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

It would be a dead world to me
If it were a world without poetry

Sure the bees would buzz
Sure the elephants would trumpet
Sure the peacock would woo colorfully
Sure the orca would hunt masterfully

It still would be a dead world to me
If it were a world without poetry

Sure the penguins would waddle in pairs
Sure the rabbits would have plush hares
Sure the swans would glide on glassy waters
Sure the seagulls would comb the beach

It would still be a dead world to me
If it were a world without poetry

Sure the blue whales would sing their songs
Sure the dolphins would play along
Sure the the butterfly would flutter by
Sure there’s the eagle soaring in the sky

It still would be a dead world to me
If it were a world without poetry

Surely in all this clutter, surely in all this stress
It is my wine, though I no longer drink
Surely in all this division, surely in all this hate
It is my whiskey, though I no longer drink

Every word is my pleasure, my pain, my temptress
Every word is my pride, a sculpture of a lioness
It still would be a dead world to me
If it were a world without poetry

I inhale the print of others, like oxygen
An opiate that drives me to my pen
Rare doldrums do not frighten me
It always happens when

The spark hits it’s mark
Ready set go.

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

The entire day in the orange grove
They talked about the former guy
Climbed the ladders between the branches
They picked
They could be heard saying
“Nos trae vagones de ganado”

The gnats hovered around Moses
The speaker of the house, louse
He ate the poisoned marmalade

Mary Trump said bluntly, “I know this fella
He’s not even the poor man’s mafia
Disaster is what will happen”

The sky was blistering hot
This job no gringo wants
In the endless farming rows
Ladders reaching upwards
Bushels line the pock marked road
The grove was full of bronze tone men
Not wanting him in that office again

“The bill is not passed” Johnson said
“We aught to have deported them long ago”
“Don’t” pleaded the spray tan man
I need them for campaign fear

Migrant eyes waded in justified fear
Moses said pettishly ” I can’t understand why
We cant pass this bill now”
“Don’t you worry Michael”
The boorish boar responded.
Now on hind cloven hoofs, he erected himself
In sweaty dripping katsup, he begged the judges
“How many delays, I need more time”
They recorded his total in their public records
And everyone returned to harvest

Back standing in the orchards
They plucked among the branches
In syncopated succession
Yet gently so as to not bruise
Breaking them off the branches
With the honest work he’s never done.
(end)

This is an ode to Sylvia Plath’s poem “Bitter Strawberries” . Hers is about the juxtaposition of stateside everyday life during the cold war, vs the threat of a nuclear war.

I updated ode to her poem, to the fear of the end of democracy and the threat to minorities the orange turd and GOP are. FYI Michael Johnson is the Speaker Of The House and he has been called Moses for some stupid reason.

https://allpoetry.com/Bitter-Strawberries

Is Not To Worry, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

The same emptiness, nothingness, you fear
The lifeless pet, needle at the vet
The end of a loved one dear

The melting clock hands warped and bent
The last tick of tock, to ashes you’re sent
The casket closed, to the ground you went

The thing you cannot fight
The call of the endless night
The obsequious resistant flight

The stillness therefor after
The stillness therefor before
The acceptance there is no difference

Is the difference between being paralyzed
Over that which once realized
Fruitless, frees you up to live

Live not for the unseen
Live not for false hope
Live in the now, don’t shorten your rope
(end)

Death happens to all of us. Life after you die will feel the same as it was before you were born. Don’t waste your life on old mythology. Enjoy the finite time you have now. Love now, feel now, care for others now. Don’t obsess over death. Don’t run to it either, don’t feel pessimistic or fatalistic. Just know it happens, and stop worrying about it. Live now, because now is all you have.

Everybody’s Shouting, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Everybody’s shouting, “I got it right!”
Everybody’s fighting, day and night.
Everybody’s dying, running out of time

Guilt assigned, all others maligned
Fewer fellow humans, willing to be kind
Weapons drawn makes doomsday spawn

Everybody’s shouting, “I got it right”
All the gods are fighting, day and night
Everybody’s dying, running out of time

Myopic and short sighted, focused one’s tribe
If your God cant threaten them, maybe use a bribe
Divisions getting wider, based on arrogant pride

Everybody’s shouting, “I got it right”
Everybody’s fearful, reason is out of sight
Everybody’s dying, running out of time

We are all the same species on the same ride
First class, coach, or sitting way in back
Our species won’t survive, if we focus on attack

Everybody’s capable, of seeing we’re all the same
Speaking different languages, wearing different cloths
Eating different food, hoping good is where it goes
(end)

Bench Marks, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet On FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

It was early afternoon, death rattle soon
I stood over her, she was facing doom
The abyss of nothingness

I could watch the motion
Leave her face, last her lips
Puckered as if wanting to kiss

But I knew it was just the neuron’s last twitch
I still desperately miss our companionship

Rewind to 7 years ago
Where she died in the nursing home
She’s not around she cannot know

I cannot share the bench mark here
This will be poem 200 at this site so dear
I wish I could send more prose to her ear

But her ashes have long since disappeared
In a Carolina beach she loved to be near
I love you mom, I want you back

For 400 poems, but that won’t stack
(end)

This is poem 200 post at All Poetry.com

My mom died on this day back in 2017. We had polar opposite personalities and politics. We fought like cats and dogs growing up. But when I moved in with her to help her in her old age, all that melted away and we became really close. We still fussed, but we grew to understand each other more. We became really close and I wish I still had her around.

