Paying It Forward
I channel wisdom of the great ancient hymns
Riffing on stone tablets
Wild as the meadows roam, they dance on stars
The real blunder is ignoring your chances
Beacon of hope dwindles in favor of dark
A caged beast is uncorked
Soldiers of fortune march toward shallow grave sites
Their elders wiping tears from aging eyelids
Children, leaders and siblings alike know death
A coin becomes tossed
Erase the markings on the wall dear children
No lesson was planned for today’s proceedings
We will sit in silence to honor the deceased
A deed honored
The orator speaks in tongues engaging all
As a hearse carries the last man standing tall
He, who had taken the fall for his countrymen
Allows but a sigh
Graffiti tags read RIP
Scrawled on canvases of tilled soiled remains
Gunfire ceases as bullets fall down hard
Coins over the eyes
Sacrificial Poet
Steady as he tried to leap to his feet
But he was held down by cinderblocks
His mind represented a glass half empty,
As his conscience crept behind his shadow
Millions turned a blind eye to a tortured soul
His spirit drained from waves of a plague he created
Like a dilapidated building,
In it contained the last scripture of a misbegotten nation,
Gradually Mephistopheles spoke,
Extracting the man’s larynx and crystallizing it into ash,
As his body knelt at the alter
A slain soldier killed from too many pieces of shrapnel
Embedded in thinning heartstrings
That never knew how to love
For time became his crutch, his back bent backwards
As inertia imploded his falling atoms
And comets lost their reasoning for hurtling
toward final Armageddon
Horns stopped playing
Drums ceased their medley of melody
The room fell silent
© Susan Weiman: Rockport,MA
On The Front Lines
Veteran nurses, doctors on the front lines
New days beckon, and with them, uphill battles
Scattered about are fragmentation grenades, landmines,
Hospital staff planning for the worst, stockpiling limited resources, cops with quotas down, a reduction in issued fines,
We must be alert like poised snakes shaking their rattles,
Veteran nurses, doctors on the front lines
The sun peaks out from the moon, how it divinely shines,
Humanity on indefinite pause, bodies cryogenically frozen, unable to travel, a decision as finite as judges’ swung gavels,
Scattered about are fragmentation grenades, landmines ,
We are adapting to treacherous terrain, the volatility of the new millennium, the tragedy of Columbine,
The pangs of pain, immeasurable
Veteran nurses, doctors on the front lines
In times of strife, as people, finding ourselves the ability to redefine,
Power structures in a state of dismantle,
Scattered about are fragmentation grenades, landmines,
Please, don’t take, out of desperation the Methamphetamine,
as you spew, in a delirious state, unintentional psychobabble,
Veteran nurses, doctors on the front lines
Scattered about are fragmentation grenades, landmines,