Tag Archives: hard choices

National Poetry Month: The Family That…

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Innocence
Trapped by danger’s sweet fragrance
Lust of thus oozed from my pores
Became yours at soul’s expense

At first kind
Cleaving to the ties that bind
Couldn’t see the seeds planted
Enchanted, my eyes were blind

Slowly thus
Your love a snake venomous
The intent as sheer as glass
Only I passed your litmus

Blood’s imbrue
Its desires call me too
In moderation, I know
It is so, I’ve become you

Puppeteer
In your hand for uses queer
Evil once ne’er dreamed to do
Now like you I find I sneer

Purity
That is what you once called me
Only on death we gain it back
With life’s lack, it comes to be

Come my blade
With you I’m all I’ve been made
Gleaming crimson from our gut
Final cuts, our dues are paid

So we lay
It has come to this last day
Laugh at your look of surprise
Evil dies, we pass away

Caught Between

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Woman crouching back against wal

I was with friends clubbing, at the bar sipping wine
Wearing the hell out of my Prada, I knew I was looking fine
You walked in, looking as good as you know what
Your hair so sharp, your barber must have been cut
My anchor slipped as we talked jobs as steps to empires
Like the smoky haze, our interest rose along with our desire

Yes, sometimes a woman can let sex lead her by the nose
Caught between the best of nothing and anything goes

We were together for weeks, just living the life
And then by accident, I found out about your wife
I can’t even lie and say I kept my cool that day
Once again the anchor, slipped and I began to sway
I careened into a wall so hard, the pictures on it shook
But even as I was regained breath, I knew I was hooked

And I had no one but myself to blame for all my sudden woes
Caught between the best of nothing and anything goes

With your secret fully out, your love slowed to a dribble
You promised me a feast of your love, I barely got a nibble
Each time I said no, your so sweet whispers break through
And wanting so much to be in love, I know that I let you
One day I saw you both together and I just wanted to cry
Not for you, but for me and the time I wasted in the lie

How did it come this? What was this is crazy life I chose?
Caught between the best of nothing and anything goes

As I stood at the latest hotel door, cardkey in midair
Knowing that I have no business to be standing there
I finally find the nerve to back away, but then
The door’s open and you’re standing there, calling me in
My heart is screaming “No, baby! No baby! No!”
But my body’s screaming “Go, baby! Go baby! Go!”

Before I know it, there we were again and again curling toes
Caught between the best of nothing and anything goes

It was a summer night we met and love began to soar
It was near summer again when I finally said no more
It took so long not to be sad, for the lack of a phone’s ring
I made a promise to myself, my love is for all or nothing
Another summer blazes, and once again I’m on my own
But if my only choice is to share, well, I’d rather be alone

When will my empty heart fill again? Only heaven knows
Caught between the best of nothing and anything goes

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dVerse Poets Pub | OpenLinkNight – Week 36

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

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Seven Year-Old Girl Pimped-out at Party by Step-Sister
and Gang Raped

To say I was speechless upon first reading this article is an understatement. I have oscillated between pure rage, pure sorrow and depressed resignation since I first read it, over a week ago. My head realizes what has happened, but my heart simply cannot process this.

Yes, the step-sister bares a magnificent portion of the blame here. She was fifteen-years-old.  Not a legal adult by law to make the decision to prostitute herself on her own, but obviously old enough to know what she was doing. The social and moral wrongs of her own acts are not debatable; she was wrong. What she did/allowed to be done to her little step-sister is so beyond wrong there really is not an adjective to aptly put this in any perspective.  However, as much as I put the share of blame on her for what happened, she was not the only person at that party.  No matter which way I turn this I keep coming back to one question infallible question to the men involved in this:

How Could You?

The statutory rape of the fifteen-year-old girl was disgusting enough. Granted she was officially prostituting herself, but you – however much/little you paid for her services, you were raping her.  However old you are above or below the age of consent, how could you have even thought about wanting to, let alone actually do the brutal act of, inserting your penis into the vagina of a seven-year-old child?  Where in the depravity called your mind (because you obviously have no soul) did you take a look at this child and thought to yourself that this was something good? You deserve to spend the rest of your life as a eunuch.

According to the reports, there were at least a dozen people at this party.  My God, what form of hell had this seven-year-old doled-out in a past life that she should be so punished in this one? To be led, by her own step-sister, to an abandoned apartment full of misogynistic, depraved individuals, to be gang raped?  What kind of culture is it where not even one person in that room thought it was wrong and left to call the police?  Not one person ONE FUCKING PERSON in that room simply said “No.”.  Whether they took part in it, or turned a blind eye to the event, they are all perpetrators in this crime and all culpable.

The ONLY good news in this will be the penal system. Even a prison system has its bottom of the social barrel, and that is those who mess with children.  We won’t hear about it, and if even one iota of prison stories are true, we won’t want to hear about it. We never know how it gets out, but information about child molesters/rapists always gets out in the penal system and when it does…

…Let’s just say justice, for this seven-year-old child, will be served.

