve, if I insist, I’m on your list

Or maybe you are a cosmic John List, I’ve seen your work
You did so well stopping Hitler and Stalin, expect me to fall in
You thought that dozen roses you call Jesus
That promise not to beat us ever again, would work?

Nice little break you took from the Old Testament
You sacrifice your son, yet at the end of the book
You couldn’t find a more humane way to make yourself clear?
You think I am deaf and cannot hear? I don’t want you near.

You are a sociopath, a psychopath always on the warpath
You warned me? You beat me because you love me?
How does eternal torture show love, that is no dove
That is what a bully does when they want power
That is you watching me every second every hour

This horrible monster these sales people proclaim
Smile like they work at Baskin Robins, giving me the scoop
Want me to jump through their hoop, stuck on a loop
Circular reasoning, with pretty seasoning, self imposing
Willful ignorance to gain your confidence

And lead you to be fleeced, the sheepdog needs
Reward and praise, for all the wool made
Oh and isn’t it funny, how Jesus always needs money
For his glorious daddy, himself, and preacher’s wealth
What kind of mental health relies on an act of torture?

Who asked you to? No, I don’t mean the God you claim
I mean you, the mortal, claiming to be some magical portal
With a Bat Phone, ET phone home, Lassie come home
I must believe when in Rome, I wish of Constantine
That he had been quarantined with Nicene Christianity

Preventing the dark age insanity, Martin Luther
The antisemite, the Inquisitions, the Witch Hunts
Who asked you to knock on my door to sell this lore
This horror story, the bible is gory, dashing babies
Against rocks, Philistine foreskins, for a dowery lot

Who asked you, to speak for all women, especially men
Since when did we become the Afghani Talban
When did you decide in a free land for book bans
I’ve read your bible, it needs a content warning
But unlike you, I wouldn’t be burning or banning

Who asked you to, force your morals on me
Based on a book written in antiquity, a book
That teaches you the rules on slavery
A book that treats women like property
I see you seething for my not believing

I see your pretentious smile, knowing all the while
It is your justification, not a relation, to feel superior
I don’t want your ice cream, your cult of blood letting
My reason is my vetting, and Pascal’s Wager isn’t betting
It is the sun setting, on this fictional son you are petting

Who asked you to? As if he would need your help
To do his work. Funny that an all powerful being would shirk
Seems he has this uncanny quirk, of hide and seek
But lucky me, you’re the one to see, and be my angel
It’s just an angle, to mask your fear of being finite.
(end)

I cannot state this enough. This poem is not aimed at liberal theists in malice. For my liberal theist friends I just want you to think about the God character being to me, like a character in a movie or a book of fiction. It is no attack on your human right to exist, just a mere point of view to get you to consider my logic.

However, this is a direct blasphemy intentional offending of the bullies on the far right who continue to show they are willing to abandon all pluralism, all science, and the human rights of females and minorities. I make no compunction in saying, if your God tells you to hate people and harm people your God is a monster.

I don’t need saving. I find it funny that an all powerful God would need a marketing department and public relations department. It would seem you don’t need to advertise and sell if he is all powerful. It would seem to me that would mean he could do his own work. I would say with all the spotty results either he is lazy, malicious, or simply does not exist. But under no circumstances can you ever expect me to bow to threats. I would never worship a God like that.

Notes on the poem. Francine Hughes was an abused spouse who burned her husband alive. Her story was made into a movie called “The Burning Bed”.

Selena was a Hispanic pop star whose fan murdered her.

Christina Grimmie was a rock singer who was murdered just minutes after leaving a venue in Orlando.

Jodie Arias murdered her boyfriend in the shower.

John List murdered his entire family back in 1971 and was featured on the crime show “America’s Most Wanted” in the 1980s.

And we all know about Beatle John Lennon.

The point was to demonstrate that this alleged God will treat you well until the slightest slip up and then beat you and then pretend to apologize knowing he’s going to do it again. And try to leave him? Forget it, if God cant have you, then you are subject to eternal torture. That is not corrective justice, that is revenge.

The Pair Of You, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Some may notice my set list
Is inspired by the dead
They’re reaper obsessed, self critical
To an epic tragic infliction

I’ve been on that ledge, that precipice
I’ve read their stanzas of instability
Dependency and independence
Defiance, alliance in attacking misogyny

I’ve suffered stabbing rejection
Felt abandon, tossed out, bleeding
I told my liver to go fuck itself
My new lover was whiskey

They were successful unfortunately
I wanted to exit slowly, put myself
In a position, point of no return
Oh cirrhosis, why did the doctor

Inform me, that this one organ
Could repair itself, if I abstain
To which I did, and still do
I was able to muddle through

The pair of you, Sylvia, Anne
I won’t play
In your death metal band
I am uncoordinated in any case

Sylvia you speak of it
As an art, or a call
Anne, you turned the engine
And breathed in it all

To the observer, about to fall
Running in a horror movie
Endless hall, expanding faster
No last call, drink up, it’s the law

I emulate, to stimulate, not suffocate
The triumph of your collections
Aren’t weighted down by a headstone
Though decades gone, I’m not alone.
(end)

I love to read Anne Sexton and Sylvia Path poems because they inspire me. So often I will write an ode poem to them about one of their poems.

