Silent Rape – A Poem By Ron Olsen

by

Silent Rape
by Ron Olsen

Cameras on the corner
Drones with eyes above
The NSA listens in
To sounds of hate and love
Copying your email
Your every movement followed
Credit cards leave a trail
Of dinners out you’ve swallowed

A module plugged into your car
Locates you in a flash
Telling the company where you are
And whether you’re likely to crash
Where you are
And are likely to be
Now
Tomorrow
And forever
Stripped of all privacy
At the pull of a government lever

Your life in public files somewhere
You’re nailed to the wall
Who you are and want to be
Medium, big or small
They have your profile
From the Net
Your tendencies
Propensities, too
Eccentricities
Health records
Potential for disease
Everything’s targeting you

Your willingness to do as your doctor says
Your voting and trips to the loo
Who you like
And don’t
And why
Who you’re listening to
Your philosophy
And spiritual needs
Each and every detail
They’ve got it all
They’ve got it pat
They’re riding you on a rail

All you’ve done
Or failed to do
That book you bought on line
An association with Karl Marx
Means you’re no longer prime
All you wanted was a read
But it’s turned you into a threat
For the billionaires who buy the polls
And track you on the Net

An average selection
Of a new generation
Accepting it as their norm
Naïve to the truth
That the freedom they have
Might be lost in the oncoming storm

 
©2015 Ron Olsen/All rights reserved

Ron Olsen is a Peabody and Emmy award winning journalist, essayist and poet.  He lives in Los Angeles.

Share

No More Bocars to Ride

by

Boxcar Willie and Woody and Freight Trains

Oh there ain’t no more boxcars
for Willie and Woody to ride
No hobos in containers
as the freight train rolls by
They could ship themselves from China
but they wouldn’t get much air,
take the last train to Clarksville
but they couldn’t get out of there
Oh they don’t have to hire no railroad dick
and you can’t catch the train cause it goes by too quick.
Oh what’s a hobo to do
what’s a hobo to do
stand on the street and sing the blues
thumb don’t work and the cop says move
This modern world don’t feel no pain
and only graffiti rides that train

 

 

 

Poem and video by David Michael Jackson

Share

ODE TO DAVID by Daisy Sidewinder

by

Wait for me
under a tree in Wales.
I’ll find you
when we’re both free
to dance in the fields
where Mad Welsh poets
once wandered, thinking.
Where minstrels sang
of courage and love.

Wait for me.
We won’t be young and carefree.
No, we’ll be
sanded by time
Lines for laughter past and future
Nicotine stains, chipped teeth
voices raspy
The way we were
When we loved most and best
When we wished we’d met sooner
Or had more time.
When we knew that all the others
were just friends or lovers.

Wait for me
Under a tree.
Dance me into eternity
With you.

Share

Jesus is Coming

by

Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to step out
on that mount of trash
and speak.
He’s going to walk from plastic to plastic across the water.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to grab factory chickens
and feed the multitudes.
Jesus is coming.
He’s going to say, “Come, I will make you trash collectors of men.”
He’s going to walk into our temples and turn over tables.
He’s going to tell the Christians to clean this mess up.
He’s going to say, “That’s not what I said, that’s what they remember.
You miss the point,
Never mind.
The guy in the cave, btw
was nuts
crazy
bazonkers.
Prophets were never Gods
Clean this mess up.
What have you done to my earth?”

Namaste

Share

Dreaming Back the World Poem

by
Magic Fish- Dreaming Back the World

Dreaming Back the World

 

The talking heads who

Would destroy the magic

Lived inside my mind

Too long

They sneered at paper tigers

Other charms I had

To ward off evil demons

While I slept.

 

And all the dragons

Turned back into windmills.  There

Was no writing

On my paper sword.

 

The dragons took their fire

When they went away.

It’s hard to love or hate

The cold bleak structures

Littering the landscape

In their place.

We paint the colors

In ourselves.

 

And King Tut’s throne

I saw

Was really just the carcass

Of a long forgotten tree

With paint

And shelf life that would

Make a Twinkie proud.

 

And I myself became

A case, a vote, consumer

Human resource

Number on a census page,

And paid my taxes

Right on time

Stuck in limbo

Squashed between

Some other lonesome robots.

 

But now, I want to see

The iridescent spirits

Play among the leaves

And weeds of summer.

I want to see the

Snail trails sparkle

On the morning grass

And think they’re beautiful.