One Hand

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Old Man in Window
The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh.
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas,
and I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose,
yes one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.
~ Leonard Cohen (The Stories of the Street)

I spy out my window, pan the changed neighborhood
And decided all this change is not for the better
Variety has its place, yes, that’s understood
But it suits neither me nor my aging setter
And I’d change it all back, if only I could
Tales of old I tell to ones who know not hoe from staff
With cheeky little chuckles some listen to my lore
others, not so politely pretend not to snore
All too quick to set upon any misspoken gaff
The stories of the street are mine, the Spanish voices laugh

In my country youth we rode the roads on horse
Potential fertilizer the only cause for alarm
Yes there were the rich who had cars of course
But that was a life far from my sharecropper farm
Get through the toils of the day our driving force
But a bend of brutal winter came to pass
And my quiet country road became a bustling city street
With days filled of noise glaze the tons of people to meet
Fragrant airy fields gone as different scents amass
The Cadillacs go creeping now through the night and the poison gas

Not to say this city life did not have its good days
you’d note me as a liar if I told you so
It has been no bed of roses as the old folks say
But there are sweet things I’ve come to know
Oats have I sown in many ways
Yes, I’ve known my measure of passion’s throes
I’ve rented flats and owned several places
But with time and finances I’ve lost those spaces
My remaining sunset days spent in SROs
And I lean from my window sill in this old hotel I chose

Some concern fills my advancing years
As I outlive those who knew me well
The ones who get my sudden laughter and tears
Without a long explanation to tell
Only my Josie’s left to indent my fears
But even the end of her dog’s life draws nigh and so it goes
As I enjoy the lovely flower paid to entertain my night
I eye the bottle on dresser barely seen in the dim light
And I oscillate between my joys and my woes
Yes, one hand on my suicide, one hand on the rose.

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Thursday Poets Rally – Week 45

National Poetry Month: All For Not Knowing

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April is National Poetry Month, so each day I will post poems that I have written. Enjoy!

All For Not Knowing

We met at the worst I thought I could be
After my life was crossed by a rouge star
Life between the worst and the best to come
I hike my joy on our mock verbal spars
Such was the mode of our sharp biting wit
Mine under the belt, and yours just bizarre
Crossed that line between acquaintance and friend
All for not knowing how far was too far
Ache held tight to my emotional cage
Still half living inside a past memoir
Knew my pain gave nix but a rough sketch of me
In time drained the hurt of that soul deep scar
“There’s no place like home” said with arms held wide
And I opened mine too, we were on par
Crossed that line past friend but not to lovers
All for not knowing how far was too far
Seemed that Fate was not quite through with me yet
And released the hold to stability’s bar
A new fix of hell crashed through my soul’s gate
My path, once clear, now so muddied and marred
Too much too handle you turned tail and ran
Showing exactly the colors you are
Crossed that line between true friend and just friend
All for not knowing how far was too far
Letting slack what you once begged to hold tight
As I needed you more than gold to czars
The sun sets shadows on what you can’t give
You withdrew from me as though I’m eschar
Where to go when home is now closed to me
With no chance of door being left ajar
Thus crossed that fine line between bend and break
All for not knowing how far was too far

And now what…?

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I was putting out my garbage for the morning pickup when I heard all this ruckus going on behind me where my neighbor’s car is parked in a sort of open area between buildings used as  a driveway. It was seven teenaged-boys at least sixteen years of age fighting. Rather, I should say, four were throwing some serious punches; one was counting numbers and laughing at the fighting with another boy.  I was a little familiar with the basic concept of this. The ones doing the beating only had to the count of one hundred to do whatever they wanted to do to the one getting beat and then they had to stop. Depending on how much the one getting beat was disliked it could a semi-fast count or a really slow one.  If anything interrupted the fight, even if the count was already at ninety-nine, the count had to restart from the beginning. If the ones doing the beating had mercy they could choose to reduce the recount to fifty or twenty-five. My first thought was boys (even ones more than big enough to know better) will be boys.

It’s near 6pm in the evening; I didn’t see any one coming or going on my short block, I did not have my cell on me and above all I was out-numbered by males a lot younger than I. In all honesty , I wouldn’t have gotten involved at all except, this was happening on the property of my apartment building and they were too close to my neighbor’s car. There was a school yard a block away, if they wanted to fight over whatever stupidness it was about, take it over there. Then I saw the seventh one who was getting beat.

He was not a teenager; this boy could not have been older than twelve at the most.  The smallest of the teenagers doing the beating had a good six inches and at least twenty pounds on him and there were four of them.  At this point I forgot about my neighbor’s car. I was worried about the child balled up in a near-fetal position against the fence.

“What the hell are you doing? Get away from him!” I yelled. Luckily for the child the count had just reached a hundred and the teenager counting had called for the break before I yelled. My trying to help could have made it worse for him as I only remembered about the recount rule after I was back in my apartment.

“Yo, mind yo business!” The counter sucked his teeth.

“Boy, don’t even try to act all man up now. You and your friends are beating up on one child nearly half your age. You get no cred for that.” I stared him down, “Besides, you’re on my building property; it is my business.”

If he or his friends were going to say or do anything else; it was cut short by a teen-aged girl who appeared and called him stupid and pretty much said what I was saying.  However she said it, it was enough to get him to relent.  Just then, one of my other neighbors came running out brandishing a baseball bat, and stopped short when he saw me.  From the side window of his apartment he saw the four boys beating up on the one and came down for that, but I was in front of the building out of his line of vision,  he never saw me out there. Not that it would have stopped him.  We all gave each other evil stares as the five of the teenage boys and the girl passed, but no one said anything.  The fifth teenager was trying to help the kid, but drew back when the kid yelled to get the fuck off.  He and the sixth teenager stepped to the side as the boy came out. He was limping, and his face was going to be a series of bruises by the morning, but seemed otherwise alright. I started towards him, but he looked at me with such malice, I stepped back just as I felt my neighbor’s hand on my shoulder about to pull me back. We both watched as this boy limped away in the company of the last two teenager.  I’m not one hundred percent sure but, I believe as they passed, I heard one of the teenagers say to the other that the kid had guts and took it well.  Took it well? What the fuck? The beat down was on purpose?

I can’t swear on it, but I believe what I witnessed was something known as being “jumped in”.   This child purposely let himself get wailed on as a gang initiation rite. If this is true, I am even more scared of that child’s future than I was of what I saw.