Madeline With Yellow Hat

The ordering of
the souls;
Madeline
smiled at
a white-gloved
femme
entering a car.
What rolled
was applause
from a mass
of the smiling
mass-less.

Old Man, Have a Cane

Old man, have
a cane to
support yer legs.

Youngun',
don't e'en get
up out that chair,
not ever.

Trade yer legs
fer videa games.

Paralysis

As if dead weight
won't take up its calls.

Neglected body
an object as once it saw

patting about carelessly.

Frivolity now serious,
the owner no longer owns,

recedes into declining space,
and all space itself fades.

Construction Worker's Complaint

For our future, WWIII.
Would push to fruition
Wars more deadly seen,

Yet they decimate slightly;
Our worker's union

As leveled postwar was flaming boon
Reminders of the past
Of economy once intact.

Our monuments stand Electric, erect, called to rise
Mellenia--Up, up with every modern sight that looms,
Only too well! Out of work,
As new ones won'as ages colossus,
t be needed.
So our beards grow egregious,
Whilpark-trail-cut.
e we retire or sell
Trinkets.
...........Earthquakes give work;
So much when the last one hit,
We set aside electrical codes
And specs that owners our job's done well
tell
As jobs can't be over-forked
Just
We'll be sent to patch that scar,
Stack upon the urban gore,

Distractions

Many have a calling
when out calls a louder shout:
cops drawing pistols for a sting,
waving shiny things they say'll sell out

up in your face, "Take it,
would you sir?"
"Well, I can't not take it,
we're pals, we'll play the shopper"

and the sky stops swirling,
gives one glance at blue,
then dash to the rail hurling
as sea angers, bobbing buoys,

and you won't say
"things aren't even worth it,"
but, "where's another, it'll stay,
give it or there'll be a fit"

all while jets fly
through black flack,
inside hints a "why?"
that would see things taken back

but not even that,
stuff still won't notice the mountain,
will cover firing squad's rat-a-tat-tat,
unsticken a crack full of sand,

and shut off weak voices
that might renue the sphynx,
build up for-the-sakes-of purpose,
close these storms as light drinks.

What Poetry Means to Me

[Johnny McColvich, a fifth-grader, was given a class assignment about what poetry means to him. His insight is posted here in its entirety]

POETRY AND I

Poetry is
breaking up
story telling
without regard to rules
in normal story telling.

Such a novelty.
Such is poetry.

Forgotten after
the final
faltering
breath,

Then back to real things in life we finally return.

The End.