It is bittersweet that I am at my 200th poem on this website on the same day she died. I love you mom. I miss you so much.

52 Pick Up, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

Your giant lottery jackpot is small
Even with the power ball
300 million combinations are small

Take out a deck of playing cards
Shuffle and shuffle the epics of bards
Shuffle and shuffle and shuffle some more

You’ll never see the same sequence as before
52 factorial, multiply by 51 then have some fun
Multiply by 50 then 49, keep on going you’re doing fine

All the way till you get to 1
That is 8 times 10 followed by 67 zeros
“Unvigintillion” math are the hero’s
(end)

This is mind blowing. You’d need the life span of several universes to get to the point where you would repeat the same sequence.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/236989545998900

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

Watergate, Watergate,
May have sealed our nation’s fate
The DOJ protected Nixon

And now it may be too late
If no man is above the law
You cannot deny what sane eyes saw

“It’s going to be wild”, said the child
The coward said he’d be there
But ran back to his bunker

Nixon had the decency
To accept that he was wrong
But he should have been indicted

To keep our nation strong
Employing the 14th Amendment
Would keep us from a deadly bomb

6 robes at the seat
May leave democracy in defeat
Despite evidence having meat

We’re seeing the rise of fascism
Hiding behind one religious cross
The cult leader a dangerous mafia boss

The DOJ after the hotel break in
After the congressional hearing
Said you shouldn’t indict a sitting president

But this was never precedent
Never codified by law
It was merely a recommendation

Maybe if Nixon had been put in a cell
Maybe America in 45’s petulant smell
He wouldn’t be the top of the swell

There is no option, not to vote
The end of our experiment
Is not that remote

VOTE VOTE VOTE!

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

My angel and my panther
Crouch in position
Ready to pounce

I do not announce
To them, where it will go
Across the vinyl wood floor

From the island to the wall
They dart about having a ball
Under the chair they crawl

The red dot is a lot of fun
Watching them chase it
Run run run

A flick of my wrist
Their bodies twist
Their eyes are fixed

Dash dash dash
Chase the red dot
They catch the spot

Only to find it gone
They look around
Until they have found

Of this toy they’re fond.
(end)

If you have figured it out, my sister/brother cats love to chase the red laser dot on the floor around my house.

One cat is named “Kelly” after the original Charlie’s Angels tv show. That is why I call her “angel” in the first stanza. Her brother “Anneplath” is a hybrid name of two of my favorite poets “Anne Sexton” and “Sylvia Plath”, thus “Anneplath”. But I call him my “panther” in the first stanza because he is jet black.

061-UOX, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

California yellow on blue
On your beige Mustang
That everyone knew

The only angel to make it through
All 5 seasons, you gave it to
In chains to taxis private eye’s clue

Charlie, Bosley, Jill and Kris
Sabrina, Tiffany, and Julie too
Kelly dear Kelly, you were the glue

When I was young I looked up to
The lady in the Mustang who
Gave the bad guys their justice due.
(end)

Although Jill Munroe was my crush, along with Julie Rogers in the last season, Kelly was always my favorite hero of the show. She had a compassion and empathy that was to me unique.

“O61-UOX” was the (BACK THEN) the license plate of the beige Mustang the character Kelly drove.

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

Walking down the main hall
Of my local 1985 mall
Looking for something to do
To have a little ball

I noticed a familiar Radio Shack
To look for a computer to hack
Over my shoulder I did look back
To insure the employees didn’t see my attack

I noticed this display model computer
Windows in it’s infancy days
Easy to use the DOS commands
In such immature mischievous ways

I clicked on the icon to get to the screen
Monochromatic c prompt now seen
“Format C:” I did so quickly typing
Snuck out the store silently escaping

10 minutes later I passed by again
Looked in the Shack to see goings on
Manager and employee with angry face
For of that hard drive I did so erase

To reinstall all that software
Back then, at a snail’s pace
I bet they’d have wanted to
Punch me in my face.
(end)

Not that I am proud of it. But I really did once sneak into a Radio Shack, back before Windows was easy to manipulate with DOS commands. I went to the “C:” which is basically the hard drive’s name. And when you type in
“Format C:” It erases everything on the hard drive, and reformats the hard drive. You can think of it like when a teacher writes a bunch of stuff on the whiteboard or chalkboard and you take an eraser and wipe everything off it.

But back then it took forever to reinstall software so it took them I am sure a couple of hours if not more to get it back to where it was before I did that. I wouldn’t do anything like that again.