Tis a pity you
can’t tithe a pittance
toward inner truth
so by avoiding your void
deepen it
disporting gotten gelt
as an unmelting heart
devoid
beggared for calming warmth
and the alms
of encircling arms
misapprehending
net worth for
an enmeshing web
of things
a midlife midas of much
bereft and untouched
elegant liquid
entraining containing
the most intimate form
of self expression
conforming the evolving
body of water
small seas of
self-possession
posiedon’s daughters
and sons comingled
enwombed
anew begun
engulfing and embracing
the conception
of conceiving
a crown around
a failing world
the circlet girding
ever tighter
disarming every
inner fighter
the enemy
from within
the king of
following sheep
reaping ego's
sorrow sown
to keep the power
of dumb sleep
and in the pitiless
grip of pyretic fear
pyrrhic loss
for pathetic
personal gain
pathogenic seeds
that by division gain
ascendance over
any sane morality
that remains in
the once and future
fraught kingdom of
thoughtless humanity
corona
ebola
marburg
flu
hanta
bubonic
hemorrhagic
pneumonic
too
a plague
a pox
on all your houses
ahchoo
the epithelial
chalkboard
where whites
write prejudicial rights
In their dotage
asteroids become
meteoroids
and flaring
under the gaze
of advancing age
we attempt to predict
their erratic final path
through the expanse
of the sky's night
trove of
treasured words
woven and
measured unheard
kept in mind
for those
born unburdened's hearing
their second sight crooning
the birthright horn
taking note of
an awakening
Summer's Eve
on your birth day
the apple of your Eden's eye
a welcome to earth day
We hope you take long to leave
and enjoy it all
along the way
bundles of joy
both an obervatory
and a laboratory
for mixing
the sweetness and spice
of life
Summer’s Eve
your birth day
is the apple of our
eden’s eye
A welcome to earth day
Sunday’s child
born bonny blithe
merry and gay
We hope you
take long to leave
enjoying it all
along the way
Bequeathing
baby bouquets
bundles of joy
posies of poise
Becoming both
an observatory
and a laboratory
for harmonizing
the sweet
the savory and
the spice of life
Love,
Proud Grandpa Pat
Oiling through the weeds
flick fin fin flick
scaled mail missile
kraken maw
scything jaw
minnows scourge
frog bite
gosling bane
insatiable
voracious carnivorous
anything appetite
Adrift on
the sensory
deprived raft
of deep sleep
unbound spread eagled
in the dark levitation
and distracted recall
of realities Past
preferring
hibernating
illusions
to the daily disenchanting
rude awakening
Winter cold
skeletal
snow marrowed
mind numbing
white penumbra
whimless encasing
desiccating
shivering dimness
Tiptoeing on the
emotional eggshell
of the full hormone moon
passions spate
and in flood spent
stretched thin as
high strung violins
keening small
mental voiced violences
between the sharp
equipoised silences
anticipating the mutual climaxes
Willowy woman
weaving and bending
grasses into yarns
warm to the weft
and joyful warp
of your harmonies
deftly fingered harp
Leaves hula
insects sway
the scents of
botanicals
waft into play
in hues of the
coming shining day
We, the rumor mongers of Athens protest. The willingness of the people to suspend disbelief has exceeded our ability to produce gossip. The public is eager to believe anything. Green socks increase fertility. Red Sox will win the pennant. So, we propose peddling the truth; always more plausible than fiction. We think that if you look into another's eyes, and exploit the paranoiac eagerness to believe, it is unfair to take advantage of such gullibility. It threatens our republic. So to protect juvenile society, we will desist from bombast. It is too easy. We will not be the shills for our own dissolution.
Name: Patrick Bonadeo
Title: Native Sons
Category Name: Poetry
Native Sons
Three fisher's sons
sailed to the east
where the sun
would never rise
Instead they found
the thunder's sound
and lightning in their eyes
Then the waves rose up
and wound them
in a trap net not their own
and the lake leapt up
to grave them
and so save them
from growing old
Kin and Ken
enwrapped then
cold in
Lake Michigan’s folds
No, not just boys
but brothers
seined warm from
the same father's vein
Yes, today they might
still be living
to the lee
of Paradise returning
had the Judas sea
not betrayed them then
to become a fisher of men
The air is blue
and so is
the sky
something catching slips in your eye
a plaguing question
to do or die
the dreaded reply
answered everywhere
as everyone's heard
and spread the word
join the herd
Lost
in the individual fog
mistaken for democracy
where the dismissed truth
is missed
and demagoguery
revered as pedagogy
no glowing ville on the hill
only monotony
of the plain
playing field
of moneyed monopoly
where your lost will
is the last testament
to the freedom you squandered
while squabbling over
undisputed truths
>
Every woman man and
infant is
found wanting
foundlings haunting
the formless dream
of happiness whose
spectre of perfection
is a pursuit fraught
with grasping and
failing to grasp
from first wail
to last gasp
that the womb warmth
is lost and evermore at
arms length
from our unsuckled
babe in the manger
strength