 

I want to feel again

some scorching heats and

Passions, exiles

Banished long ago

By common sense and logic.

I want those trolls

To get back under bridges.

 

I want to be

A person once again

And climb the beanstalks

Rage at giants

And believe that

Dog spit makes it better.

 

I must pack up

Those dreary demons

Logic, and his

Henchman Fact

Stick them back into

Their books and close

Their closets, two locks,

Maybe three

And only I

Possess the key.

 

And now, from down

Another road

I see the Tiger

Beckons me, and

Elves smile welcome

As I peek around that

Ancient corner in my mind.

 

I know I can reenter

Once again

The magic wondrous place

That knows no chemistry

Where I can think

and dream the world.

 

Apr 9, 2012

Share

All Of That And More – Poem by Ron Olsen

by

All Of That And More Poem

All Of That And More
by Ron Olsen

Popped the top
Poured it slow
Against the side of the glass
Forming a perfect head of foam
Hitting my tongue
Tasting the past
Taking me back
To a slower time
In so many small towns
We knew them all
They were our youth

My big Pontiac
Nearly off the snow covered road
So many times
Driving blind
On instinct alone
And the grace of God
Seeing us through
To maybe get lucky
On a Saturday night
In the frozen north

Through the haze
We’re there again
An ancient bar
Salted peanuts and purple pickled eggs
In Lake Henry
St. Martin
New Munich
A few others
Names forgotten in the fog
All the same
A big Catholic church
A John Deere dealer
A beer hall
And a house or two

Pull another tap
The boys at the bar
Draining it dry
Telling lies
Laughing hard
Before the band stopped playing
And the sun came up
And the girls went home
And Izzy locked the door

I drain my glass dry
And the past dies again
A time we could understand
A time we could feel
Enough time, for you and me
To drink our fill
And maybe die behind the wheel
Or, if we were lucky
To cheat death one more time

Thinking we were so much more
Than we really were
Only we really were
All of that and more

 

©2015 Ron Olsen – all rights reserved

Share

First Words by Red Slider

by

 

 

I HATE POETRY MONTH – DAY 2

Why should anyone love a month that celebrates something that beckons you to follow it for the rest of your life and probably leads nowhere or, at best, you’d have done better going somewhere else?

First Words

Can we afford to forget
first born words
that clawed their way
from a virgin larynx,
gasping for breath,
demanding
reply to a question
we could not hear,
crueler than Sphinx,
it had no answer,
would not release us
(once born)
from the grasp

of death
came nearer
nearer until
no response

remained
but to scream
into the ear
of the world.

Should we remember
just how violent
the gain of language,
forced upon us
from the first,
appears
in deceit
in pain
in honeyed
training words
practiced again
again

until rapprochement
had been achieved
by stealth, by aggression

we learned to deceive
in turn

and turn

to pretend surprise
that words of love
are so easily betrayed?

That first sightings of accord
so easily collapse into
the savagery of war?

That soothing speech
makes so remarkable
the poignancy of pain?

again and again.

That we will die
in the choke
of our own sounds;
that much is assured
and then, perhaps,
be silent?
Doubtful,
not this vocalized
open-beaked species.

Given the chance,
it will scream from
the throat of hell itself,
given the chance
again
again

beating its wings
against the glass
of silence.

-rs

Share

Expat Weed by Dandelion De La Rue

by

expat flower poem
Expat Weed

Sidewalk cracks and
rocky mountain slopes
rooftops roadsides
rotten stumps and rubbish piles
the little expat flower
grows, and thrives.

It didn’t want
to be a garden flower
so carefully arranged
by garden governments
where it would have
a standard job:
be pretty, be useful,
don’t talk to
funguses
or dandelions
drinking chlorinated water
eating  measured
sheep manure.

And so, when still a seed
it ran away
to join the weed world circus.
It hitchhiked
on a random wind, a river
a sticky gecko foot,
to talk to other weeds
unlike itself
drinking river water
and eating handy street food.

Wordsworth’s daffodils
were all the same
fluttering, dancing, collectively
choreographed
powerful in their
vastness, their sameness.
But I don’t know
those daffodils
who run in herds
they are, to me,
after awhile,
a boring yellow blob,
pretty, but all the same,
like Hollywood starlets.

I like this little expat flower

that knows the wind,
and the river
a weed, in the
cultivated world,
but a beauty
in the chaos of reality.

expat poem

Share
Share