Posthumous Warnings, By Brian (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37)

Look out for might
The whiteout tree well
Is the amateur’s trap on the expert slope

Despising, loathing, revile, expressed
With no hesitation or contemplation, spit venom out
You’ll gnaw off your limb, rotting within

Closest connections in your circle
If boundaries you break
You’ll make that mistake
If you create such a toil
These strong bonds will spoil

Intelligence and reason, understanding
Reservoir of facts while admitting voids
North is South and South is North
If your tongue spews gibberish
You’ll trash your worth

We’re not on Broadway, but all have parts
Soliloquy written, rehearsed, anticipated, expected
Stagehands expose you and draw back the curtain
The fright will paralyze you , daggers of eyes
When you forget your lines

How to know that embrace
Is is tested, and loyal, and real
And butterflies invade, spine tingles
You will be in it’s clutches, no escape
Cry out, cry out, to trees in the forest
Your heart in a raging whitewater raft

Amore? For the genders
Must be the gentle tide guiding you in
Floating as if suspended, confounding gravity,
Soothing soak of limbs, lazy emersed in joy
To become beached, it is not to look for
It cannot be forced, it is a canoe with no oars

Unique individual
Set not your ears on my words
For they are as good as any
I see our overlap in perpetuity
A partnership
I cant even buy these words I just spoke
Maybe a few, I was that sapling
Yet to have leaves, to someday grow tall
Your emerald light catchers will be in bounty

Release, release
Unique individual
Variable foliage greenery
This keyboard is fond of you on your path
Throw the flute glass in the fireplace
Collect the corks in the water jug
For time
Nighttime spooning, morning eyes rubbing
And life will be real
It isn’t a fading screen wipe.

I speak to myself in the past
My inexperience, my insecurity, my isolation
My wanting , my failing, my falling
And breaking the mirrors, under ladders
Answers you want? I am not one to give
For I a am not superstitious ,
Warnings you want?
Scars add up for all who live
Don’t wear them as a badge of ego
Learn from your pain
But don’t swim in it’s well.
(end)

This is another ode poem to Anne Sexton and my response to her poem “Admonitions To A Special Person”.

https://allpoetry.com/Admonitions-To-A-Special-Person

FYI, in snow mountaineering and skiing, a “Tree Well” is the area around the trunk of the tree that that creates an inverted cone at the base of the tree that a hiker or skier can get trapped in and collapse and suffocate. I have never skied, but I do know of this from watching a rescue show.

I FUCKING HATE MY BRAIN. I don’t know how my brain spit out “well immersion” when it was “Tree Well”.

Aftermath, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Mid June afternoon
Torrent, bombarded
Retreated, discarded
Steam rises off
Of the green
Senses petrichor
Concussion grenade
Thunderstorm’s parade
Residual raindrops
On the blades
Slipping dripping
Battlefield waning
Away in the distance
Fading from hearing.
(end)

The following website featured my poem as part of their “Poetry Battle” highlights. My poem is listed under “Rational Poet” pen name. “A Stroll” is the title here, on this page. However it is untitled there under “Rational Poet” .

Here is the link , there were several awesome poets in this week’s highlights.

https://medium.com/move-me-poetry/poetry-battle-highlights-8fe0a965bddf

Looks like everything is fixed. Worldpress was having issues but it looks like they fixed them. I was wondering if others were having issues today too.

A Stroll, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

The barren bench
Barely seen
In the background
The barren tree
A park sentry
The gravel snake
Sneaks under the gate
Inviting in
Future feet,
To rest and sit
On thee
Blue opens wide
Inviting minds
To wander free.
(end)

#MMPoetryBattle

This poem I wrote at the following Twitter Page as part of a weekly competition at @MoveMePoetry run by @Magnolia169.

Based on the following picture below taken by @MarionBerndt

EDIT. A fellow Poet @Magnolia3169 liked my poem about the picture below so much, she read it and posted it on @MoveMePoetry and youtube at this link
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2ajRS_SnAbU

Unlisted, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

I have waited
By that rotary
Sitting in the kitchen
Bay window, visible
Parking lot empty
I have waited
For that ring
That would
Make my heart sing
I have waited
As two hands
Slowly inched
Passing, immutable
In their refusal
To stop
It is folly
To wait
For those
Who don’t
Return a rose.
(end)

Don’t wait by the phone after a date or the famous “I need my space” line. If they want you they will call, if they want to come back they will. If they don’t move on.

Paralyzed Prose, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Hovering, looking, seeing nothing
Parched desert, scorching absence
Of inspiration, no oasis, wandering
Sands scouring my thesaurus, synonyms

My curator, arbiter, barrister, monitor
Scrounges for scraps of anything
To put in that frame, display case
In any case, I have no base, no appraisal

I am not looking for a snobby show
In some high end zip code, abode
Serving stuffy Mimosas, champaign
Black bow ties, Rumaki, chicken liver

Who eats liver anyway? Anyway
I just want want to display
Good work for words to say
Paralyzed prose wont come out to play.
(end)

Again, writers block.